First up: a report in Nature Medicine on cancers caused by “modifiable risk factors”–as in cancers that could have been prevented by some change in behavior, environmental change, or some intervention. The global numbers are impressive: more than one third, 7.1 million of 18.7 million total cases of cancer, could possibly be prevented.
This is a kind of good news. High tech, cutting edge medicine is one front in the campaign against cancer. But a cancer that can be stopped before it begins is a hell of a lot easier to treat…and it turns out that there are a lot of them.
But flipping around such (genuinely plausible) optimism…That so many cancers world wide could be prevented leads directly to the question: why haven’t we?
Well, sometimes knowing about a risk isn’t enough to stop one from chancing it. Unsurprisingly, it was smoking that “emerged as the dominant risk factor,” with alcohol use adding its own tithe of misery. Most people know by now that smoking can kill you, but the hold that drug exerts on its addicts makes beating that death toll down a slow, hard process.
But what struck me most in the Nature report was the most pervasive avoidable risk for women: cervical cancer, over 66o,000 cases worldwide in 2022, 91% of them caused by infection by Human Papilloma Viruses (HPV).
As a world phenomenon, that burden of loss falls more on “low resource settings, particularly sub-Saharan Africa.”
Why “low resource”?
Because HPV infections that lead to cervical cancer are preventable, not perfectly so, but with high effectiveness…by a vaccine. In those parts of the world that lack robust public health and medical infrastructure, HPV vaccine coverage suffers.
So…no problem for those of us fortunate enough to live in places that do possess such institutional support, right?
I bet you can guess what comes next.
Here’s what the second article I read today tells us. This is what CIDRAP, a University of Minnesota center focusing on infectious diseases and policy responses to them, has to say:
The vaccine against human papillomavirus, or HPV, has reduced cervical cancer by nearly 90% in women vaccinated as adolescents. It has been studied in more than 50 randomized controlled trials. Over 135 million doses have been administered in the United States.
And last month, a newly formed working group under the reconstituted Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which helps guide vaccine decisions by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced plans to conduct a multi-year “comprehensive review” of the vaccine’s efficacy, effectiveness, and safety.
The working group’s charter, finalized in December 2025, does not limit itself to the one genuinely open question in HPV vaccine science, whether a single dose provides adequate long-term protection. It calls for a sweeping reexamination that includes adjuvant toxicity, potential contaminants, possible HPV type replacement, and a full reassessment of safety data. It lists neurology and toxicology among the disciplines to be represented on the working group.
…Periodic review of vaccine recommendations is normal and necessary. What this charter describes is something else entirely. It is the construction of uncertainty around a vaccine whose benefits have been demonstrated more conclusively than almost any medical intervention in modern history. [Links in the original]
I don’t think I need belabor the obvious. What Robert F. Kennedy and his henchmen are doing here is an old trick. There’s no actual uncertainty about the HPV vaccine, beyond the question of dosing schedules. It works; it’s safe; and it saves lives–globally, it could prevent around 600,000 new diagnoses of cervical cancer each year.
In the face of those established facts, what should you do if you are ideologically opposed to vaccination, or simply make your living or gain your clout by demonizing vaccines? Exactly what Kennedy is doing here. He’s sealioning; “just asking questions;” throwing enough shit at the wall to create the appearance of a controversy where none exists.
Normies, busy people with actual daily lives to lead don’t generally have the time or tools to dig through the literature to see what’s going on. They hear that the Department of Health and Human Services is concerned enough about risks to launch a comprehensive study…and, perfectly reasonably, they may hesitate when a doctor offers their kid the shot.
And with that, fewer children here will gain protection against a preventable disease. Those who encounter the virus can pass it on; chains of infection will follow, and women (mostly-there are cancers men get associated with HPV) will die before their time, wholly unnecesarily.
Right now, Rubio (and Musk) have the highest body count of Trump 2. But don’t count Kennedy out.
Dyspeptically open thread.
Images: Adriaen van Ostade, A Man Smoking, c. 1670
Louis Boilly, La vaccine, 1807
H.E.Wolf
Racism and misogyny are evidently two main drivers of right-wing policy.
JCJ
I’m nobody, and I have treated dozens of patients, mostly men, with HPV related oropharyngeal cancers. Many cures, but man that is tough treatment. This is simply cruel. My colleague has treated the cervical cancer for our group. When I cover for her I am often struck by how young many of these women are. I hate these people
bbleh
(1) Good Girls don’t need to worry about that sort of thing.
(2) All this “science” stuff is just Your Opinion.
(3) Disobeying the Law of the Tribe is to risk being Cast Out, which is worse than anything.
Sure Lurkalot
Thank you so much for highlighting this. I had a total hysterectomy at 32 due to cervical cancer. The cause was not determinable at the time. But I can say that even though I did not want children, this “cure” affected my life negatively in many ways even though I have been thankfully cancer free ever since.
When the HPV vaccine came out, I wept…for joy. I told many friends, workmates, nieces and nephews to get vaccinated.
These people are monsters. If/when we regain power, we must not succumb to the “look forward, not back” mantra. There needs to be a reckoning for their willful and wanton disregard for science that has and will result in preventable human suffering and death.
hitchhiker
“The Construction of Uncertainty” will one day be the title of a chapter in a book about this wretched era of our history. My daughters — born in 1988 and 1990 — came home from high school one day and told me there was a vaccine they should get. It was HPV, and hadn’t even been on my radar.
They did get it, because getting vaccines was a no-brainer. Lucky. They also finished school before practicing for mass shooter events became part of the curriculum. Lucky. Their phones were the kind you had to double tap keys on to send a text. Lucky. They were in college when facebook appeared. Lucky.
Looking at their lives, I keep thinking that somehow they walked through what we didn’t know was a narrow window of sanity and safety. I mean, sure, their dad broke his neck when they were in middle school, so it wasn’t like their lives were nothing but good fortune; but their experience was that most adults were reliable.
We joke about the absolutely clownish evil gang of thugs dominating and trashing everything in sight — but my daughters have preschoolers right now, and I’m not sure of anything for them. We’re all just doing the best we can & hoping that somehow this constructed uncertainty collapses under the weight of its own stupidity.
eclare
@Sure Lurkalot:
Yours is a powerful story called the truth. Thank you.
Mr. Bemused Senior
💯
Willfulness in disregard for science, but also law. Many of these people need to be prosecuted and after conviction, punished.
Cathie from Canada
theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/02/child-dies-measles-vaccines/685969
A profoundly disturbing article in the Atlantic about how a child dies of measles.
Timill
@Mr. Bemused Senior: But punished how?
A More Humane Mikado (Richard Angas at ENO)
eclare
@Cathie from Canada:
Is there any way to read it without registering for a free trial?
Old School
@eclare:
Web Archive version
web.archive.org/web/20260212221304/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/02/child-dies-measles-vacc…
NeenerNeener
Here’s the archive.ph version: archive.ph/o4kka
NeenerNeener
@bbleh: Yeah, I think I remember when the vaccine first came out Republican women wouldn’t let their daughters get it because they thought it would encourage them to have sex.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Timill: oh, yes I’ve got a little list.
Here’s 🎶 another favorite
eclare
@Old School:
Thanks!
eclare
@NeenerNeener:
Thank you too!
eclare
@Cathie from Canada:
That was brutal. Every parent should read it.
Glidwrith
@NeenerNeener: The joke was that if they got a small prick, then they’d want a big one.
sab
I have known a number of women who died of cervical cancer because their husbands were cheating scumbags.
Betty
Some day we will go back to sane policies, but it is painful to think about the victims who will needlessly suffer in the meantime.