[HN Gopher] Antiviral chewing gum to reduce influenza and herpes...
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Antiviral chewing gum to reduce influenza and herpes simplex virus
transmission
Author : gnabgib
Score : 61 points
Date : 2025-04-09 19:09 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (penntoday.upenn.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (penntoday.upenn.edu)
| sitkack wrote:
| PSA, everyone should be getting the HPV vaccine, regardless of
| age and gender.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HPV_vaccine
|
| https://www.mdanderson.org/publications/focused-on-health/wh...
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/hpv/oropharyngeal-cancer.html
| foenix wrote:
| Seconded!
|
| And I say this as a man who thought I didn't need it because I
| can't get cervical cancer. But it turns out oropharyngeal
| cancer might be just as preventable with the HPV vaccine.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Annoyed at how the guidance has changed on this over the years.
| At first it was just a narrow slice of 20 something women. Then
| girl teenagers. Then men and women under 30. Then under 40.
|
| If it has an association with preventing cancers, not sure why
| they were so reluctant to immediately open up the patient pool.
| razepan wrote:
| This is how science works. Our understanding of a
| medication's efficacy evolves over time.
| woleium wrote:
| also availability.
|
| i recall the most effective way to distribute the covid
| vaccine would have been concentric circles from a central
| point. Obviously that was never going to happen.
| thrill wrote:
| US citizens used to value the adults managing such science
| oriented endeavors actually doing their homework before
| making broad proclamations of efficacy. Lately, not so much.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > If it has an association with preventing cancers, not sure
| why they were so reluctant to immediately open up the patient
| pool.
|
| Because approval involves evaluating a risk-benefit tradeoff,
| and the benefits for those groups are wildly different, as
| are the risk profiles, due to the way HPV strains[0] work. If
| they tested against a wide and heterogenous population from
| the start, it would risk demonstrating insufficient effect,
| which would eliminate the possibility of the vaccine for
| everyone. Instead, by testing against the group most likely
| to benefit from it (women, and specifically women of the age
| to have no prior exposure to HPV) they can see whether the
| vaccine has any potential at all, and expand from there.
|
| As it turns out, the vaccine was incredibly effective for
| them, and as we studied it further, it turned out that other
| groups which had potentially lower benefits (men, older
| women) or higher potential risks (teenage girls) had a risk-
| benefit tradeoff that still overwhelmingly supported approval
| for those groups.
|
| [0] yes, plural, because there are hundrends, and the
| vaccines (again, plural, because there are more than one)
| protect against a handful of them (although that fortunately
| includes the strains that account for 80-90% of HPV-caused
| cancers
| hermannj314 wrote:
| I am not sure why all the replies are indicating you are
| anti-science or anti-vax.
|
| It is annoying to be told something from your doctor,
| internalize it, have your doctor suggest flu and covid
| vaccine for years but never HPV, and then be told on
| HackerNews "you should have the HPV" and now I am supposed to
| tell my doctor I can do his job better than him because I
| read something on the internet even though most doctors
| specifically grimace when you do that?
|
| I think their Epic Health computer system that needs me to
| confirm my date of birth every 6 weeks can find some time to
| suggest the HPV vaccine if it is so damn medically necessary.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > I think their Epic Health computer system that needs me
| to confirm my date of birth every 6 weeks can find some
| time to suggest the HPV vaccine if it is so damn medically
| necessary.
|
| You're assuming that the purpose of the EHR (Epic) is to
| implement public health recommendations or to establish
| minimum standards of care. That's a reasonable assumption
| for someone who doesn't work in the field, but
| unfortunately it's incorrect: neither of those are top-
| level goals for EHRs.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| What are? Let me make a cynical guess:
|
| 1. Reducing costs by hiring fewer people.
|
| 2. Increasing profits by decreasing care.
|
| Did I nail it or what?
| hermannj314 wrote:
| The one computer system that has all my lab results,
| knows every doctor I have ever visited and has every
| summary of every medical visit I have had in the last 5
| years doesn't want to use the data it is storing to
| suggest a follow-up?
|
| That sounds like a quid pro quo with some trigger shy
| lawyers. I can't possibly imagine the long game for Epic
| is to never use that. It is a shame people are dying of
| HPV caused cancers because Epic can't use the data it
| has. Sad. Probably why American medical outcomes are so
| poor.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Medical ethics focus on the benefit to a specific individual
| - your patient.
|
| This defuses the "Should I kill one to save ten?" moral
| dilemma - the individual is your patient, even if the other
| ten are also your patients, you must not harm the one. But
| for vaccines it also means that the wider societal
| implications are _not ethically relevant_
|
| So, medics won't recommend that you give patient A an
| intervention which is of no benefit to A but is really
| helpful for everybody else. For example, that you vaccinate
| teenage boys in the expectation that this way they won't
| infect teenage girls (with whom statistically many of them
| will have sex) with an STI that harms those girls.
|
| As a result, the guidance cared about proven benefits to
| _you_ even though taken neutrally you might have been
| enthusiastic about a vaccine that might or might not protect
| you but is definitely a good idea for the wider population.
| The initial studies understandably focused on the numerically
| larger problem: If we vaccine young female patients does that
| prevent relevant HPV infections, and then, as a proxy we
| might assume they also won 't get cancer. Such studies can't
| tell you whether it prevents men getting cancer because that
| wasn't measured.
|
| So the recommendation to vaccinate boys was delayed because
| first somebody has to study what might seem obvious - does
| the vaccine also prevent HPV related cancers in males? It is,
| after all, possible that some subtle mechanism means the
| vaccine isn't effective for this purpose, and it would not be
| ethical to give schools full of boys a vaccine that they
| personally do not benefit from having - even if societally
| maybe that's a good choice.
|
| Beyond the female/ male differential, for adults and older,
| it's basically a stats game. Most adults have sex. Having sex
| means you're likely to contract HPV, more sex, more exposure.
| Is it worth getting vaccinated when there's a 50% chance it's
| useless? How about 95%? 99.5%? Do you always wait for the
| crossing lights? Did you ever drink beer or eat bacon ?
| hgomersall wrote:
| Is the vaccine still useful post infection?
| mv wrote:
| yes. many different strains and even if your body clears
| infection with one doesn't protect against other strains
| basisword wrote:
| I know very little about this so excuse me if this is a stupid
| question. In my country all teenage girls have been getting the
| vaccine for at least the last 15-20 years. Therefore all of the
| women I'm likely to sleep with are vaccinated. Does it still
| make sense as a man to get it?
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| I guess I am a weirdo, but vaccines are the closest thing we
| have to space magic. Generally, they are very safe and
| prevent some of the most devastating diseases. All for the
| most minor discomfort. I want everything I can get, even if I
| am unlikely to be exposed to the real infectious agent.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Same. And while the shingles vaccine isn't fun, I've known
| enough people who described their bouts with shingles as
| "nearly suicide inducing" that I'll take a temporary minor
| discomfort that prevents me from ever having to deal with
| it.
| kstrauser wrote:
| "All". Even if that's true, some time you might travel and be
| around women who aren't vaccinated, and you get an infection
| with something bearing the lovely name "genital warts". It
| has the long-term complications of "cancer of the cervix,
| vulva, vagina, penis, anus, mouth, tonsils, or throat". And
| you can give it to any other women you get with for the next
| few years, potentially giving them any of those relevant
| cancers.
|
| So yes. It absolutely makes sense for a man to get it. For
| selfish reasons, you probably don't want penis cancer. For
| non-selfish ones, you don't want give other partners cervical
| cancer.
| bawolff wrote:
| Vaccines aren't 100% effective.
|
| I'm not sure what the effectiveness of the hpv vaccine is,
| but if it was 95% effective (totally made up number, i dont
| know what the real one is), then there is a 1 in 20 chance it
| wont work for someone. If both of you have the vaccine then
| the chance of both failing would go down to 1 in 400.
|
| That seems worthwhile to me, given there is basically no
| downside.
|
| (I guess this doesn't account for the affects of herd
| immunity)
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| What if I'm monogamous?
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| That's what I'm wondering as well. I've been monogamous for a
| decade and a half now. If that changes I'll get the vaccine,
| but right now if either of us had it we both do.
| apt-apt-apt-apt wrote:
| Even if you are, your partner may not be. Or, god forbid, you
| could be sexually assaulted. Low, but non-zero chances.
| pitpatagain wrote:
| Obviously then your risks are lower, but even then not zero.
| A dear friend of mine went through stage 4 HPV related cancer
| after a long "monogamous" marriage. It turned out that it
| wasn't actually monogamous on the part of her (now ex)
| husband.
|
| It's excessive to say literally everyone should get the
| vaccine: if you are especially low risk and don't want to
| bother, sure. But it's a very easy, safe vaccine. Most people
| engaging in some average amount of life-time serial monogamy
| (or with a partner who engaged in serial monogamy) would be
| better off just getting the vaccine than spending any mental
| energy on trying to figure out exactly the degree to which
| they need it.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| The CDC is still not recommending the vaccine for people over
| 45.
| robotnikman wrote:
| I've thought about getting one myself, since I identify as a
| gay man. Though last I checked it was not covered by my
| insurance...
| arcmechanica wrote:
| https://www.goodrx.com/gardasil-9
| unavoidable wrote:
| While this advice is good, the article is discussing HSV
| (herpes simplex virus), not HPV (human papilloma virus), which
| have quite different symptoms and epidemiology. There are, as
| yet, no approved HSV vaccines.
| offmycloud wrote:
| > PSA, everyone should be getting the HPV vaccine, regardless
| of age and gender.
|
| This is false, please don't take medical advice from an HN
| post. CDC guidelines do include quite a bit of discussion of
| patient age. [1]
|
| 1.
| https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/hpv/hcp/recommendations.htm...
| colechristensen wrote:
| Either the vaccine has notable safety issues or it should be
| at least fine to get the vaccine at an older age.
|
| The reason many people don't trust the CDC's advice is they
| don't really tell you why or why not.
|
| If you're over 26 you're pretty likely to already be exposed
| to HPV but not necessarily every strain which would be
| protected by the vaccine (as it says in the article).
|
| So this pushes the question: why shouldn't I get it even if
| there's only a small chance it will be beneficial at my age?
| Is there really a risk they're not telling me about or are
| they giving bullshit answers? There isn't a third direction.
| odyssey7 wrote:
| The CDC is just a government organization. Don't put too much
| stock in appeals to authority.
| Rendello wrote:
| I decided to get it and saw it listed as $160 per dose on the
| health provider's website. I decided to bite the bullet and get
| it. When I got the prescription filled at the pharmacy, it was
| $265 for the first round of three. I want the next two but it's
| crazy to think I'd be paying like $800 (Canada).
| frankus wrote:
| Any idea why they used a dog (or werewolf?) mouth model in the
| video?
| gnabgib wrote:
| > The ART-5 is a mastication simulator that mimics human
| chewing motions, adapts to food texture changes, and provides
| immediate, reproducible computerized feedback. FRIL release
| studies in the chewing simulator used PEB buffer that includes
| protease inhibitors and not human saliva.
|
| It seems to just be a single line of each type of tooth.. but
| it does look dog like in profile.
|
| https://www.cell.com/cms/10.1016/j.ymthe.2024.12.008/asset/b...
| sys32768 wrote:
| I never got the HPV vaccine and am now too old. Recently I had a
| papilloma removed from my soft palate near my uvula. They checked
| it for cancer but not HPV, even though they said it was almost
| certainly HPV.
|
| So for $129 I took the OraRisk HPV test which tests for 51
| strains, including the ones associated with cancer, and the
| results came up negative.
|
| So I maybe sort of probably don't have HPV, or may have but don't
| anymore. Or maybe something like that.
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