All or nothing = nobody protected

I know that cervical cancer kills. But do you know that this year, approximately 23 women in the Philippines die every day from cervical cancer?

Another source, the ICO/ARC Centre on HPV and cancer data, has stated that there are 39.6 million Filipinas ages 15 years and older at risk. Of this number, 7,897 of them are diagnosed with cervical cancer and 4,052 or about 50 percent will or could die. Cervical cancer ranks as the second most common and frequent cancer among women 15 to 44 years of age.

But unlike cancer of the breast, lung or the brain, cervical cancer is primarily blamed on the HPV or Human Papilloma Virus. The question is, how do women get the virus?

I sat down with Dr. John Wong, an epidemiologist by training, a professor/lecturer at the Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health, head of the consultancy firm on public health Epimetrix which has assisted and consulted for the Department of Health, particularly at the height of the COVID pandemic.

My first big question was, “How do women get HPV?” That of course makes any doctor uneasy because the answer is: from sexual activity. In a society where we want virgin pure daughters and “sexually experienced” or binyagan sons, asking about the cause of HPV is like suspecting someone of having STD.

Sorry, but I won’t apologize for citing medical facts and science. Let’s all get over our judgmental presumptions of kids because mothers, wives and daughters are dying by the thousands, all because we won’t talk about the cause of cervical cancer and the “cure.”

So, girls, ladies and women get the HPV virus through sexual contact with teenage boys or men who are sexually active or have experience. You can be a lily-white virgin but if you marry a man who has had some experience, there is a chance he could be a carrier and infect you.

It also goes both ways, woman to man as well. One does not have to be a slut, or sexually promiscuous. You may have had a girlfriend or boyfriend in the past who was a carrier, and you get it. The only protection would be by using condoms or better yet, being vaccinated before you have sexual experience.

The problem is the puritans believe condoms and vaccines promote sex but never mention that non-use promotes infection, or death by disease!

The virus, like many other viruses, has been around for decades but we did not target it as the cause of cervical cancer. Men don’t know that HPV also causes mouth or throat cancer among men because the stats are lower. They also don’t talk about “warts” that is a sign of HPV infection.

Until we eliminate the virus around us and among us, asymptomatic men and women will simply be passing HPV around, and women will be suffering or dying from HPV-caused cervical cancer. This is where the struggle and the focus are now being applied.

Public health advocates such as Dr. John Wong has dedicated part of his time conducting trainings and stakeholder consultation workshops among health care providers, practitioners, the media and private companies such as Merck Sharp and Dohme to redefine the conversation about HPV.

Instead of becoming a negative magnet for moral arguments and debates, let’s deal with the facts and look at the vaccine as an anti-cervical cancer vaccine. Here is my personal take on the matter:

HPV is killing Filipinas through cervical cancer. HPV can be prevented through vaccination. Therefore, I support promoting the use of anti-cervical cancer vaccine in schools and communities and drop all the talk about possible sexual promiscuity. Cancer is amoral and cancer kills. Vaccination protects women from cervical cancer.

The reality is that government and legislators as well as public health executives have lived with the “all or nothing” attitude that if there is no money for a total solution, let us not talk about the problem. Tragically, they don’t study the economic cost and disaster for treatment or terminal care for cervical cancer patients.

“Prevention is better than cure” and saves us a lot of money and misery! Any cancer survivor will tell you that the lowest cost for treatment and care is P200,000 in public hospitals to P5 million in private hospitals, depending on the kind of cancer. The vaccine costs approximately P4,000 per child.

Dr. John Wong estimates that the government budget for HPV vaccines is only enough to cover all the nine-year-old girls in the country and only 10 percent of all girls aged 9 to 14 are vaccinated. Once they all graduate high school and pass the 18- to 21-year age, they can no longer be vaccinated and protected from HPV unless they are lily-white virgins and don’t test positive.

Right now, there is a self-test kit for HPV available in the United States and Canada that is generally used as an alternative to the traditional PAP smear. I couldn’t get an average but the prices that kept popping up were between US$30 to Can$99.

All this info is only good for girls living in Metro Manila or urban centers, where their economic status and the existing supply chains work. But for young Filipinas in the provinces and remote areas, they can only dream and pray that their mayor is a woman who has experienced cervical cancer in the family.

Maybe then they will invest in getting the vaccine, the required storage equipment and educating people so that our mothers, wives, sisters or daughters don’t have to suffer cervical cancer. Lastly, an HPV vaccination can be a learning/teaching opportunity for young girls about chastity, purity and self-care. Teach them, don’t expose them.

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