As a parent, you cannot control when your child becomes sexually active and potentially exposed to HPV (at which point vaccination is less effective based on HPV strain). Therefore, it behooves you to protect them with a vaccine before potential exposure, as the vaccine risk is very low, based on all available data. I cannot imagine what it would feel like to face your child who experiences cancer that could’ve been prevented with a vaccine a parent chooses to delay or even skip. Luckily, this conversation and pain is easily avoided.

I completely understand there are some parents who will ignore this idea out of ideology or other non data and risk driven mental models, but am confident this cohort continues to shrink generation over generation. The cost of this will be cancer incidents that could’ve been avoided, but humans will human, so it is what it is. “Better luck next generational cohort.”

(day job is risk management, I get paid to assess and quantify risk, this is just another risk exposure to quantify and manage; my kids get all of their vaccines as soon as they’re eligible for them, no hesitation, no regrets)