In the UK (don't know about other countries), girls get a vaccine for against HPV (as it can cause cervical cancer (as well as other things like genital warts - but obviously the cancer is more severe, hence the vaccine)) on the NHS... HPV can also cause anal cancer... And I think it's like chlamydia in the sense that you can have it with no symptoms... Do you think you can ask for the HPV vaccine, as I'd rather not get cancer?
You can ask however there's no studies on whether it actually works in males. The original studies looked at women and the conclusion was that if women were immunized, there wouldn't be a need to immunize men. The logic was that women gave it to men, so if you protected women from infection, they couldn't pass it to men. They didn't consider men who have sex with men in their studies. HPV type 16 is the one that most associated with anogenital cancers in men. The vaccine does immunize for type 16, so you can ask your physician whether he would recommend it.
Ah, thanks. I would assume that it does work in males too as I'm pretty sure it gives you the protection against the virus rather than doing some weird thing to the cervix
