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Toronto – Today January 9th of 2009, the Gardasil vaccine was denied approval, by the FDA, for women aged from 27-45, due to a need of more data.

The vaccine Gardasil, which was approved in 2006, is currently available for women ages 9-26 and it is used to prevent a highly contagious sexually transmitted disease called “HPV” or also know as “Human Papillomavirus” which causes genital warts and/or cervical cancer.

It has been said, that the success rate significantly drops for older women, and those who have been exposed to the sexually transmitted disease.

Merk, the company that sells the vaccine, is expecting high sales of the product with an estimated take in of 1.4 to 1.6 billion dollars in the year 2009.

It may be possible, in the future for men to be approved for the vaccine also, as it was requested for approval last month for men ages 9-26.

With the amounts of young adults participating in sexual activity on the rise, and the age at time of losing virginity lowering, it has become a huge concern to the health departments that they will see more and more young adult contracting the virus, and due to the lack of side side effects (unless you have the genital warts type) many wont realize they have contracted the virus, and they will continue to have sexual activity’s unknowingly spreading the virus. This is why it would be a great success, if the vaccine was approved for woman and/or men in the higher age groups.

It is very important for people of all ages to remember to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases often, especially if they are having sex with multiple partners.  Even if there are no signs, many cases of those who contracted the virus had no signs or symptoms! Those that do contract the virus have the option of getting most types of “HPV” treated by freezing of the warts and getting exams done every 6 months to continually check for cervical cancer, which if caught early enough can be treated by freezing of the bad cancerous cells, or removal of part of the cancerous area and in extreme cases a Hysterectomy may need to be done.

In some cases, mostly in younger women, studies have shown that women who have contracted the virus may be able to fight the virus off by their immune system by being healthy and taking care of their bodies.

January is cervical cancer awareness month,and any information on this topic may be found by going to a local health department, or other organizations, and/or searching the internet.