How vaccine marketing mischaracterized the risks of HPV
When it hit the market in 2006, the vaccine against human papillomavirus was marketed to parents of girls as a way to prevent cervical cancer. Merck’s TV commercials for Gardasil, at the time a series of three vaccines, featured young women proclaiming they wanted to be “One Less” victim. But for years the marketing ignored a population of people who could benefit from it: boys and men, particularly gay men, who are at risk of other preventable types of cancer that HPV can lead to.
Christopher Wheldon, assistant professor of social and behavioral sciences, has examined...