The cervical cancer vaccination came to market in 2006. Since then, more than 400 million women have received it. Given that side effects of the sort seen recently in Japan have been exceedingly rare, the medical community suspects the problem was with a particular batch of vaccine.

According to the Health Promotion Administration, roughly 500,000 Taiwanese women have received the vaccine without a single instance of severe side effects. The government has therefore continued to promote the HPV vaccination in accordance with World Health Organization recommendations.

Who needs to be vaccinated? Generally speaking, young women who are not yet sexually active and those who are but have not yet contracted HPV are encouraged to get the vaccine.

The vaccine is currently available free of charge to young girls from low-income families and Aboriginal families, as well as to seventh-grade girls in New Taipei City, Hsinchu City, Chiayi City and County, and Kinmen.

The current vaccine primarily protects against HPV types 16 and 18, which cause the majority of cervical cancers. Based on Taiwan’s infection rates for these two varieties, girls who receive the entire course of three shots have a 65% reduction in their risk of developing cervical cancer.

The United States, United Kingdom, and France all implemented no-cost HPV vaccination programs for young girls soon after HPV vaccines were introduced. Australia even extended its program to all 12–13 year olds, male and female alike, to “help reduce some HPV-related cancers and disease in men and women in the future.”

Top model Lin Chi-ling, the “health ambassador” for “Six Minutes Can Save a Life,” urges mothers and daughters to take part in screenings for gynecological cancers.

HPV is a family of DNA viruses that infect the skin and mucus membranes of human beings. More than 130 varieties have been identified, most of which cause no symptoms and are eliminated by the body without recourse to treatment. However, some 30–40 varieties are capable of infecting our reproductive organs and nearby skin.

These types can be classified as either low-risk or high-risk depending on their oncogenic potency. The low-risk varieties include types 6 and 11, which can cause genital warts. The high-risk varieties include types 16, 18, 52, and 58, all of which are associated with cervical cancer.

Cheng Wen-fang, a gynecologic oncologist with National Taiwan University Hospital, says that the distribution of HPV types is closely connected to factors such as ethnicity, genetic factors, location, and sexual lifestyle. For example, HPV types 52 and 58 are much more common among women in the island nations of the Asia-Pacific region, e.g. Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines, than in Europe and the US.

HPV contains oncoproteins that disable tumor suppressor genes, leading to cytopathy. Although sexual contact is the primary pathway for transmission, condoms are not 100% effective at preventing infection because the virus can reside in the folds of the scrotum. Sexually active individuals are estimated to have a 50% chance of contracting HPV at least once in their lives. While most will clear the infection without treatment, a few will go on to develop cancer.

The fact that HPV can also invade the vagina, perineum and anus just makes it that much more dangerous. In fact, the medical community have linked it to a variety of other cancers.

American movie star Michael Douglas recently admitted that his throat cancer was the result of HPV acquired through oral sex. Oropharyngeal cancer, as well as a few esophageal cancers and skin cancers, are also thought to be related to HPV infection.

Lee Huei, a professor with Taipei Medical University, has also found links between HPV and lung cancer in women. The association between cigarette smoking and lung cancer is well known. However, given that smoking is most strongly linked to squamous-cell lung cancers and that 70–80% of female lung cancer victims in Taiwan suffer from adenocarcinomas, it seemed likely that Taiwanese women’s lung cancers have a different underlying cause.

When Lee and his research team examined 141 non-smoking female lung cancer patients, they discovered that 70% had HPV 16 or 18 in their tumors. They also found that nearly 30% of the cancer patients had HPV in their blood, versus just 5–10% in the study’s control group of 60 healthy non-smoking women.

Lee hypothesized that the HPV in the tumors originated in a cervical or other infection, then was carried to the lungs by the blood. He therefore believes that women whose blood is found to contain HPV are at higher-than-average risk of lung cancer.

HPV is easily spread to our significant others, placing people who become sexually active at an early age or have complicated sexual relationships at high risk of infection.

With our attitudes towards sex continuing to liberalize, protecting against HPV infection is becoming an issue for everyone. Recognizing HPV’s transmission routes is an important first step to halting its spread.