Let’s talk about sex, baby, and a cancer vaccine, and let’s talk about some of the bad things that make health inequity.

CDC partners with UF Center for Arts in Medicine to increase vaccine confidence through arts and culture

One of the silver linings with the COVID pandemic is that everyone is a vaccine expert now. Kidding not kidding. Vaccine science is serious, it should be left to the professionals, and we are big, big fans.

That said, there does seem to be a moment happening right now when conversations about vaccines are happening. We are taking advantage of this moment to plug something that we both LOVE: the Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine.

We are the authors of this piece: a Pediatrician (that’s me, Dr Adam Rosenbloom, and a Reproductive Health expert (that’s me, Sera Bonds, MPH) who happen to be married. We’ve got a fair amount of experience with vaccines and cervixes so we are here today shouting from the proverbial rooftops: hey, get that HPV shot, y’all!

A vaccine against cancer is the dream if any cancer marathon or PR campaign. If we had a vaccine against leukemia, colon cancer, lung cancer; it would change everything. Truly. Not all cancers are caused by viruses and so we can’t fight most cancers with a vaccine. But most oral and cervical cancers are caused by viruses AND we have an effective vaccine against one of them. Science IS magic.

HeLa cells, light micrograph is a photograph by Science Photo Library which was uploaded on March 7th, 2014.

HPV is one of the most prevalent viruses out there. As many of 75% of adults on planet earth may have had HPV at some point in our lives. That’s something that could unite us if we allow it to, right?

Every year 36,000 people in the US get a cancer caused by HPV, including 15,000 men. One of these cancers caused by HPV is cervical cancer.

Each year 4000 people in the US with a cervix die because of HPV. Those numbers aren’t as random as the might seem.

The overall 5-year relative survival rate for cervical cancer among Black people with a uterus is 56%, compared to 68% among white women. There are a lot of layers to why this gap exists: access to early diagnosis, who has health insurance and who does not, a lack of culturally competent health care models.

One of these Black women was Henrietta Lacks and she changed everything.

HeLa (/ˈhiːlɑː/; also Hela or hela) is an immortal cell line used in scientific research. It is the oldest and most commonly used human cell line. The line is named after and derived from cervical cancer cells taken without permission on February 8, 1951, from Henrietta Lacks. She was a 31-year-old African-American mother of five, who died of cancer on October 4, 1951. The cell line was found to be remarkably durable and prolific, in spite of little to no recognition or compensation to Henrietta’s family.

In recently recognizing Henrietta Lacks, the World Health Organization said it wanted to address a “historic wrong”, noting the global scientific community once hid her ethnicity and her real story. “WHO acknowledges the importance of reckoning with past scientific injustices, and advancing racial equity in health and science,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “It’s also an opportunity to recognize women — particularly women of color — who have made incredible but often unseen contributions to medical science.”

Henrietta Lacks lives on through the HeLa cell line, which has led to numerous scientific breakthroughs but was taken without her knowledge or consent [The Lacks Family via AP Photo]

Since it was approved in 2014 the HPV vaccine has likely cut the incidence of cervical cancer by 90% the places + within the populations where it is available.

As a Pediatrician, I highly recommend this vaccine to all the adolescents that I care for. Lots of the kids that I care for are not likely to be sexually active (I am a Dr for kids who live medically complex lives and have extreme special needs) and so parents and care takers often ask why they should get it? I say, because HPV can be spread from hands to mouth via diaper changes and through other intimate care giving exchanges.

As a reproductive health expert, I am a fan of giving teens a vaccine to protect them from an STI before they are sexually active. This is, of course, better than giving it to them after they are sexually active. This does not promote sexual behavior but rather equips them with a tools they need to keep themselves safe. A win win for everyone.

January is Cervical Cancer Awareness month. If you have kids/teens in your care who are eligible for the vaccine, please get them signed up for it. It’s an investment in their future, truly.