Dec 24, 2025
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FILE - A doctor holds a vial of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil in Chicago on Aug. 28, 2006.…
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Obstetrician-gynecologist on vaccines
Dr. Jennifer Schuchmann
20 December 2025 at05.00
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Since I completed my OB/GYN residency training in 2017, the types of problems my patients bring have changed in ways that are hard to pin down.
One notable change is a decrease in the number of patients presenting with abnormal Pap test results, which is an important way for us to detect cervical cancer.Although this is just my own experience, it is consistent with what we are seeing across the country.
One of the most powerful tools for preventing cervical cancer is the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine.In the United States, the Gardasil 9 vaccine is the most used version.The vaccine protects against the strains of HPV that cause most oral cancers, including many types of cancers of the anus, vulva, penis, penis and throat.
The vaccine works best when the series starts early (around age 11 or 12), but in 2018 the FDA expanded its approval to include adults up to age 45, showing that it can still provide protection beyond the teenage years.
As a physician who cares about people's sexual and reproductive health across the lifespan, I cannot overstate how much public health and individual patients have to lose when vaccines become political targets.
The benefits of the HPV vaccine are clear.As more young people are vaccinated, fewer go down the road to cervical cancer.
The medicine Gardasil was approved by the Fd until 2006Standing from 20-25 years of age, the first part of the serval segment) is fully grown in the later part of the year.Medicine
These reactions are exactly what we would expect if a vaccine that blocks the causative virus works.Simply put, this vaccine saves lives by preventing cancer.
At the national level, the hostile stance of some federal leaders regarding vaccine requirements worries me as a physician.I fear that HPV vaccination may soon face the same politics as other vaccines, and with it, the significant progress we have made in reducing cervical cancer may be reversed.
We've already seen government leaders weaken the usual recommendations for the COVID-19 vaccine for healthy children and pregnant women.The CDC recently rolled back universal birth testing for Hepatitis B, leaving many young children unprotected.
The idea that we could go backwards, allowing preventable diseases to re-emerge because proven public health tools were politicized, should touch us all deeply.
Dr. Jennifer Schuchmann is a native Iowan practicing ob/gyn in Des Moines.
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