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FDA Expands Gardasil 9 Use in Adolescents

On October 7 the Food and Drug Administration approved an updated license for Gardasil 9 to include a 2-dose regimen for adolescents aged 9 to 14 years. The Gardasil nine-valent vaccine was approved in 2014. In addition to HPV types 6, 11, 16, and 18, Gardasil 9 protects against HPV types 31, 33, 45, 52, and 58, which account for about 15% of cervical cancers. On August 26 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report on National, Regional, State, and Selected Local Area Vaccination Coverage Among Adolescents Aged 13-17 Years - United States, 2015.That report indicated that, nationwide,  6 out of 10 girls and 5 out of 10 boys have started the HPV three-dose vaccine series. 

By reducing approved the Gardasil 9 dosage to two doses from three, it is expected that HPV vaccine adherence rates will increase.The three-dose regimen has been widely perceived as a barrier to full inoculation due to its inconvenience. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices ( ACIP ) develops recommendations on how to use vaccines to control disease in the United States.That body will need to make a recommendation regarding a change in the three-dose regimen to a two-does regimen, which will then be sent to  CDC's Director for approval.Once an ACIP recommendation has been reviewed and approved by the CDC Director and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, it is published in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). The MMWR publication represents the final and official CDC recommendations for immunization of the U.S. population.

PMY Staff Report, October 16, 2016

In conjunction with the 2016 Mental Health Awareness Week, researchers at the University of Wollongong (UOW) are calling on local sporting clubs to get involved with a new project targeting adolescent males, a group at high risk of mental health problems. The Ahead of the Game program is targeted at adolescent males who participate in sports and includes coach training workshops, programs for adolescent males and programs for their parents. As part of the program, researchers will be undertaking a study to better understand how Ahead of the Game can help local clubs to improve mental health knowledge and how to prevent or reduce the impact of mental health problems in adolescent males. Ahead of the Game lead researcher Dr Stewart Vella from UOW's Early Start Research Institute (ESRI) said the program uses organised sport as a way to reach adolescent males, who are naturally at high risk of mental health problems.

Health Canal, October 14, 2016

Children who experience the loss of a father or mother early in life are more likely to smoke and drink before they hit their teens, a new study of English families found. This association between parental absence and risky behavior in childhood occurred no matter whether the cause was death, separation or divorce. The overwhelming majority of preteens said they had not smoked. However, 11-year-old boys were more likely than girls to have tried cigarettes: 3.6 percent versus 1.9 percent. Drinking was much more common among the 11-year-olds. Here again, the boys outnumbered the girls, with one in seven boys reporting that they'd tried alcohol, compared with one in 10 of the girls. Of the preteens who tried drinking, nearly twice as many boys (12 percent) said they'd had enough to feel drunk, compared with slightly less than 7 percent of the girls.

CNN, October 13, 2016

Roswell Park study based on surveys of parents and physicians highlights barriers, opportunities in HPV education`

Currently, human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination rates remain low across the U.S., with fewer than 40% of girls and just over 21% of boys receiving the recommended vaccine series. Research from Roswell Park Cancer Institute has identified barriers that need to be overcome to improve vaccination rates, as well as possible strategies for doing so. The study has been published online ahead of print in the Journal of Cancer Education. "Many HPV-related cancers are preventable with the HPV vaccine (Gardasil9®) which is a safe and effective vaccine," says senior author Martin Mahoney, MD, PhD, Professor of Oncology in the Department of Medicine at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. "This research offers practical strategies to help parents and clinicians to overcome barriers in order to increase HPV vaccination rates, which is a real opportunity to prevent thousands of cases of cancer." "This research is novel in that it assesses the views of both parents and clinicians in the same community at the same time," adds first author Christy Widman, Community Outreach Manager in the Department of Cancer Prevention and Control at Roswell Park. "What we found most striking was the need for education about the HPV vaccine among both parents and clinicians. School-based programming and general media campaigns also emerged as promising avenues for future educational efforts."

Newswise, October 12, 2016

Vaccination rates against human papillomavirus (HPV) among US teens remain stubbornly lower than those of tetanus toxoid, reduced diphtheria toxoid, and acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccine and quadrivalent meningococcal conjugate vaccine (MenACWY), according to a recent CDC report. Data from a 2015 national survey of more than 22,000 teens aged 13 to 17 years showed that overall, coverage with at least 1 dose of HPV vaccine was 56.1% and 45.4% with 2 or more doses; coverage with the full 3-dose series was 34.9%. In comparison, coverage with 1 or more doses of Tdap was 86.4%, and coverage was 81.3% with at least 1 dose of MenACWY. All 3 vaccines are routinely recommended at age 11 to 12 years.

JAMA, October 11, 2016

The rise in incidence of oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma in the United Kingdom from 2002 to 2011 was not solely attributable to a rise in incidence of human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive disease because the proportion of HPV-positive and -negative cases remained the same throughout that period, according to a study published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. Oropharyngeal cancer is a type of head and neck cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) is the most common form of oropharyngeal cancer. It includes cancers arising in the tonsil, base of the tongue, soft palate, and the side and back walls of the throat. "We were surprised to find that while the overall incidence of OPSCC in the U.K. rose year on year as anticipated, the proportion attributable to HPV remained static, meaning that not only is HPV-positive OPSCC increasing in incidence, but that HPV-negative OPSCC disease incidence is rising in parallel," continued Jones. "This is different to trends reported elsewhere in the developed world, which illustrates that we cannot generalize the causes underlying the rise in OPSCC incidence between populations; they must be analyzed in a population-specific manner."

Medical Express, October 11, 2016

Most boys from deprived backgrounds in England will be overweight by 2020 while better-off boys grow slimmer, says study

Childhood obesity is set to increase so sharply among boys from poorer homes in England that three in five of them will be dangerously overweight by 2020, research shows. But the number of well-off boys who are overweight or obese is expected to fall to one in six in that time, underlining that obesity's already stark class divide will widen even further. Doctors and health campaigners urged ministers to take tough action to reduce the number of children and young people who are becoming very heavy, including restricting advertisements on television for junk food before the 9pm watershed and taxing unhealthy foodstuffs.

Guardian, October 10, 2016

New Resource

AUDIO ABSTRACT: Impact and Effectiveness of the Quadrivalent Human Papillomavirus Vaccine: A Systematic Review of 10 Years of Real-world Experience

Susan J. Wysocki, WHNP, FAANP

Medical Director, Partnership for Male Youth

ReachMD, Prova Education, October 11, 2016

Opinion

How to Be a Man in the Age of Trump

"The common wisdom, as research verifies, is that most men want sons. That's starting to shift. Some men, like me, fear becoming fathers to sons. At the website for the NPR radio show   "On Being,"  the writer Courtney E. Martin observes of many younger middle- and upper-middle-class fathers-to-be, "I've noticed a fascinating trend: They seem to disproportionately desire having a girl  instead of a boy." An informal Facebook survey she took yielded these results: "I wanted a girl mainly because I felt it was harder to be a boy in today's society. If I have a boy I will embrace the challenge of raising a boy...who can learn the power of vulnerability even as male culture tries to make him see it as weakness. But, frankly, I hope that when I have a second child, it'll be another girl.'" This was emblematic of a lot of the responses, which revealed that men felt more confident, or "better equipped," co-parenting "a strong, confident daughter."

Andrew Reiner, New York Times, October 14, 2016

Generation Adderall

Like many of my friends, I spent years using prescription stimulants to get through school and start my career. Then I tried to get off them

 

Adderall is prescribed to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, a neurobehavioral condition marked by inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity that was first included in the D.S.M. in 1987 and predominantly seen in children. That condition, which has also been called Attention Deficit Disorder, has been increasingly diagnosed over recent decades: In the 1990s, an estimated 3 to 5 percent of school-age American children were believed to have A.D.H.D., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; by 2013, that figure was 11 percent. It continues to rise. And the increase in diagnoses has been followed by an increase in prescriptions. In 1990, 600,000 children were on stimulants, usually Ritalin, an older medication that often had to be taken multiple times a day. By 2013, 3.5 million children were on stimulants, and in many cases, the Ritalin had been replaced by Adderall, officially brought to market in 1996 as the new, upgraded choice for A.D.H.D. - more effective, longer lasting.

We know very little about what Adderall does over years of use, in and out of college, throughout all the experiences that constitute early adulthood. To date, there is almost no research on the long-term effects on humans of using Adderall. In a sense, then, we are the walking experiment, those of us around my age who first got involved with this drug in high school or college when it was suddenly everywhere and then did not manage to get off it for years afterward - if we got off it at all. We are living out what it might mean, both psychologically and neurologically, to take a powerful drug we do not need over long stretches of time. Sometimes I think of us as Generation Adderall.

Casey Schwartz, New York Times, October 12, 2016

PMY Editor's Note: While there is controversy surrounding ADHD diagnoses, male adolescents have an ADHD diagnosis rate that is three times that of adolescent females.About two-thirds of those with a current diagnosis receive prescriptions for stimulants like Ritalin or Adderall, which can drastically improve the lives of those with ADHD but can also lead to addiction, anxiety and occasionally psychosis.  It is speculated that such widespread prescribing has led to unnecessary dependence and the use of them by friends and others for which they were not prescribed (source: www.ayamalehealth.org)

Remembrance

Young man wrote heartbreaking Facebook post about struggling with depression days before he died

 
Steven Goodwin's dad Paul is now urging men to talk to each other openly and seek help by opening it - and not just changing the subject to football or rugby

Mirror, UK, October 11, 2016

The Weekly News Roundup is produced by The Partnership for Male Youth and is released every Monday. 

For more information contact Dennis J. Barbour, JD. News Roundup editor and President/CEO of the Partnership, at [email protected].