The HPV vaccine does not cause infertility. Large population studies, systematic reviews, and ongoing safety monitoring consistently show no link between HPV vaccination and reduced fertility in women or men. This concern has circulated widely online, but the evidence is clear: vaccinated people conceive at the same rates as unvaccinated people, and the vaccine may actually protect fertility by preventing HPV-related complications that can harm reproductive health.
What the Population Data Shows
The most direct way to test whether a vaccine affects fertility is to compare pregnancy rates and ovarian function in large groups of vaccinated and unvaccinated people. Multiple studies have done exactly this, and none have found a meaningful difference.
A systematic review and meta-analysis examining the risk of premature ovarian insufficiency (POI), a condition where the ovaries stop functioning before age 40, found no significant increase in risk among HPV-vaccinated individuals compared to unvaccinated controls. The relative risk was 0.75, meaning vaccinated women were, if anything, slightly less likely to develop the condition, though the difference wasn’t statistically significant. A separate population-based cohort study published in Pediatrics calculated an adjusted hazard ratio of 0.30 for POI after HPV vaccination, again showing no elevated risk. For comparison, other routine adolescent vaccines like Tdap and meningococcal vaccines showed similarly neutral results.
One study actually found a marked reduction in POI risk among HPV-vaccinated individuals relative to those who received other childhood vaccines, with a relative risk of 0.03. While that specific finding needs cautious interpretation, it reinforces the overall pattern: HPV vaccination does not appear to increase the risk of premature ovarian insufficiency.
Where the Concern Originated
The infertility worry traces partly to a small number of case reports describing young women who developed ovarian problems after HPV vaccination. One widely cited paper documented cases where blood tests showed low estradiol (a key reproductive hormone) alongside elevated levels of hormones that signal the ovaries aren’t responding properly. In two cases, researchers detected antibodies targeting ovarian tissue and suggested the vaccine’s ingredients might have triggered an autoimmune reaction.
Case reports like these describe what happened to individual patients, but they can’t prove the vaccine caused the problem. Premature ovarian insufficiency occurs naturally in about 1 in 100 women before age 40, and some of those women will have recently received a vaccine simply by coincidence. When researchers then look at entire populations rather than selected cases, the association disappears. That’s exactly what the large cohort studies and meta-analyses found.
Effects on Male Fertility
Research on HPV vaccination and male fertility tells a particularly interesting story. A study published in Scientific Reports examined men who were already dealing with HPV infection in their semen, a known contributor to poor sperm quality. After vaccination, the men showed significant improvements in progressive sperm motility (how well sperm swim forward) at both 6 and 12 months compared to unvaccinated controls. Levels of anti-sperm antibodies, which can interfere with fertilization, also dropped significantly in the vaccinated group.
Total sperm count and sperm shape didn’t change, which is expected since those parameters are less affected by viral infection. The key finding is that HPV vaccination didn’t harm any measure of sperm quality and actively improved some markers in men whose fertility was being compromised by the virus itself.
How HPV Itself Threatens Fertility
Ironically, it’s HPV infection, not the vaccine, that poses a real fertility risk. When HPV causes abnormal cervical cells, the standard treatment involves surgically removing a small cone of tissue from the cervix using a procedure called LEEP. This removes the problematic cells but also removes tissue that helps support a pregnancy.
Research shows that women who undergo this procedure face a significantly higher rate of premature rupture of membranes in subsequent pregnancies: 44% of preterm deliveries in the treatment group involved membrane rupture or cervical incompetence, compared to 17% in women who hadn’t had the procedure. Vaginal infections during pregnancy were also more common after LEEP. While the overall preterm birth rate in one study wasn’t statistically different between groups, the mechanism is well established in the broader literature. Removing cervical tissue means less structural support during pregnancy, which increases the chance of complications.
By preventing the HPV infections that lead to cervical precancers in the first place, the vaccine reduces the likelihood that someone will ever need these procedures. In this way, HPV vaccination actively protects future fertility rather than threatening it.
Why the Myth Persists
The HPV vaccine is given during adolescence, typically between ages 9 and 26. Fertility problems, when they occur, often aren’t discovered until years later when someone tries to conceive. This time gap makes it easy to draw a false connection between the two events, especially when personal stories circulate on social media without the context of population-level data.
There’s also a pattern in vaccine hesitancy where rare, coincidental events get amplified while the much larger body of reassuring evidence stays invisible. A single case report of ovarian failure after vaccination generates headlines. A meta-analysis of thousands of patients showing no risk does not. The result is a skewed perception of danger that doesn’t match what the full body of evidence actually shows.