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The CDC just published some research in the Journal of the American Medical Association yesterday about HPV rates in women.

This is what they found:

• One in 4 U.S. women between ages 14 and 59 have some form of Human Papilloma Virus. (That doesn’t mean they have a chronic infection, only that they have the virus).
• Women between ages 20 and 24 have the highest rate… 44.8%.
• 3.4% of the full sample group had one of the strains that Gardasil “protects” against.

I did some math over [1] here, assuming Gardasil protected against 13.3% of all HPV related cervical cancer deaths projected for 2007. So let’s update our math, shall we…

-> Projected cervical cancer deaths in 2007: 3,670
-> 70% attributed to HPV: 2,569
-> 3.4% potentially guarded against by Gardasil: 87

And, once again, regular PAP smears – with no side effects – have an excellent track record of detecting cervical cancer.