Black women may get less protection than whites from the vaccines recommended for preventing human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes cervical cancer, a new study suggests.
The currently available vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, don’t target the types of HPV infection found most often in black women, the study authors said.
Experts have long believed that most cervical cancers are caused by persistent infection with subtypes of the sexually transmitted virus known as HPV 16 and HPV 18. These are the strains targeted by Gardasil and Cervarix. (Gardasil also targets HPV 6 and HPV 11.)
But black women tend to develop cancer of the cervix — the lower part of the uterus or womb — and die from it more often than white women, even when screening programs are similar, according to background information included in the study. This led the researchers to wonder if blacks might be less likely to benefit from vaccination.
“HPV 16 and 18 occur less frequently in African-Americans than in whites,” said study researcher Cathrine Hoyo, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Duke University School of Medicine.
Hoyo’s team looked at women who had abnormal results on Pap tests — screenings to detect precancerous cervical abnormalities.
Of the nearly 600 women with Pap smear abnormalities in the study, about 86 percent had detectable HPV, Hoyo said.
“African-Americans had half the HPV 16 and 18 frequency as whites did,” said Hoyo, who is scheduled to present the findings Monday at a conference of the American Association for Cancer Research in National Harbor, Md.
The findings, if replicated in larger studies, could call into question the effectiveness of the current vaccines for all races, she said.
But women should still get an HPV vaccine, said Dr. Robert Morgan, co-director of the gynecological oncology program at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif. “I don’t think recommendations on vaccination would change [based] on this data,” said Morgan, who was not involved in the research.
The American Cancer Society estimates that more than 12,000 new cases of cervical cancer will be diagnosed this year, and more than 4,000 women will die of the disease. Blacks are about 20 percent more likely to get cervical cancer, Hoyo said, and about twice as likely to die from it as white women.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends HPV vaccination for preteen boys and girls at age 11 or 12, before sexual activity begins. The vaccines, given in three injections over a six-month period, cost about $400 or more total.
In developing Gardasil and Cervarix, scientists relied on studies to pinpoint the strains of HPV most likely to lead to cancer. Studies were done on all ethnicities, Hoyo said, noting that there may have been insufficient numbers of black women in the research studies to pick up the differences in HPV subtypes.
“There has always been some skepticism about whether there are other strains that are important, other than 16 and 18,” she said. This study is not the first to report the differences, she said.
The findings, however, are not a reason for blacks not to get an HPV vaccine, Hoyo said. Testing of vaccines that target additional HPV subtypes are under way, and in time the problem may be solved, she added.
Research presented at medical meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Source:Healthday
African-Americans are different from Africans. just like this study was done on African Americans and not Africans
The African-American genetic makeup has been tainted by the whites, just like there many white people with carrying African genes
Was just going to say that…the title is misleading.
This is embarrassing!! There is no such a thing like “genetic makeup being tainted by whites”
If African americans are different from africans,then whites must be very different from Africans.Since thats the case why are they selling black africans vaccines that are best suited for whites? What do Zambian doctors say or they being funded by big pharma and too cowardly to stand up for Zambian women.
And Ba Kaseba was nuuuuuu on vaccinating, even the unborn girls. Fimo baletekanyako just because the vaccines where donated?
@Ex-Moma (My….)
Why you ask what Zambian doctors think, when the best Zambian woman doctor, Sata’s current wife popularly known as Dr. Christine Kaseba, has been the one preaching HPV, even to the grade 1 girls.
Ex-mom, Nubian, Mushota, Cindy, none of you have really studies that stuff before you got vaccinated?
tainted?
Gen has a very good point there.It is true that the gene pool for African American`s is not the same as indigenous African`s because of the introduction of Caucasian genes in most of the African`s.Those slave masters used to sleep a lot with their slaves and their children were raised as African`s.It is the reason why people as dark as Dr Henry Louis Gates, Jr have discovered relatives among pure Caucasians.
Wanted to say *Gen has a very good point there.It is true that the gene pool for African American`s is not the same as indigenous African`s because of the introduction of Caucasian genes in most of the African Americans.Those slave masters used to sleep a lot with their slaves and their children were raised as African`s.It is the reason why people as dark as Dr Henry Louis Gates, Jr have discovered relatives among pure Caucasians.
Am glad these studies have revealed an ounce of what i have been writing about here.
1. Dont just accept drugs from the west, let us do our own research.
2. Vaccines are not to be standardized.
3. Kaseba should stop being the pharmaceuticals advocate for selling these killer vaccines. let her vaccinate herself and her family members. leave our women alone.
4.If only our so called medical researchers could study melanin more, they would understand that most drugs are actually designed for white people. black people and white people are different. we have more melanin, the chemical key to life, which regulates all the ryhthms in the body. Its no wonder diagnosis and treatment of diseases between the two peoples should be different.Study melanin people and not just the crap from biology…
Next the Aids cure will be discovered and they will say it does not cure black people.Why is the Sondashi formula being sidelined? Could it be bacause it can only cure black people?
….Medical… medical…..Agony is when, other than religious or tradition reasons, you rush for circumcision to avoid the HPV transmission to your wife and only to be told the following week that the latest medical study rules out any chances of HPV transmission from male partner to female…..
Can men also suffer from cervical cancer? I have been hearing this crap for a long time. What nonsense is this??
@suntwe…your likelihood of suffering from cervical cancer is as high as the likelihood of a woman suffering from prostate cancer.
I find it strange that even married men are asked to get circumcised for fear of transmitting this dreaded virus. Are they suggesting that men are promiscuous and should be allowed to get away with imorality?