“Your son has a uterus?” Maybe I’ll get the doctor to check my daughter’s prostate then. This is one of the reflections that Aria, a Parisian quadra, encountered when she had her 13-year-old son vaccinated once morest human papillomavirus (HPV). It was in 2019. The High Authority for Health (HAS) had just recommended extending this vaccination to boys aged 11 to 14 (with a catch-up up to 19 years old), long before Emmanuel Macron announced, the February 28, the establishment of a free vaccination campaign « generalized » in colleges, from the start of the school year in September 2023.
This time, all volunteer students are targeted, from the 5th grade. Some precursor parents have already had their boys vaccinated. They tell us how their initiative was not always understood, and sometimes even mocked.
VIDEO. Papillomavirus: Macron announces a “generalized” vaccination campaign in college
In France, since 2007, young girls, immunocompromised people of both sexes and men who have sex with men were the only ones invited to get vaccinated. “I think I was one of the first, in my GP’s office, to take this step for my boy. He had also greeted her, ”recalls Aria.
Only 9% of boys are vaccinated in France
At the time, the vaccine was not reimbursed for teenagers, only for teenagers (and this, until January 1, 2021). “Yes, I had to pay out of pocket to protect my son. From memory, I had for more than 100 euros. Not everyone can afford it. In a way, this girl-boy distinction fueled the idea that they were less concerned, if at all”, analyzes Odile, mother of a 17-year-old boy, vaccinated in 2020, and a girl. 14 years old, also protected once morest HPV.
Pioneers, Aria and Odile are still today, since the vaccination coverage rate remains very low in France, with 37% for girls and… 9% for boys. In 2020, in Europe, it exceeded 75% in 11 countries including Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. Australia is also a model with 67% of adolescent boys and 78% of adolescent girls aged 15 having received all three doses for full vaccination.
While the vaccine is best known for preventing cervical cancer in women, it also protects once morest anal or throat cancer. Two last categories that affect men more frequently. In total, a quarter of cancers caused by HPV (6,000 new cases per year) concern men.
Extremely contagious, they pass through skin-to-skin contact during sex, even without penetration. “I come from Canada, where it has long been known that this is a mixed public health problem. This is why I did not understand the very borderline remarks, tinged with ignorance, that I suffered here, ”Aria is still surprised.
“A mom once told me that the vaccine was exclusively for gay men”
Mélanie, a midwife in Vitry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne), also took the initiative in 2019 to have her son, 12 years old at the time, vaccinated. “I didn’t even ask myself the question. I know what it’s like to see a loved one pass away with cervical cancer. It was unthinkable that my son might transmit this crap or that he himself was a victim of one of the many papillomaviruses, ”slices the mother.
At the end of January, Arthur Sadoun, boss of Publicis, also revealed that he had suffered from throat cancer linked to a papillomavirus and appealed to large companies to “break the taboo of cancer at work”.
As a healthcare professional, Mélanie does not hesitate to promote the initiative to other parents. “Many do not understand that the vaccine is even more effective if it is received before the first sexual experiences,” she warns. However, she acknowledges that success is mixed, especially when parents have boys. “I often had reactions of the type it’s up to the girls to get vaccinated “, even today,” laments the midwife.
She also remembers with bewilderment certain stigmatizing remarks from both mothers and fathers. “A mother once told me that the vaccine was exclusively for gay men: Do you already know your son is going to be gay? “I was flabbergasted when she threw that at me,” recalls Mélanie, still amazed. My job is also to explain, but sometimes it’s complicated not to get angry in the face of so much prejudice. »
