>Our impending antibiotic resistant apocalypse is of course terrifying.

This is my main concern. We as a species seem to always be so sure we can engineer our way out of a catastrophe by focusing on reaction to problems vs prevention of problems and always pass costs to the future. I'm all for keeping reactive skills top notch but we need to think about simple and easy preventative measures.

The HPV vaccine reference is a great example. Men should also get vaccinated as a preventative measure but we play it off as too costly or low risk. Men partaking in anal sex can get HPV and not even know it, sometimes leading to penis or colon/anal cancer later in life. It's especially bad because men will likely go long periods of time completely unaware of such an infection. We vaccinate young girls because we know they're all at risk but we often don't vaccinate young men because we don't know who will or won't end up having anal sex and culturally assume men are somehow invulnerable to it because of it.

> Men partaking in anal sex can get HPV and not even know it

Men partaking in _any_ kind of sex can get HPV and not know it. It's just as transmissible through oral and vaginal sex, and vaccination among women is also extremely poor in the US.

>Men partaking in _any_ kind of sex can get HPV and not know it.

True, it's definitely possible to overlook or ignore, although symptoms of HPV are far more likely to be observed anywhere else than inside the anus or vagina.

I presume this is in the US? In the UK for example the HPV vaccine for gay men is free on the NHS. I'm sure the same is true for many other countries too.

If I remember rightly, the US does routinely vaccinate everyone against HPV as teenagers regardless of gender - it's the UK that historically only vaccinated girls. (Though this changed very recently, it obviously still leaves a bunch of men unvaccinated.) There's some kind of recent vaccination program for gay men, but that only started a couple of years ago and requires them to actively seek out vaccination.

As an anecdote, when I asked about getting it, I was told that it would not be covered by my insurance and would cost me $500. That price is out of reach for the vast majority of Americans.

How old are you? If you are over 26, I don't think they legally have to pay for it.

In the Netherlands, boys also get the HPV vaccine since this year. It's now part of our (free) National Immunisation Programme.

> albeit stupidly expensive for men

WHY??? 620€ in Germany/Austria for 3 shots is absolutely outrageous.

HPV is responsible for a high amount of penile, anal and mouth/throat cancers. Even if you already have or had a HPV infection, the vaccine can protect you from getting it again or strains you don't have yet. There is some evidence that the HPV vaccine can act as cure for existing infections. +anyone vaccinated protects unvaccinated people.

>anyone vaccinated protects unvaccinated people.

Fellow German here, this is what I really don't understand, this is the same argument that is used for every other vaccine. Why not this one?

Is it really 620€ I was thinking of getting it at some point, but that's a steep price.

You know why. US drug conglomerate Merck patented anything to do with the HPV vaccine and is charging as much as it can to maximise profits - netting twice the total R&D costs for Gardasil every year on it.