December 2014 In December 2014, Gardasil®9 was approved by the FDA. This vaccine protects against 9 strains of HPV: the four strains approved in the previous Gardasil vaccine, as well as 31, 33, 45, 52, and 58.

Print ads and promotional placement in doctors' offices and pharmacies are also in the mix. Merck plans to extend the campaign through social media, Facebook, Twitter and online digital advertising.

Merck officials said they decided to run the new commercials because market research the company conducted last year showed that while 85 percent of parents were familiar with HPV, only 50 percent were aware of its link to cancer.

You cannot get HPV from toilet seats, hugging or holding hands, swimming in pools or hot tubs, or sharing food or utensils. Anyone who is sexually active can get HPV, even if they have had sex with only one person.

HPV vaccination is not recommended for everyone older than age 26 years. Some adults ages 27 through 45 years who were not already vaccinated might choose to get HPV vaccine after speaking with their doctor about their risk for new HPV infections and possible benefits of vaccination for them.

Answer: In accordance with current scientific studies, apart from HPV type 16 and 18, other high-risk HPV including type 31, 33, 45, 52 and 58 can potentially cause pre-cancerous changes. Therefore, the 9-valent HPV vaccine offers more protection against HPV than the quadrivalent HPV vaccine does and is as safe.

The vaccine is very, very effective. If you are vaccinated before being exposed to the virus, the HPV vaccine is 97 percent effective in preventing cervical cancer and cell changes that could lead to cancer. Plus, it's almost 100 percent effective in preventing external genital warts.

HPV vaccination is cancer prevention. HPV is estimated to cause nearly 36,500 cases of cancer in men and women every year in the United States. HPV vaccination can prevent 33,700 of these cancers by preventing the infections that cause them. That's the same as the average attendance for a baseball game.

Why don't antibiotics work? – HPV is a viral infection, which cannot be treated by medication designed for bacterial infections. There are currently no antiviral medications that have been clinically approved to treat HPV.

This recall was caused by an isolated problem in the vaccine manufacturing process. HPV vaccine continues to have a strong safety record, and CDC continues to recommend that all preteen girls and boys receive three doses of this cancer-preventing vaccine at age 11 or 12 years.

Kissing isn't considered a common means of HPV transmission, but more research is needed before we can completely rule out the possibility.

While sexual intercourse is the primary means of transmission, genital-to-genital interactions, oral-to-genital interactions, or deep (French) kissing can also spread the virus.