Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you
Speaker 2: should know.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I've got an intro for this.
Speaker 1: Chuck, you're ready, Yeah, let's hear it.
Speaker 2: Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to talk about
Speaker 2: this thing called human papioma virus. What do you think.
Speaker 1: That's good? I hear the beat starting in the background.
Speaker 2: It's just a good, good album. We got to add
Speaker 2: some kind of good spin to this.
Speaker 1: Sure, while we're talking about HPV, like you mentioned, and
Speaker 1: we should say right out of the gate, HPV is
Speaker 1: a very very very very common sexually transmitted infection. If
Speaker 1: you have HPV or have had it, you may have
Speaker 1: not even known about it, perhaps because your body just
Speaker 1: took care of it. But if you have it and
Speaker 1: you know about it, or have had it and knew
Speaker 1: you had it, it's no big deal. For the most part,
Speaker 1: it's nothing to be ashamed of. It is very very common.
Speaker 2: It is the problem is this, like that would be
Speaker 2: the end of the episode if if HPV wasn't a virus. Actually,
Speaker 2: the first virus found to cause cancer. That is rare
Speaker 2: in and of itself, compared to all of the HPV
Speaker 2: infections that are running around the world at any given time.
Speaker 2: There's a lot, and there's a lot of different types
Speaker 2: of HPV, but because it causes cancer, it's drawn a
Speaker 2: lot of interest from the biomedical community. And luckily, what
Speaker 2: we're finding is that HPV is super treatable if your
Speaker 2: body doesn't clear it up on its own. And in fact,
Speaker 2: there's an amazing vaccine out there that is one of
Speaker 2: the better, more effective vaccines on the market today for anything.
Speaker 1: That's right, and if people get this vaccine, were potentially
Speaker 1: looking at eradicating at least HPV caused cervical cancer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just getting rid of it. So long, goodbye cervical cancer.
Speaker 2: You're a thing of the past. And because we brought
Speaker 2: up the vaccine so early, I believe I heard the
Speaker 2: sound of one hundred thousand people skipping to the next
Speaker 2: episode or maybe finding a new podcast altogether.
Speaker 1: Oh come on. So the other thing that you might
Speaker 1: think about when you hear of HPV besides cervical cancer
Speaker 1: is genital warts. Maybe the last few or made people
Speaker 1: have tuned out now, right, But we're gonna dig into
Speaker 1: this because those including talk of genital awards and cervical cancer.
Speaker 1: But HPV itself, we should say, is a larger name,
Speaker 1: an umbrella term basically for many, many different viruses. But
Speaker 1: there are a handful that are pretty key to our
Speaker 1: story here, and they are you'll hear say, various numbers
Speaker 1: like HPV eleven, HPV sixteen. That's how they have them labeled.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and one of the stars the villain, I guess,
Speaker 2: is HPV sixteen. It's the strain that causes the most
Speaker 2: kind of cancers and it's actually it's really ancient. Like
Speaker 2: the reason they call it human pepioma virus is because
Speaker 2: it is specific to humans, Like you can give it
Speaker 2: to your dog all day long and your dog's not
Speaker 2: gonna get it. Your dog here has pepio right, Your
Speaker 2: dog and other animals have pepioma viruses. Apparently, cottontail rabbits
Speaker 2: get warts very easily from their papioma virus, and we
Speaker 2: can't get it from them, So it's very very specific.
Speaker 2: And HPV sixteen, which is a kind of human papioma
Speaker 2: virus that causes cervical cancer, among others. They believe that
Speaker 2: humans us modern Homo sapiens got it from Neanderthals and
Speaker 2: Denisovans when we used to have sex with them and
Speaker 2: them with us.
Speaker 1: You know what you gotta do before you try and
Speaker 1: give your dog HPV? Though, Well, you gotta make upset.
Speaker 2: I don't get it. What you gonna make your dogs
Speaker 2: sit before you give it HPV?
Speaker 1: All right, I'm just gonna scoot right on past that one.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So we're talking a little bit of history. We'll see,
Speaker 1: we'll do a pull of people who get that joke
Speaker 1: and don't I want to hear from it.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, Well, you explain it later and i'll
Speaker 2: see if I'm guessing it right. All right?
Speaker 1: Uh No, I get chastised for explaining jokes, so I'm
Speaker 1: not even gonna do that this time. We'll let the
Speaker 1: people speak.
Speaker 2: Wait, why don't you do it next time? I really
Speaker 2: want to know this, I'll tell you after, Okay.
Speaker 1: So, looking at our history of human beings, people have
Speaker 1: long suspected that warts that you see, like you got
Speaker 1: a word on your nose or a word on your elbow,
Speaker 1: there was an infection that was responsible for that happening. Finally,
Speaker 1: we prove that in the middle of the nineteenth century
Speaker 1: or so, when the people there were scientists that were
Speaker 1: intentionally trying to give themselves warts and it worked by
Speaker 1: infecting their skin. So like, all right, we figured that
Speaker 1: out with more extracts. Yeah, gross, it's trying to point
Speaker 1: that out. So it took a little while for that
Speaker 1: to go downstairs and apply to genital awarts, because people
Speaker 1: thought for a very long time, hey, if you have
Speaker 1: genital awarts, that's just a symptom of like syphilis or something,
Speaker 1: and we eventually learned that that's not the case at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a nineteen seventeen German paper that purposely
Speaker 2: infected a virgin girl to prove that genital warts exist
Speaker 2: outside of STIs that's it's its own thing, and they did.
Speaker 2: They proved it. So there's another thread going on. At
Speaker 2: the same time, back in the nineteenth century, they figured
Speaker 2: out that cervical cancer was a strange conundrum scientifically speaking,
Speaker 2: because if you took a group of nuns and you
Speaker 2: took a group of married women and put them together,
Speaker 2: the incidents of breast cancer would probably be about the same,
Speaker 2: the incidents of lung cancer probably about the same. The
Speaker 2: one that diverged is cervical cancer, and they couldn't figure
Speaker 2: out why because it didn't really make sense, except the
Speaker 2: only way that did make sense is that cervical cancer
Speaker 2: somehow developed from a sexually transmitted infection.
Speaker 1: I wonder if like one person knew it and they
Speaker 1: were sharing with other scientists and they were like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, and they're like, what do nuns not do that?
Speaker 1: Other married ladies might doine no, no, with something am
Speaker 1: on you and in the bedroom, maybe watch TV.
Speaker 2: I don't know, just tell me.
Speaker 1: Oh, there's a good sketch in there somewhere.
Speaker 2: I think. Sure. So they figured all this out, they
Speaker 2: put it all together, and they finally realized thanks to
Speaker 2: a German virologist, another one named Horror Zerhausen great name.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty three, he found that if you took
Speaker 2: a specimen of cervical cancer a biopsy and studied it closely,
Speaker 2: you would actually find a papioma virus inside, and specifically
Speaker 2: it would turned out to be what we now know
Speaker 2: as HPV sixteen. The chances are there's going to be
Speaker 2: some form of HPV sixteen found in that biopsy in
Speaker 2: that cancerous cell taken from a cervical cancer patient.
Speaker 1: That's right, And like you said, that was in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty three. Flash forward to two thousand and eight when
Speaker 1: Harald Zerhausen gets a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Speaker 1: for his continued work developing that HPB vaccine that we mentioned. Right,
Speaker 1: it's a nice word, Housen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, way to go. I think he deserved it because
Speaker 2: he found this is the first virus that we've ever
Speaker 2: shown to cause cancer. It's like this whole field of
Speaker 2: medicine that's starting to kind of wrap its around the
Speaker 2: role that viruses playing all sorts of diseases. I know
Speaker 2: there's a hypothesis that schizophrenia might actually be triggered by
Speaker 2: a dormant virus that comes to life later on around
Speaker 2: your teenage years. So this is the first time we
Speaker 2: pointed to it. And that's one of the things that
Speaker 2: makes HPV so fascinating. There's not a lot of viruses
Speaker 2: running around that cause cancer, and this one definitely does.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So we mentioned that it's a lot of viruses
Speaker 1: over two hundred if you want to get a little
Speaker 1: more exact, and they generally divide these into a couple
Speaker 1: of different groups, the cutaneous and the mucosal types cutaneous
Speaker 1: HPVs are. This is where you think of the worts.
Speaker 1: They infect the skin. If you have like planar worts
Speaker 1: on your feet, or you have worts on your hands
Speaker 1: or something like that, it's because of the cutaneous type
Speaker 1: of HPV, the mucosal type. And it's a little grosser
Speaker 1: here because we have to say the word moist, but
Speaker 1: they specifically infect moist parts of the boy. This is
Speaker 1: where you get warts on genitals, your throat, maybe your nose,
Speaker 1: your anus, your cervix of course, and your inner eyelids,
Speaker 1: which can't be comfortable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And because all of those or a lot of
Speaker 2: those are sexy parts, the inside of your eyelid. Notwithstanding,
Speaker 2: it goes to show that HPV infection can be transmitted sexually.
Speaker 2: It's not all the time like the other kind of
Speaker 2: the cutaneous type that causes plantar works. You can get
Speaker 2: that from walking around a pool, a pool deck or
Speaker 2: somewhere there's HPV hanging out. But it's a different kind
Speaker 2: of HPV HPV sixteen that can cause cancer. That is
Speaker 2: a sexually transmitted HPV. It's mucosal and it's also in
Speaker 2: a subcategory of mucostal HPV called high risk. There's high
Speaker 2: risk and there's low risk, And as you may guess
Speaker 2: just from the names, high risk typically leads to cancer
Speaker 2: or can. The low risk almost never does.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. If you think, hey, can I use
Speaker 1: a condom to get around this? That helps. But HPV,
Speaker 1: the mucoastal type of lead, doesn't require bodily fluids for transmission.
Speaker 1: So if you are sexually active as a person, and
Speaker 1: you have been so for a few years, then chances
Speaker 1: are you've probably had HPV and maybe not even known it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's a really big point that you don't
Speaker 2: have to exchange body fluids. And also, similarly, Chuck, I
Speaker 2: want to make sure it's totally clear genital awarts doesn't
Speaker 2: cause cancer. It's a different type of HPV. So you
Speaker 2: actually can give somebody genital awarts from sexual contact, but
Speaker 2: that's almost certainly not going to lead to any kind
Speaker 2: of cancer. They're just different types, even though they can
Speaker 2: be passed along similarly through skin to skin contact.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think you said just from being sexually active,
Speaker 2: you're probably going to pick up some form of HPV.
Speaker 2: Another about fourteen million Americans, Yeah, just Americans. Alone get
Speaker 2: a new infection every year. There's at least eighty million
Speaker 2: Americans running around with an HPV infection right now. And
Speaker 2: if you do the math, here in America, we have
Speaker 2: a pretty close replacement rate where we have just a
Speaker 2: few more one hundred thousand berths than deaths every year. Right,
Speaker 2: so let's just say that's a wash. At fourteen million
Speaker 2: new infections every year, that means everything's staying exactly the
Speaker 2: same as it is now. In twenty four years, every
Speaker 2: single American will be infected with HPV. And we already
Speaker 2: said that HPV sixteen we got from Neanderthals, so it's
Speaker 2: been around a really long time. So it makes you wonder, well,
Speaker 2: why this sudden surge in infections. And apparently a lot
Speaker 2: of the incidences of HPV, or this rise in incidents
Speaker 2: can be traced to changes in sexual morais and behaviors
Speaker 2: that have occurred over the last few decades.
Speaker 1: We just put a pin in that. Sure, Okay, we'll
Speaker 1: reveal what that might mean later on. Maybe we should
Speaker 1: take a break. Yeah, yes, pretty good intro, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about genital warts when we get back. All right,
Speaker 1: so we're back, We promise talk of more talk that
Speaker 1: is of genital warts. I believe you mentioned the low
Speaker 1: risk mucosal type usually six and eleven HBB are the
Speaker 1: ones that calls these warts or other you know, moist membranes,
Speaker 1: mucous membranes. They don't generally cause a lot of health
Speaker 1: problems or any really, they can be painful. Sometimes they
Speaker 1: can be itchy. Obviously, there's a lot of embarrassment that
Speaker 1: surrounds genital awarts. Just saying those words together isn't something
Speaker 1: you're probably gonna like advertise to people.
Speaker 2: No, you don't say, like, just disregard my genital awarts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, well, I'm sure plenty of people have
Speaker 1: said that, but who knows.
Speaker 2: It doesn't always work.
Speaker 1: That's what it works. But it's nothing to be ashamed
Speaker 1: of because it is quite common and they can be removed.
Speaker 1: Sometimes medication can do it. Sometimes they'll do the old
Speaker 1: freeze with liquid nitrogen routine.
Speaker 2: I used to get that. I got warts on my
Speaker 2: elbows and I used to get it burned off with
Speaker 2: liquid nitrogen pretty regularly. I think it's.
Speaker 1: At Yeah, I feel like I've had that done with.
Speaker 1: I think I had plan awarts that they did that too.
Speaker 1: When I was in college.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you can get rid of warts that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's also lasers these days that can handle that
Speaker 1: different different methods to get rid of those general awards
Speaker 1: in due time. So don't worry about it. If you
Speaker 1: have those people, just you know, keep soldiering on. You'll
Speaker 1: be okay.
Speaker 2: Yes, So there are some some types of HPV infections
Speaker 2: that lead to warts mucoastal warts that can be a problem.
Speaker 2: There's one in particular, Respiratory pepiomatosis is a condition that's
Speaker 2: caused by warts and the airways, and it typically happens
Speaker 2: in kids and it's treatable, but it can narrow the
Speaker 2: airway and that in and of itself is problematic. They
Speaker 2: think that it's transferred, that HPV infection is transferred during
Speaker 2: birth or from the antiotic fluid inside the womb. But
Speaker 2: it's pretty it's pretty rare. It's one of the rare
Speaker 2: ones that Okay, this is actually be a bit of
Speaker 2: a health problem from.
Speaker 1: Warts, Yeah for sure, But that is only in young children.
Speaker 1: It's usually you see it between the ages of two
Speaker 1: and six. It canic are and adults. But I think
Speaker 1: it's even more rare. But again, you can remove these surgically,
Speaker 1: so you can get that taken care of as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Plus you get to go back to school in
Speaker 2: the fall and be like, yeah, they shot lasers down
Speaker 2: my throat, what did you do this summer?
Speaker 1: That's right to get rid of my warts. Ye. There's
Speaker 1: also infections with the high risk kinds of APV that
Speaker 1: don't clear up on their own, and these are the
Speaker 1: ones that could eventually lead to cancer.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So this is a very very long process. But essentially,
Speaker 2: this HPV infection that can is akin to causing warts,
Speaker 2: just causes hijacks a sell just like any other virus,
Speaker 2: causes it to multiply and multiply and multiply, and then
Speaker 2: has these cells rupture. They released more viruses into the
Speaker 2: extracellular membrane, and they get into more cells and it
Speaker 2: just gets worse and worse. The difference between an HPV
Speaker 2: infection and other types of infections from viruses is that
Speaker 2: they're not systemic. They stay very very localized, and so
Speaker 2: they form a very recognizable legion.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But it isn't just cervical cancer though, that we
Speaker 1: should point out. I believe there are six kinds of cancer.
Speaker 1: I think the data that we got was this Libya?
Speaker 1: Did she help us with this?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Hats off, I can tell.
Speaker 1: In a good way. I was like, oh, geez, I
Speaker 1: could tell.
Speaker 2: All the dirty jokes. Yeah, we can't say.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty one is when we got the latest CDC
Speaker 1: data with more than thirty seven thousand cases of cancer
Speaker 1: associated per year of that are associated with HPV twenty
Speaker 1: two thousand and women sixteen thousand and men. And the
Speaker 1: six kinds of cancer or I guess the five besides
Speaker 1: cervical are anal cancer, penile cancer, vaginal cancer, bulvar cancer cancer,
Speaker 1: bulvar cancer. Man. That's hard to say.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 1: That's a good pre stage warm up. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: hear me backstage saying good lord. And then finally oro
Speaker 1: fairyngeal cancer, which is the base of the tongue, the
Speaker 1: back of the throat tonsils. You can also get that
Speaker 1: through tobacco use, not surprisingly, so you should also not
Speaker 1: be surprised to learn that as tobacco use has gone down,
Speaker 1: so have incidences of non HPV oro fare engeal cancer.
Speaker 2: But incidents of orofair andngeal cancer overall has increased because
Speaker 2: there's been a rise in HPV infections to that man,
Speaker 2: and I think I made it pretty clear. HPV sixteen
Speaker 2: is one of the big batties of this episode. So
Speaker 2: is HPV eighteen. Those are the two most common cancer
Speaker 2: causing types of HPV. They're responsible. HPV sixteen is responsible
Speaker 2: for ninety percent of HPV related orofare andngeal cancers, half
Speaker 2: of all cervical cancers, and all the other cancers that
Speaker 2: are related to HPV. It's it makes up a significant
Speaker 2: portion of them, just sixteen alone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think eighteen causes twenty percent of cervical cancer.
Speaker 1: So between those two, you know, you're looking at seventy percent.
Speaker 2: So let's talk cervical cancer, shall we, Because it is
Speaker 2: a it's really important. It's become I guess, how do
Speaker 2: you put it. It's really emerged as a condition that's
Speaker 2: gotten a lot of attention because there's so much potential
Speaker 2: for getting rid of it altogether.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's a situation where here in the United States,
Speaker 1: due to early detection and treatment, it is really really lowered.
Speaker 1: I think it's gone down by more than fifty percent
Speaker 1: from the mid seventies to the mid two thousands and
Speaker 1: only and you know, of course four thousand people. It's
Speaker 1: a lot of people. But when you're talking about what
Speaker 1: the rates could and would have been in the past,
Speaker 1: four thousand Americans dying of cervical cancer each year is
Speaker 1: a lot of progress has been made.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And overall, I think there's three hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: thousand deaths from cervical cancer worldwide every year. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: I mean Americans make up a decent portion of the
Speaker 2: world population, but not a good portion of the cervical
Speaker 2: cancer death population. The reason why is because America has
Speaker 2: a really robust screening process that is easily accessed by
Speaker 2: American women to search for cervical cancer and catch it
Speaker 2: early on, and it's not nearly as robust in some
Speaker 2: other developing parts of the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because in America, once you turn twenty one, if
Speaker 1: you're a woman, generally for about from about twenty one
Speaker 1: to sixty five, you're going to be getting a PAP
Speaker 1: test about every three years, or at least you're supposed to.
Speaker 1: And the US Preventative Services Task Force the USPSTF says
Speaker 1: if you're under thirty, they don't recommend that you get
Speaker 1: tested for HPV unless you have some you know, some
Speaker 1: pretty obvious risk factors. Why, well, because generally by then
Speaker 1: you have probably gotten it and it is probably cleared
Speaker 1: up on its own. And that also means that you
Speaker 1: have some kind of immunity, sometimes very long lasting immunity.
Speaker 2: Yes, so they say, don't bother with the HPV test,
Speaker 2: but definitely do get your PAP test. PAP, by the way,
Speaker 2: isn't short for papioma. It's short for the guy who
Speaker 2: came up with the test. Georgios Papa Nicolau pap, I
Speaker 2: guess to his friends and family. Sure, so that's looking
Speaker 2: for abnormal cells in your cervix. If they find that,
Speaker 2: you test for HPV to see what kind of HPV
Speaker 2: infection you might have that could account for those abnormal cells.
Speaker 2: And then the American Cancer Society says, forget that, just
Speaker 2: start at twenty five. Forget the PAP smerror, start with
Speaker 2: an HPV test, like if you have to prioritize one,
Speaker 2: do that. Yeah, And you might say, well, I'm confused.
Speaker 2: The Preventative Services Test for says thirty and focus on
Speaker 2: the PAP test. In the meantime, the ACS so sort
Speaker 2: the PAP test out, focus on the HPV test starting
Speaker 2: at twenty five, which one should I choose, And you
Speaker 2: don't have to worry if you're an American, because your
Speaker 2: insurance company will choose for you, and that'll probably be neither.
Speaker 1: That's right. If during your screening you happen to see
Speaker 1: what's a pre cancer or a dysplasia, then what they're
Speaker 1: probably going to do next is to examine the cervix.
Speaker 1: It's not a pleasant process. It's done using an instrument
Speaker 1: called a colposcope. You may get a biopsy performed, but
Speaker 1: a lot of times it's a minor thing that's going
Speaker 1: to go on its own, and so what they what
Speaker 1: they might do is say, hey, let's just monitor this
Speaker 1: thing instead of removing it, and just sort of get
Speaker 1: you tested more regularly to see what's happening with that.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to your year of anxiety. Yeah until your
Speaker 2: next test. It sucks, Yeah, but the odds are with you. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: for sure, because we've got this early screening, because they
Speaker 2: have like a lot of tale signatures. They might they
Speaker 2: may also do a biopsy. If it does seem like
Speaker 2: it's a big deal, they may do more invasive surgery.
Speaker 2: But for the most part, we'll set cervical cancer aside
Speaker 2: for a second, until we get to the vaccine. It's
Speaker 2: if you go get a PAP test and you do
Speaker 2: some form of HPV testing whether if needed, you're probably
Speaker 2: going to catch it early for it to be treated.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's the great news with cervical cancer. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the other kinds of cancer is the other five that
Speaker 1: we mentioned caused by HBB. There isn't a routine screening
Speaker 1: for those or preventative treatments for those. And that is
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why you mentioned oor a fair
Speaker 1: andngeal cancer is growing even though tobacco use and tobacco
Speaker 1: caused oor a fair and geal cancer is falling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because people stopped using tobacco as much, but they
Speaker 2: replaced tobacco use with oral sex, which is one of
Speaker 2: the it's actually the biggest risk factor now for developing
Speaker 2: oor fair andngeal cancer. And the more oral sex partners
Speaker 2: you've had, the greater your risk of developing oro faar
Speaker 2: andngeal cancer a few decades later. Is as a matter
Speaker 2: of fact, So that's what I was saying earlier, when
Speaker 2: I was saying that there's been a change in sexual
Speaker 2: morais and behavior. Oral sex has become much more prevalent
Speaker 2: since the sixties and seventies than before, and a lot
Speaker 2: of those men in particular, are starting to age into
Speaker 2: that point in their life where that HPV infection is
Speaker 2: developing into a cancer and is developing into orofair andngeal cancer.
Speaker 1: Right, and we're talking specifically about oral sex performed on women.
Speaker 1: So I guess the idea is that you can get
Speaker 1: that HPV and many many years later, when you're, like
Speaker 1: you said, in your fifties or or sixties, that's when
Speaker 1: it might rear its ugly head.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you remember when Michael Douglas said that he
Speaker 2: had oral cancer throat cancer, I think, and he's like,
Speaker 2: it's from oral sex.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and everyone laughs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly what he was talking about. And he's
Speaker 2: right in that age group of boomers that were like,
Speaker 2: you know, let me try this right back in the day.
Speaker 2: So we don't I have a good handle on really
Speaker 2: anything besides cervical cancer. So the orofare engeal cancer field,
Speaker 2: like the researchers and doctors who study this kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: were like, Okay, it's go time for us, because you know,
Speaker 2: we thought everything was just ducky with the tobacco usee
Speaker 2: going down, and now we've got this, we've got to
Speaker 2: figure this one out.
Speaker 1: That's right, Good time for a second break, I think.
Speaker 1: So all right, great, we're going to take a break,
Speaker 1: and you know, we talked about the vaccine a couple
Speaker 1: of times. We're going to come back and put all
Speaker 1: our cards or all our vaccine cards on the table
Speaker 1: right after this.
Speaker 2: Star Chuck, before we move on to the vaccines, which
Speaker 2: I agree we should do post taste, we do want
Speaker 2: to mention that the other kinds of high risk HPV
Speaker 2: mucosal cancers include I think, like you said, anal cancer,
Speaker 2: vulgar cancer, penal cancer, and vaginal cancer, and they start
Speaker 2: to get much much more rare, starting with anal cancer
Speaker 2: down to vaginal cancer as far as cancer cases go
Speaker 2: caused by HPV. Hopefully we'll be able to figure this
Speaker 2: out and there won't be any of those cases. But
Speaker 2: that's another reason why cervical cancer got so much attention,
Speaker 2: because there was it was much more prevalent, in addition
Speaker 2: to much more treatable.
Speaker 1: That's right, I'm glad you said that stuff.
Speaker 2: So now we can talk about the vaccine.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 2: There are two guys, Jean Jao and Ian Fraser, and
Speaker 2: they both worked at the University of Queensland. I believe
Speaker 2: Ian Fraser ran the lab in Jean ju Jao and
Speaker 2: his partner worked for Ian Fraser, and together they started
Speaker 2: studying HPV, specifically HPV sixteen, and they figured out that
Speaker 2: you could take HPV sixteen and isolate proteins from it,
Speaker 2: and you could use those proteins ostensibly in a vaccine,
Speaker 2: and in very short order, within a few well a
Speaker 2: decade or so, like a vaccine finally did come out.
Speaker 2: Apparently the drug companies took some pep talks I guess
Speaker 2: about how much money they could make on this. They
Speaker 2: finally saw the light and we ended up with the
Speaker 2: HPV vaccine in two thousand and six. The first one
Speaker 2: was called Gardaseel, and I remember when this came out
Speaker 2: from the outset. It came out essentially in the midst
Speaker 2: of the firestorm of the vaccines caused autism stuff that
Speaker 2: was going on at the same time. Merk was like, hey,
Speaker 2: we got a new one. Everybody, come check this one out.
Speaker 1: That's right, it's meant for girls and women between nine
Speaker 1: and twenty six years old. There's a group called the ACIP,
Speaker 1: the Advisory Committee on Immunization and Practices, that said, you know,
Speaker 1: this stuff's good to go, let's get it out there.
Speaker 1: And it protected against HBB sixteen and eighteen, which is
Speaker 1: the most common high risk types we talked about, and
Speaker 1: then six and eleven, which caused more readily caused the
Speaker 1: a genital awards, so it basically kind of took care
Speaker 1: of the four bad guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, after this thing was released, they started launching studies
Speaker 2: on the real world studies on people who gotten and
Speaker 2: they found like, this is actually pretty good at protecting
Speaker 2: people against those four HPV strains, and they also figured
Speaker 2: out that it could protect men against genital wards and
Speaker 2: anal cancer because anal cancer or HPV that causes anal
Speaker 2: cancer I think sixteen or probably eighteen as well, can
Speaker 2: be transmitted from anal intercourse I can't remember, receptive anal intercourse,
Speaker 2: that's the word, and so you can transmit it like that.
Speaker 2: And they found that if men got this vaccine, it
Speaker 2: protected them against that, which was pretty surprising because at
Speaker 2: the beginning they're like, yeah, we just need to give
Speaker 2: this to little girls, and then they were like, no,
Speaker 2: we need to give it to little boys too.
Speaker 1: That's right. So that was in two thousand and nine
Speaker 1: when the FDA licensed it for boys and men from
Speaker 1: nine to twenty six, and again a couple of years
Speaker 1: after that is when the ACIP said, yep, we should
Speaker 1: get it, get it going in that population.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So at the same time, Glaxo smith Klein said
Speaker 2: us too, we want to make some money off of
Speaker 2: this too, and they released Cerverix, which I guess just
Speaker 2: never really picked up steam against Gardisil, because in twenty
Speaker 2: fourteen Merke released Garticil nine and that is essentially the
Speaker 2: de facto HPV vaccine in most of the developed world.
Speaker 2: It protects against, as you might have guessed from the name,
Speaker 2: nine different strains of HPV, not just the common ones,
Speaker 2: but also some less common ones that are still high risk.
Speaker 2: And they also found again through more clinical trials and
Speaker 2: more real world studies that these things were really really
Speaker 2: effective at protecting kids if you gave them this vaccine
Speaker 2: before they became sexually active. Is one of the really
Speaker 2: big keys here is once you're infected with the strain
Speaker 2: of HPV, that vaccine won't protect you against that strain.
Speaker 2: It'll protect you against the other strains that you haven't
Speaker 2: gotten yet. But it apparently won't do anything. It doesn't
Speaker 2: cure any HPV infections. It just defends against them from
Speaker 2: you from getting infected with them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's why they went from nine, you know,
Speaker 1: down to nine years old. It's two shots six months
Speaker 1: to a year apart. If you're older than fifteen, I
Speaker 1: believe you have three shots over a six month period.
Speaker 1: And if you're like, well wait a minute at the time,
Speaker 1: like you're like, well, I'm older now, and this stuff
Speaker 1: just came out and sucks for you. Yeah, well they
Speaker 1: you know, you're not going to get the full benefit
Speaker 1: necessarily from that vaccination, but they said it's still maybe
Speaker 1: worth getting if you weren't vaccinated as a kid.
Speaker 2: Especially if you had fewer sexual partners, so less sex.
Speaker 2: The older you are, the likelier the vaccine is to
Speaker 2: protect you against it later in life.
Speaker 1: Right, And if you were a forty year old virgin,
Speaker 1: then they made a movie about you, Steve Carell pretty
Speaker 1: good movie too. Yeah, I like that one.
Speaker 2: So, like I said, this thing was released in the
Speaker 2: midst of the vaccine vaccines caused autism firestorm, and so
Speaker 2: it was controversial, right, out of the gate. But Rick Perry,
Speaker 2: who was governor of Texas at the time, did not
Speaker 2: help things at all. He did something that seems extraordinarily
Speaker 2: bizarre today in retrospect. He was the Republican governor of
Speaker 2: Texas who ended up serving as Department of Energy secretary
Speaker 2: under Trump, and he mandated as governor that every girl
Speaker 2: entering sixth grade who lived in Texas had to get
Speaker 2: the Gardasil vaccine in two thousand and seven, a year
Speaker 2: after it got FDA approval, And that did not sit
Speaker 2: well with a lot of parents.
Speaker 1: No, a lot of parents were either just you know,
Speaker 1: sort of like stuff you hear about today, like you know,
Speaker 1: parents rights groups saying that we want to make those decisions.
Speaker 1: Some of them were part of the anti vaccine movement
Speaker 1: and some of them also and just people in general
Speaker 1: I think, were like, well, wait a minute, Perry, you've
Speaker 1: got you're cozied up to these lobbyists for MERK, Like,
Speaker 1: is that what's going on here? So it was a
Speaker 1: big deal. And like you said in retrospect, is it's
Speaker 1: very odd to see at Texas republican governor mandating vaccines
Speaker 1: for anybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Rick Perry had big time ties to Mark.
Speaker 2: That was the only HPV vaccine on the market at
Speaker 2: the time, so it's not like he could choose from
Speaker 2: a different type, but it just those ties made the
Speaker 2: whole thing smell fishy. There was another really big thing
Speaker 2: that parents came out against. There was a lot of
Speaker 2: fear that when you vaccinated your kid with an HPV vaccine,
Speaker 2: they were going to run right out and start having
Speaker 2: receptive anal sex because now they were protected. They're going
Speaker 2: to have intercourse or you have oral sex starting at
Speaker 2: age nine because you just gave them this license to
Speaker 2: go have sex because you vaccinated him against HPV. And
Speaker 2: that was the one that the most vocal opponents sounded
Speaker 2: the alarm about. But it turns out from studies follow
Speaker 2: up studies about hesitation of HPV vaccine hesitancy among parents
Speaker 2: that's almost like not even on the charts, Like very
Speaker 2: few parents are actually worried about that. They're more worried
Speaker 2: about things like whether it's safe, or they think that
Speaker 2: their kid actually doesn't need it because my kid's ugly.
Speaker 2: Like there's a whole other cadre of reasons, and that
Speaker 2: one apparently didn't pan out, and studies that looked at
Speaker 2: it that possibility, found that girls who had been given
Speaker 2: the HPV vaccine preteen, compared to girls from the same cohort,
Speaker 2: had no more incidences of seeking birth control, of pregnancies,
Speaker 2: or of any other things that indicated they had more
Speaker 2: sex than the girls who weren't vaccinated with the HPV vaccine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I bet one reason is because parents probably
Speaker 1: didn't say, all right, you're going to the doctor and
Speaker 1: you're getting this vaccine, and you know what that means.
Speaker 1: So the other one of the other things that popped
Speaker 1: up was the idea that whether or not you need
Speaker 1: to vaccinate boys. In twenty eleven, that was a story
Speaker 1: in the New York Times that basically kind of suggested
Speaker 1: that the biggest benefit for male vaccination was either protecting
Speaker 1: female partners, because well, it was protecting female partners because
Speaker 1: the only way to if you're going to get it
Speaker 1: as a man or a boy, is to have, like
Speaker 1: you said, had that receptive anal sex. And so we've
Speaker 1: learned since then that straight men are also at risk,
Speaker 1: especially for that oro fare andngeal cancer. So that was
Speaker 1: sort of I mean, I was about to say quickly quash,
Speaker 1: but also it wasn't because people got up in arms
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I mean they HPV sixteen causes seventy percent
Speaker 2: of oral cancers, right, So if you give a boy
Speaker 2: the vaccine against HPV sixteen, you're going to take a
Speaker 2: big bite out of that possibility of them developing oro
Speaker 2: fare and geal cancer later in life. It just makes sense.
Speaker 2: So it does make sense for boys and girls to
Speaker 2: both get the vaccine. And yet there's thanks to the
Speaker 2: anti vaxx movement, thanks to Rick Perry and his merctise,
Speaker 2: thanks to that study that linked autism with vaccines, they're
Speaker 2: still today just a lot of hesitancy in mandating HPV
Speaker 2: as part of a required vaccine schedule among boys and
Speaker 2: girls in America. I think Delaware, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Virginia,
Speaker 2: and DC are the only ones that require vaccines for students.
Speaker 2: They require it for boys and girls. But even with
Speaker 2: that hesitancy among states, among individuals, the cases of cervical
Speaker 2: cancer and death from cervical cancer have fallen dramatically since
Speaker 2: two thousand and six when we started vaccinating kids against HPV.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's the one takeaway is that this
Speaker 1: is a vaccine that really seems to work. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a study in twenty twenty one that found that among
Speaker 1: women who had been vaccinated between twelve and thirteen, there
Speaker 1: were eighty seven percent fewer cases of cervical cancer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's nuts. And Johns Hopkins came up with a
Speaker 2: model that said that because of vaccination rates among men,
Speaker 2: there should be one thousand fewer cases of oro a
Speaker 2: fare and geal cancer by twenty forty five. You might
Speaker 2: be like, that's it, that doesn't seem like that much. Well,
Speaker 2: the reason why is because only twenty to thirty percent
Speaker 2: of boys age thirteen to seventeen are getting that vaccine.
Speaker 2: If you increase that percentage to like what girls are getting,
Speaker 2: which is more like the sixty to seventy percent range,
Speaker 2: it would take an even bigger bite out of or
Speaker 2: a fair geal cancer in the future, because those kids
Speaker 2: will eventually ate and if they got the vaccine, they
Speaker 2: won't have contracted that strain of HPV.
Speaker 1: That's right. How many people are getting this vaccine more
Speaker 1: and more. In twenty twenty two, fifty fifty seven percent
Speaker 1: of kids between the ages of fifteen and seventeen had
Speaker 1: it gotten at least one dose. If you are from
Speaker 1: a family that has parents that are college educated and
Speaker 1: maybe a little more money, you're more likely to be
Speaker 1: vaccinated against it, statistics show, and you know, public public
Speaker 1: education is one of the big reasons that people are
Speaker 1: more aware of it and more inclined to get it.
Speaker 2: Yep, So I guess that's it, Chuck.
Speaker 1: HPV.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you want to know more about HPV, there's
Speaker 2: a lot to go read out there and educate yourself on.
Speaker 2: Same with the HPV vaccines that are available. You should
Speaker 2: probably read up on anything like that first, but make
Speaker 2: sure that you are getting your info from trusted so horses.
Speaker 2: And since I said that, of course it's time for
Speaker 2: listener mail.
Speaker 1: This is good because it ties into an episode on
Speaker 1: whistling and something we both love, which is whistling the scorpions.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I love this one.
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, listening to the show about whistling and got
Speaker 1: to the part of the episode about popular songs and
Speaker 1: as I hoped you guys, did mention the classic wind
Speaker 1: of Change by scorpions. Side note, he says it's just scorpions,
Speaker 1: not the Oh sorry, I didn't know that. Kind of
Speaker 1: like eagles and Indigo girls.
Speaker 2: And Edie brickl and New Bohemians.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And Edie Brikel and New Bohemians. Yeah that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what you said. Yeah yeah, brand New Bohemians.
Speaker 2: And brand New Heavies.
Speaker 1: That's right. Oh god, I used to love.
Speaker 2: That band and New Pornographers.
Speaker 1: Oh well, you know I still love them.
Speaker 2: Who else? Jethro Tull?
Speaker 1: Okay, I look Jet Throw Toll too. Oh god, he
Speaker 1: whistled through his flute. However, guys, I was at half
Speaker 1: expecting one of you to mention this crazy fact, and
Speaker 1: you passed over it. Just state it briefly. There exists
Speaker 1: a conspiracy theory that the song Wind of Change was
Speaker 1: written or partially written by the CIA as a mode
Speaker 1: of propaganda to help bring an end to the Cold War.
Speaker 1: I'd never heard this ad.
Speaker 2: You no, but it really rang true because I remember
Speaker 2: when the song came out and what the sentiments were.
Speaker 1: Like, Oh sure, down to God, keep back. The song
Speaker 1: was written and released just months before the Berlin Wall
Speaker 1: was brought down and became hugely popular throughout the Soviet
Speaker 1: Union at the time. A political leaning song was very
Speaker 1: out of character for Scorpions. I just can't say it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that just picture a bunch of Scorpions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't quite sit right. It's not like Jetro Toll.
Speaker 1: No, very out of character for thus Scorpions, and the
Speaker 1: band claims that the song was written by lead singer
Speaker 1: Klaus Meinik, who typically never wrote music for the group.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that either, their manager, Doc McGee. Somehow
Speaker 1: weaseled out of a large drug case with a mysterious
Speaker 1: deal from the US government. The Scorpions claim the song
Speaker 1: was inspired during a rock festival called the Moscow Music
Speaker 1: Peace Festival, where the bands were surrounded by CIA and
Speaker 1: KGB handlers. The interesting wrinkles go on from there. Probably
Speaker 1: not doing it justice, but highly recommend the podcast Wind
Speaker 1: of Change by Patrick Raiden Keith, which chases down a
Speaker 1: number of these connections and threads. If nothing else, it's
Speaker 1: a pretty amusing story about the eighties hairband. They were
Speaker 1: more than a hairband.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were political hairband.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's right. I hope this email finds you guys
Speaker 1: well have been a huge fan for years. I'm glad
Speaker 1: I could share this with you. That is Jimmy from Spokane,
Speaker 1: Washington and Jimmy, I want to just follow up and
Speaker 1: Josh with a recommendation of my own. If you're a
Speaker 1: fan of Scorpions, I recommend that you go look immediately
Speaker 1: at the video for the song from nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 1: sales of.
Speaker 2: Charon Charon like the river Sticks Boatkeeper.
Speaker 1: Yeah, char On sales of char On ha Ron. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you only know the Scorpions from like the early eighties,
Speaker 1: then check out this gym from nineteen seventy eight because
Speaker 1: it's awesome.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, we've got a couple of minutes left
Speaker 2: before we hit forty five, so I am going to
Speaker 2: tell you about a movie that I watched last night
Speaker 2: from nineteen seventy nine called Tourist Trap.
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen Jack? I don't think so.
Speaker 2: It is the definition of camp without intentionally being camp,
Speaker 2: without being annoying camp. It's one of the best schlocky
Speaker 2: late seventies horror movies I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 2: It is really good, all right, what you're in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy seventy nine. You can stream it online somewhere looking
Speaker 2: at it, and if you have to pay for it,
Speaker 2: please watch it. It's it's a really good one. It's
Speaker 2: like a highly watchable, enjoyable movie. And there's some surprising
Speaker 2: little like directorial like bits in there that you're like, well,
Speaker 2: it seems sophisticated for this.
Speaker 1: Movie, Tany Roberts and Chuck Connors, aren't it. That's enough
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 2: That's all you need right there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ninety minutes also perfect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so go forth look up sales of Charun video
Speaker 2: by Scorpions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you need to watch that one. You're you're gonna
Speaker 1: love it.
Speaker 2: I still need to watch your whistling video that you
Speaker 2: send me.
Speaker 1: Watch that.
Speaker 2: I know, I feel like a jerk. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: All right, you got you got work to do.
Speaker 2: I do well. I'll well while I do that. Uh,
Speaker 2: you guys, go out and send us a listener mail.
Speaker 2: You can send it off to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio
Speaker 2: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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