Early 30s here and have my second booster round for it next week. Thank God my insurance covers a good chunk of the cost. It's not cheap! Wish they gave this vaccine to boys when I was in school.
this post was submitted on 28 May 2026
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Me too. More benefits than risks so why not.
Literally a cure for cancer. I hear penis cancer is not fun.
In fact it was a big news story recently when a study shows that vaccines in general reduce the risk of getting dementia. So there's even more benefit than you thought!
This reads to me as a causation v correlation, rooted in how more financially prosperous individuals live longer and healthier lives than those with lesser fortunes, not so much the vaccine itself as a source.
Infections cause storms of cytokines and an immunes response that can rapidly increase reactive oxygen load in the brain. In younger people, this is dealt with by mitochondria, but one of the hallmarks of human ageing is reduced mitochondrial efficiency.
So the avoidance of any infection over 65 is beneficial.
No, this is not a wealth effect, the data comes from NHS free vaccine policy that included people or excluded people born a week apart.
I don't follow. What are you saying is correlated to vaccine usage? Wealth?
Someone who is mindful of their health might eat better, exercise more, spend more time outdoors, avoid health hazards, and get vaccines more often. Their lifestyle may cause vaccine usage and decreases risk of dementia. Vaccine usage may have no impact on decreasing dementia. I didn't read much into the studies or if they were studying vaccine usage independently. I'm just making a comment on correlation vs causation.
My assertion is that general health and wealth are correlated. Basically, if you are poor or even financially unprosperous in a higher-income country, your general healthcare is substantially worse than those around you who have found financial prosperity. More cuts are made to doctors visits, healthcare expenses, immunizations and symptoms treatment, etc. These small investments that prevent big costs to health and finances later are often skipped, since unprosperous individuals feel more pressure on making ends meet.
This is prominent enough that statistics started to represent it, and if you're interested, I did find a recent video essay on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwklXWLy2UA
It can represent itself in other ways too.
Having more money can mean better access to medications which in itself can cause less instances of infection which themselves may be the culprit.
So yes, wealth and socioeconomic status has impacts but there are still underlying correlations that exist that are just teased out because of the different group existing
Most of that is Shingrex, and the effect is mostly only in women.
Yeah I think it's kind of a no-brainer, look after yourself and your loved ones
Good jab! Don’t want throat cancer.
I asked about it last year and my doctor said it probably wasn't worth it. Mid 30s here.
How old is your doctor, that might affect their attitude. You could already be infected, or then again maybe you're not. If not, it might prevent you getting some nasty cancers and also prevent you giving it (and nasty cancers) to your partner(s). If I were your age I'd get it. Having been monogamous for 40 years I don't think I would benefit.
Get a new doctor.
The vaccine is ineffective if you're already infected which is why they generally don't bother giving it to people over college age. So in other words by saying you're too old to get it for free but got it anyway you're exposing certain facts about yourself.
Do not ask me how I know this.
It's very unlikely that you've caught all available strains, it's still beneficial for folks who have been around the block
For children between the ages of 9–14 years, vaccination effectiveness is reported to range between 74% and 93%, decreasing to 12% to 90% for 15–18 year old adolescents.
According to Wikipedia. Effectiveness definitely goes down fast. Also crazy range. 12%-90% sounds like "could be anything". But yeah. Mostly a reminder to pay attention and have your kids get the vaccination on time. Doesn't say a lot about adults. I mean it's safe. And if insurance covers it, why not?
Edit: The linked metastudy has many more numbers. Seems the vaccine is super effective for young people. But most times there isn't any statistically significant effect left past 18 or 20yo. Sometimes they even check for sexual activity... It didn't matter either. Some other few studies still show some effects. But that's probably why there isn't any recommendation to take it. Vaccines only get a recommendation if they have some statistically significant effectiveness. And the numbers for adult groups are just all over the place, whether they take the vaccine or not.
Women who got this vaccine are now approaching their 30s with almost no cervical cancer.
If the studies don't control for people already infected (which the article doesn't outright answer and I cba to read the studies right now), then the extremely wide range would make sense. I don't know if there's a test that can easily screen for dormant HPV infections, so it could be that they practically can't even control for this.
Controlling for sexual activity also has the problem that the sample size is small and, if they can't accurately screen for the virus, will rely on self-reporting... which on a topic like this will likely be quite inaccurate.
Well they say 60% of people have sexual activity at the age of 18. But that's basically also their take on it. We need more studies on those factors.
I don't think controlling for infection makes sense. You'd just get the result, it's 95% effective if you're not infected. And maybe some if you are. Disregarding age and all other factors. That's how medication gets approved. But that's not what we're interested in so they specifically excluded those studies. What we want to know is, given you're a random person from the streets, you don't know if you have HPV or catch it tomorrow... What's your best option? That's why they're probing for other factors. If you already did a good test (which seems to be problematic) and know you're not infected, just get the shot, it's already proven to work, we don't need studies on that.
I don't think controlling for infection makes sense. You'd just get the result, it's 95% effective if you're not infected. And maybe some if you are.
But is it? It's possible it gets less effective with age even if you aren't infected. Adult immune systems are different from those of children and teenagers, after all.
On the other hand, if you've never had (unprotected) sex, or at least have only had a very small number of partners, you can be reasonably certain that you are not yet infected. For people like this it would be useful to know if the vaccine is still effective even if they're older.
Hmmh yeah, from reading the article I'd say you can't be too sure. I didn't find any solid numbers to back up the claim. Seems to be like with other STIs and infections. Protection helps, but not fully. And as it's infectious, a low number of contacts shouldn't make you certain about anything. A lot of adults have it, so maybe once is once too many. And with this virus you kinda never know if you're infected because 90% of infections come without symptoms. You can also get them years later. And there doesn't even seem to be consensus what a negative test means. Could still have the virus in you, just at some undetectable level. And seems they're not yet really sure about the consequences on cancer. Also they detected virus strains on fingertips, hands. And there seem to be other ways of contracting it, although that's way less likely.
I see one clear winner here. And that's the vaccine, before getting infected. Whatever that means for an individual. And sure, use protection, that lowers the odds of many things, including this.
I come back time and again to the difference between reasonable and recommended. A recommendation in medicine is something you would be unwise to ignore as a doctor. Reasonable is something that you as a patient should do. A doctor is going to tell you all the recommended things because the way medicine works is all around what is shown to a reasonable statistical level to be a good idea, or at least seems that way. They will still recommend some things that are nonsense and they will still make mistakes, but they won't be sued.
If you try something and that works for you then you have a sample of one. It may have done nothing and the problem resolved itself, it may have solved the problem, it may even have slowed your recovery, but if you have the same problem again it is fairly reasonable to do the same thing that seemed to work last time. It isn't proof, but it is reasonable to try again.
Does having a kebab on the way home from a night of drinking actually prevent hangovers? Well, maybe, it does have salt and that is depleted during drinking, but is a doctor ever going to recommend that? No, never.
They should recommend it, those things are magic.
Hmmh. I mean the general thing with statistics is... You never know if you're in the 95% of people or the 5% exception. Could very well be the opposite for you. But it's fairly straightforward if you're the doctor and see 100 people a day. You'd just say what makes sense 95% of the times.
Btw, I had some interesting doctors. One knew every product test and the numbers on all homespun remedies. And we got to talk a bit on what to do, which specific supermarket to go to, to buy multivitamin juice. He also had some recommendations on what to eat with my fever and tonsillitis. I think he gave a short lecture on spices as well, I forgot, it's been a long time. I bet that dude has an opinion on Döner Kebab, though.
Yeah, I agree with your thoughts on the 95% thing. Its like with pain management. I am completely non responsive to morphine. Most people respond well, it just feels cold in my arm and that's it. When I flayed my wrist they gave me tonnes of morphine, the maximum dose I could have, and I had almost no effect at all. I got more from the paracetamol they gave me after that which was good because they had to remove my temporary dressing from a very large open wound and any relief was helpful. Now I just ask for aspirin and paracetamol, though after a wonderfully fun heart infection I can't use aspirin for pain relief without considerable bleed risk. Oh well, paracetamol it is.
But yes, if I go in for emergency care and tell them "no morphine, paracetamol only" they will probably not take it seriously without a doctor supporting it. Good thing I have a fairly high pain threshold.
Hehe, first person I get to talk to who doesn't respond to a good amount of morphine. (Unless they do drugs on a regular basis.) But yeah my story ended kinda the same way. Got my tonsils removed. And got Novamin / metamizole(?) as a painkiller. It's popular here. Took the max dose for a day and most I got was a headache, and still a good amount of pain. Talked to the doctor and switched to Ibuprofen and Paracetamol. That did the job. Now I just tell them about my prior experiences. And luckily I don't have a lot of pain or maladies anyway, so I'm generally fine without pain meds. Unless there's some other reason to take them, like fever. And I got some opioid once after the surgery. That felt funny. But I didn't really enjoy it. Kinda dislike dizziness and my brain feeling off.
85% of people have been exposed by middle age, so still worth it if you are the 15%. Because you can get it from hand contact, etc, not just intimate contact
Also, lots of strains.
I figure if I have one, but block the 9th, that's a win
I just had my first dose of gardasil 9 too
Its worth it. I had a tumour removed that was HPV positive. A simple shot to prevent cancer is definitely the way to go.