Why HPV vaccine is important

This article misses the point.

The thing about HPV, the thing that makes it different from all other STDs, is that a) you can't test for it when it's dormant, b) it can be spread while dormant, so you can carry and spread it without having ever experienced any symptoms, c) it can spread from skin-to-skin contact outside the areas covered by condoms, and d) it may or may not go away by itself, after a period of time that varies from person to person and in a process that medical science does not understand or know how to expedite.

So basically, unless you know the complete sexual history of every single person who has sex with every single person who has sex with every single person...[ad infinitum]...who has had sex with you, you have no way of knowing whether or not you've been exposed or whether or not you carry it.

AIDS you can test for. Herpes you can see if you've got an outbreak or not. But HPV you can't always tell. It's the biggest hole in our safety net. Oh yeah, and it causes cancer too. So something that will sew up I think it's 70% of this hole is significant.

Macleans magazine revved up the tone with a front-page story referring to our young girls as guinea pigs involved in a huge vaccination experiment to prevent a virus that a) most women are exposed to; and b) is easily cleared from a woman's system. Is this virus a problem? It's hard to say, but we know that the pap smear currently detects the early signs of cervical cancer so it's not clear how this vaccine would do much more.

Translation: "You're going to get it anyway, but it will probably go away by itself so don't worry your pretty little head about it. Besides, if you get a bunch of foreign objects stuck up your cunt on a regular basis, they'll probably be able to catch any cancer it causes before it kills you."

I dunno, personally I think not getting any STDs at all ever and not having to get my cervix scraped with a pointed stick every year are valid goals in and of themselves.