HPV: “We don’t know.”

The human papilloma virus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection, and there is a lot of information and misinformation about it floating around.  Recently, I had an illuminating discussion with a gynecologist who claimed to be up on the latest research, and her basic answer to a pile of interesting questions was, “we don’t know”.  This seems a little ridiculous, given that the CDC claims that “at least 50% of sexually active men and women acquire genital HPV infection at some point in their lives”.

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