 SmartAboutMoney.org. It's the easy place to start when you want to get smart. Parents, we know we can't protect our kids from everything. Eventually, they're going to bump their heads or scrape their knees. But we can protect them from six types of cancer. HPV, or human papillomavirus, is a common preventable virus that can cause cancer later in life. The HPV vaccine prevents human papillomavirus and all the cancers it can cause.