Girls who get vaccinated are not at a greater risk for STIs

Getting a vaccine to protect against the sexually-transmitted infection human papillomavirus (HPV) does not increase the risk that young women will be sexually promiscuous and get more STIs, a new study says.

In the study, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, 21,000 U.S. girls who received an HPV vaccine were compared to 186,000 who were unvaccinated. The girls lived in the same region of the U.S. and had the same insurance plans. The researchers measured the rate of STIs before the girls were vaccinated and monitored their rate of STI infections for a year afterward.

The results showed that while the vaccinated girls did have a slightly higher rate of STIs before and after their vaccine, the researchers suggest that it could be due to the fact that girls who opt for the vaccine may already be sexually active.

However, the researchers found that the rate of STIs overall were equal among the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups. The researchers concluded that this means the vaccine itself does not change sexual activity or behavior.

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