Let me throw some words out at you: genital warts, cervical cancer, penile cancer and death. Don’t think it can happen to you, huh? What if I told you that within your lifetime, especially if you are a woman, you have an 80 percent chance of being infected with the virus that is responsible for these words?

Have I got your attention? Good. Let me introduce you to a not-so-well-known disease called HPV, or more formally termed, the human papillomavirus. It is ironic that we are constantly bombarded with information about sexually transmitted diseases like gonorrhea and herpes (I know that I can take charge with Valtrex), but we rarely hear about HPV, which infects about 6.2 million Americans each year, most often of college age.

The disease is generally asymptomatic, so you may never know you have it, and though women can be tested for it through a pap smear, there is no test that diagnoses the disease in males. So, theoretically, a guy might have tested clean for STDs, but may still be passing on a cancer-causing strain of the disease to the unfortunate women who cross his path.

“But what about condoms?” you ask. Well, that is a start. However, since HPV is spread through sex or intimate skin-to-skin contact, you certainly are not in the clear (though condoms are always a great idea if you and your partner have not been tested).

While searching for some reassurance and sanity on The HPV Test Web site, I was freaked out and appalled by some helpful hints the site suggested. It said:

“If you are tested for … and told that you have the virus, it is important to remember that most adults will get one or more types of HPV at some point in their lives. Chances are, your partner was already exposed to HPV, so … sharing this information with your partner has no clear purpose.”

Since when is it not a good idea to tell your partner that you have an STD?

So now that I’ve scared the crap out of you, let me tell you what you can do: get vaccinated. This summer, the Food and Drug Administration approved Gardasil, which protects against the four HPV types that together cause 70 percent of cervical cancers and 90 percent of genital warts. Gardasil is only being administered to women at the moment though, so sorry to break it to you boys, but you do not have a cervix and will not be getting cancer in it anytime soon.

I personally plan on getting vaccinated the next time I have a doctor’s appointment at home. Ah, see, there’s the kink. The University’s Health Services does not yet provide the vaccine on campus, and neither does Planned Parenthood, though they are working on making it available.

Other schools in the nation, such as the Universities of California and Maryland, have begun to offer Gardasil to their student bodies, and Yale is in the process of obtaining the vaccine, so there is no reason that the shots should not be offered on our campus.

I am going to assume that Health Services is working to rapidly make it available to us, and if not, I suggest that they get on top of it ASAP. We need this vaccine because, let’s face it, college students are going to have sex, and not all of us are as smart as we should be about it. Five seconds of pain from a needle is well worth the benefits that the vaccine provides, because one night of pleasure is not worth dying for.

Erica Fritz is a senior psychology and pre-med major. She is anxiously awaiting her B-line invitation to head over to Health Services to get vaccinated.