On ERV, Abbie Smith reports on the phenomenal success of the HPV vaccine in Australia. The vaccine, designed to protect against several types of sexually-transmitted papillomavirus, was first administered to Aussie girls in 2007. Since then, total prevalence of the virus among young women has dropped from 11.5% to less than 1%—and to 0% among girls who actually got the vaccine. These girls are also protecting their partners and reducing overall circulation of HPV; infections among young men, who were not even vaccinated, dropped from 12.1 to 2.2 percent. Abbie calls this a "blatant, obvious example of herd immunity in action!" On Aardvarchaeology, Martin Rundkvist recently stood up for science against the false equivalence of "tell both sides" journalism in Sweden, where the HPV vaccine is offered to all twelve year old girls. Martin acknowledges the vaccine is not 100% effective, and there are very rare cases of adverse side-effects, but the same is true of any vaccine.