Girl Getting Vaccinated
The HPV vaccine is a revolutionary vaccine that can prevent women from suffering cervical cancer but there was speculation about whether girls would become promiscuous after having the shot.
Parents expressed concerns that having the shot would give girls a ‘license to have sex’ but a new study has shown that is not the case.
In the first study that compared vaccinated girls against unvaccinated girls, results showed that the shot does not make girls promiscuous.
The study was conducted by both Kaiser Permanente and Emory University and the researchers chose not to ask the girls about having sex but looked at the ‘markers’ of sexual activity.
Those markers included girls going to sought birth control, having STI tests or pregnancy, or actually becoming pregnant.
The researchers studied over 1,400 girls medical records and of girls aged 11 to 12, very few had ever encountered any of the above over the three years, or by the time they were 14 or 15.
The study is the first to measure whether the HPV vaccine makes girls more promiscuous and lead author and researcher Robert Bednarczyk said the results are comforting and reassuring for parents.
In the study, at least 90 per cent of girls did not get pregnant or take a pregnancy or STI test.
Out of the girls surveyed, two from each group became pregnant, and one girl from the vaccinated group contracted chlamydia compared to three girls from the unvaccinated group.
The vaccine is recommended to be given to children before they become sexually active but there hopes to be a further study into the ages of 14 to 15 year old girls at a later date.
Cara Mason @FemaleFirst_UK
tagged in Pregnancy Sexually Transmitted Infection GIRLS