Story Created:
Mar 19, 2008 at 7:40 AM EDT
Story Updated:
Mar 19, 2008 at 9:11 AM EDT
An Indiana University study on the HPV vaccine and sexually transmitted diseases found most Indiana adults about three times as likely to oppose a mandatory vaccine for the HPV virus in teen girls if they also think it will encourage young people to have sex.
The survey results, released Tuesday, are based on the telephone interviews of more than 500 randomly selected Hoosiers in 2005, right before the FDA approved a vaccine for the common STD.
Conducted by the Rural Center on AIDS/STD Prevention at IU in Bloomington, the survey was designed to gauge public opinion on preventing the HPV virus in adolescents.
Among the other findings:
More than 35 percent of people in the study said they opposed a mandatory vaccine.
About a quarter supported a vaccine for both boys and girls, while the remainder were undecided.
People with educational levels above high school and white study participants were more likely to oppose the vaccinations.
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study on teen girls and STDs at a conference in Chicago.
The national study alarmed physicians and heightened concern about STDs in teens because at least one in four said they had been diagnosed with an STD. For girls who said they were sexually active, that number jumped to 40 percent.
And where HPV is concerned, a vaccine may stem the cause of four types of the STD that cause 70 percent of all cervical cancers and 90 percent of genital wart cases, researchers said.
But fears that prevention may promote sex and public attitudes about it have a strong effect on whether or not a mandatory HPV vaccine may become policy. Some states have proposed mandatory vaccines, but the issue has remained controversial in Indiana and elsewhere.
"Parents face a real dilemma," said William Yarber, senior director of the IU center, in a statement. "They want to protect their children, but they're fearful of the protective methods."
The study will be published this winter in the Health Education Monograph.
