What Your Doctor May Not Tell You about HPV and Abnormal Pap Smears

Rating:
Summary: A book long needed for women and health
Review: Dr Palefsky has empowered women with knowledge and advice about a virus that affects over 75% of all sexually active women AND men. HPV is the primary cause of all Cervical cancer and before Paps, Cervical cancer was the leading killer of women pre 1940. HPV and Cervical Cancer can go undetected for decades. The link to HPV was only discovered 10 years ago. Due to the nature of society's attitude toward sexuality, very few people, physicians, or organizations have addressed this issue of womens health with competancy or compassion. 80% of our population do not even know what HPV is much less how it affects our health. Most women are cluless as to the cause of abnormal paps, cervical cancer, dysplasia due to HPV. Majority of our society carry this disease yet women are not empowered to help themselves. My hats off to Dr Palefsky for lifting the dark veil off of this health issue to help save the lives of most women and men in our society who are inflicted with this virus. God Bless him. His book was easy to read and very informative with needed facts and no judgemental attitudes. His book is a must for all High school students as well as all adults.

Rating:
Summary: Very informative... but could be more...
Review: HPV is a little known STD/virus... but yet is the #1 STD on the planet. Information on HPV needs to be more accessible to women and their partners. This book is a wonderful step forward in doing so.

This book has a lot of information on the virus itself, and how it infects the body to cause dysplasia and potentially cervical cancer. (The first chapter is more clinical than the rest.) There are some guidelines for preventing the spread, but I do have some complaints on some things the book seems to miss:

- More information on treatments and their side effects/recovery expectations.
- The book seems to concentrate on cervical cancer being the major concern... and while it is deadly, most cervical cancers are preventable by catching dysplasia early. My primary concern is with dysplasia itself, and the frustration of treating and follow-up with it.
- There's not a lot of information on what you can do to help mild dysplasia (the most common diagnosis) heal on it's own.
- The book doesn't cover a lot about multiple HPV strain infections (which I believe is important information for anyone not in a monogamous relationship.)

There's still a lot of missing information in medical science in regards to HPV...and hopefully as more is known, future editions of this and other books will incorporate what is found and be able to give us useful information on preventing and treating HPV relate conditions.

Overall, I highly encourage all sexually active people to educate themselves on HPV and other STDs. This book is an excellent choice for this, especially if you're curious as to HOW the virus infects.

Rating:
Summary: Not Very Helpful!
Review: I have read just about every book there is regarding HPV and abnormal pap smears. This book was by far the most upsetting and confusing. Information was not clear and quite contradicting. I would not recommend this book to anyone.