Will Betsy DeVos Kill Sex Ed in Public Schools?
Doctors recommend that all teens get vaccinated against the cancer-causing HPV before they are sexually active. But that sort of frank sex-ed talk could be at risk under our new education czar.
Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a sexually transmitted disease that causes head, neck, anal, and genital cancers. Currently, about 79 million Americans, most in their late teens and early twenties, are infected with the virus. The annual statistics are grim. Every year in the United States:
• 14 million people are newly infected with HPV.
• 19,000 women and 8,000 men develop HPV-associated cancers.
• 5,000 people die from cancers caused by HPV.
• 19,000 women and 8,000 men develop HPV-associated cancers.
• 5,000 people die from cancers caused by HPV.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is that a vaccine is available to prevent it. In 2006, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) licensed an HPV vaccine that will prevent about 70 percent of the cancers caused by this virus; in 2016, the vaccine was replaced by another HPV vaccine that will prevent about 85 percent. The HPV vaccine is now recommended for all girls and boys between 11 and 13 years of age. Unfortunately, although the vaccine has been around for more than 10 years, most teenagers don’t get it. Only about 45 percent of girls and 25 percent of boys have completed the recommended series.
Given current immunization rates, every year in the United States about 2,000 boys and girls are condemned to die from cancer because they haven’t received an HPV vaccine—a remarkable public health failure.
The HPV vaccine isn’t the only vaccine recommended for teenagers in the United States. Vaccines to prevent tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough, and meningococcus (a cause of meningitis and bloodstream infections) are also Will Betsy DeVos Kill Sex Ed in Public Schools? - The Daily Beast: