Dear Dr. Roach: I read your recent column stating that the HPV vaccine is recommended up to age 45. Are people older than 45 years no longer susceptible to HPV? Asking for a 52-year-old friend (who thinks hes Wolverine). C.F.
Answer: Wolverine has a mutant healing ability (thats how he was able to survive having his bones replaced with adamantium), so he has nothing to worry about. However, non-mutants do have to worry about HPV, which can come from any kind of skin-to-skin contact with a person who has HPV.
Having the virus often means having warts, but sometimes people can have contagious HPV without having any visible lesion. Its been estimated that 90% of people with HPV dont know they have it.
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