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Doubts on the appropriateness of universal human papillomavirus vaccination: is evidence on public health benefits already available?

¹ Institut Municipal d’Investigació Mèdica, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
² Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
³ Fundación Instituto de Investigación en Servicios de Salud, Sevilla, Spain
⁴ Centro de Análisis y Programas Sanitarios, Barcelona, Spain

Correspondence to:
Professor M Porta, IMIM & UAB, Carrer del Dr Aiguader 88, E-08003 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain; mporta@imim.es

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Marketing of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines is a scientific success for the biomedical research community and industry. Yet, exciting as it rightly is to scientists, technological progress does not guarantee public health impact, as anyone who cares for the public good knows. Trials of HPV vaccines, for instance, have had a limited duration with respect to the lifetime risk (and, hence, prevention) of cervical cancer; this is one reason why the long-term, true effectiveness of HPV vaccines to substantially decrease the population burden of cervical cancer and related pathologies is still unproven, even in countries with a high burden. In many societies worldwide, HPV infection is almost always benign, slow, naturally reversible and can be properly controlled with non-aggressive measures that do not further medicalise the lives of healthy women. Health authorities in many countries still cannot know how many cases of cervical cancer will be prevented—beyond those that good . . . [Full text of this article]

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