Please Tell Someone

There’s a new advertising campaign out called ‘Tell Someone’ which aims to spread awareness about HPV (Human PapillomaVirus) causing cervical cancer in women. My husband and I were sitting in bed one night watching TV when the ad came on --I had seen it before but it was his first time seeing it and of course he rolled his eyes as he does at most pharmaceutical advertising, most advertising actually. He loooves critiquing ads and is wonderfully expressive about it much to my amusement and entertainment. Anyway his eyeroll towards the HPV ad had me all in a frenzy (meaning I raised my head from the pillow and objected-hey it was almost one in the morning!) I pointed out that at least someone (yes it’s a lovely Pharma company looking to market the new HPV vaccine) is making an effort to spread awareness on this problem. See HPV is close to my heart…I have a friend who like most other Indian girls never had a pap smear in her life and when she came to the US and decided to finally visit the Obgyn as is standard here for a 21 year-old women, she discovered to her horror that she not only had HPV but that nasty little virus had wreaked havoc in her cervix turning cells pre-cancerous. Imagine finding that out at your first pap smear ever!
The scary part is had she not been in the US she would have never even got that pap and God knows what would have happened…it might have been too late. HPV is evil. Condoms don’t prevent it…nothing really does and an alarming number of people have it. The virus can be dormant and harmless in most people while in others the virus is a monster strain ready to cause trouble. But there is no way of knowing you have HPV unless you get a Pap smear or HPV test! Even men contract (dont you hate that word?) HPV by the way but it usually doesn’t do much harm at all -other than sometimes causing warts (ew) but worse than ew is the life threatening condition HPV causes in women. So ladies…please DO tell someone.
I want to tell someone to tell someone in India. I'm afraid of an impending cervical cancer epidemic there anytime between now and the next 10 years. My fear is all these sexually active kids in a country where cultural norms and stigmas mean that young girls aren’t looking after their sexual health. If you aren’t married you are presumed to be a virgin and why do virgins need to go to an Obgyn and get a pap smear test anyway? There’s your problem…lots of young women with HPV with no idea they even have it. Can someone please start an awareness campaign in India? I’m afraid we may be a while away from doing that. The sad truth is that even though over 20 million Americans have HPV an awareness campaign comes out only now because a company needs to sell something. Better late than never I say but India will have to wait. I hope this drug company takes the drug to our shores…unfortunately the cultural barriers will not go away and I can hardly see young women lining up to get a pap test. In the meanwhile if someone you know you think may be at risk, please tell them what you now know. Something must be done before its too late.