2009 New England Journal of Medicine Publication:  Conclusions

This study concludes that a single round of HPV testing was associated with a significant decline in the rate of advance to cervical cancer and associated death.  They also found that HPV testing was the most objective and reproducible of all cervical cancer screening tests, and was less demanding in terms of training and quality assurance.  

Therefore, the value of HPV testing is validated in the sense of mortality benefit.