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tubagooba A U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel is recommending that Gardasil, the vaccine given to girls and young women to prevent infection by human papillomavirus (HPV), be made available to boys and young men 9 to 26 years old as protection against genital warts caused by HPV.
The vaccine protects against four strains of human HPV, which males can carry and transmit sexually to partners. In males, HPV can cause genital warts (about 200 out of every 100,000 males are diagnosed each year) and penile and anal cancer (which are much rarer).
Gardasil was approved for use in females ages 9 to 26 as protection against cervical cancer in 2006 and, more recently, against cancers of the vagina and vulva. The vaccine would be administered to males in the same way it's given to females: three doses over a 6-month period.
In studies, Gardasil was 89% effective in preventing genital warts, although it was less effective in those who had already been exposed to HPV. The most commonly reported adverse events were fever and headache.
The FDA now must decide whether to approve the vaccine for this new use, which it is likely to do — while not required to follow advisory panel recommendations, it often does.
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