Study finds cervical vaccine halts a lot of cancers

ATLANTA — A vaccine against cervical cancer also prevents other types of gynecological cancers and could lower the incidence of tumors in the head and neck, too, according to a new study.

"If we vaccinate everybody in the U.S., we could probably impact head and neck cancer in approximately 20 years," said Marshall Posner, director of the head and neck oncology program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

On Sunday, researchers at a cancer meeting in Atlanta released data showing that Gardasil, manufactured by Merck, was 100 percent effective in preventing vaginal and vulvar cancers associated with the human papillomavirus, or HPV, in more than 18,000 women and adolescents from the United States, South America and Asia.

"In human disease, there has never been a vaccine this effective," said Jorma Paavonen, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Helsinki in Finland, who presented the study.

HPV causes cervical cancer and genital warts and is also linked to penile and anal cancer. The virus is the most common sexually transmitted disease, and the American Cancer Society estimates that HPV affects more than 50 percent of sexually active adults.

Last month, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory committee recommended approval of Gardasil. An agency decision is expected as early as today.

Gardasil protects against the two types of HPV, 16 and 18, thought responsible for about 70 percent of cervical- cancer cases. It also protects against two other virus types, 6 and 11, that cause 90 percent of genital wart cases.

Strict parenting linked to fat children

CHICAGO — Strict parents are far more likely to wind up with kids who are fat by age 6, perhaps because the children overeat as a reaction to stress, a study said today.

The report from Boston University School of Medicine also found that the fewest weight problems occur among children whose parents are "authoritative" — having high expectations for self-control but respectful of a child's opinions and who set clear boundaries.

The study also found that children of parents who are permissive also have weight problems but not to the degree of the offspring of strict disciplinarians with low levels of sensitivity, the study said.

The study covered 872 children who were part of a group enrolled at birth in 1991 in a U.S. government study and followed for years.