The HPV vaccine won't make you wildly promiscuous

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a new study about women across the U.S. who used the HPV vaccine, a.k.a. Gardasil, between 2006 and 2008, which found that participants’ sexual behavior was about the same regardless of whether or not they’d had the vaccine.

The study did find a few differences in the age of women who’d had the vaccine and their insurance status. The study found that about 30% of 15- to 19-year-old women had started the HPV vaccine, while only about 15% of 20- to 24-year-old women had (the vaccine is currently recommended for women 26 and younger—ideally a woman should get her first shot before she ever has sex). On the insurance front, the retail cost of the vaccine is about $130 per dose or $390 for the full series, so it’s not a surprise that women with health insurance were 3-5 times more likely to have gotten it compared to women without insurance. [New York Times]