Changes to the childhood vaccination schedule are sowing confusion nationwide. 

New vaccine recommendations issued in recent months by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under the leadership of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.—who is notoriously anti-vaccine—suggest fewer shots for most kids. The updated guidelines also changed when some vaccines should be given. 

Many of these policies are not based on science, and major medical organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics have urged parents and doctors to continue vaccinating their children per previous guidance, in an unusual break with the CDC. 

But one change is actually based on valid research: The suggestion that people may only need one shot of the HPV vaccine. 

I am an ardent supporter of vaccines (thank you science for protecting us from diseases that killed our ancestors) and a sex educator who has been writing about the HPV vaccine for decades. But I know that many parents—like the one I recently sat next to in the pediatrician’s waiting room who said she wasn’t antivax, but was skipping that shot—just don’t know enough about HPV to make an informed decision.  

This column answers some common questions you may have about the HPV vaccine, whether you’re a parent considering the shot for your kids or an adult wondering if it’s too late to get it yourself.

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There are more than 200 types of HPV, or human papillomavirus. The virus is easily transmitted from skin-to-skin. Some types........

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