The Little Vaccine That Could
The Little Vaccine That Could
By the year 2050, scientists fear that “deaths from cervical cancer could jump fourfold to a million a year … mainly in developing countries.” The good news is that this outbreak and thousands of preventable deaths “could be prevented by soon-to-be-approved vaccines against [human papilloma virus which] causes most cases of cervical cancer.” The problem is that HPV is sexually transmitted and “opposition to the vaccines might lead to many preventable deaths.”
In the United States, “religious groups are gearing up to oppose vaccination, despite a survey showing 80 percent of parents favor vaccinating their daughters.” Staunchly conservative religious groups like the Family Research Council oppose the vaccine on the shaky claim that “Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex.”
However, this is the same Family Research Council that opposes condoms and the notion of “safe sex” because HPV, one of the most common STDs, can be spread by skin contact and so “condoms are not as effective against HPV as they are against other viruses such as HIV.” Family Research Council has spent so much time harping on the chance that HPV will be passed in ways other than bodily fluid transmission during sexual intercourse, yet is still opposed to this vaccine. Unfortunately, its past rhetoric is now coming back to haunt it.
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The problem with vaccines is that frequently the disease will mutate to become immune. Better to practice safe sex than rely on vaccines.
May 4th, 2005 at 5:08 pmHow about safe sex AND a vaccine? FRC would rather see thousands of women dead from cervical cancer than see their own daughters protected. Pre-marital sex exists — good or bad — the penalty shouldn’t be death.
May 4th, 2005 at 5:47 pmOh brother, its just another “woman” issue.
May 4th, 2005 at 5:56 pmWho cares about women’s health?
I DO!
The evangalists (who mostly make up the S.T.D. population) will never change human behavior.
They are THE example of the human behaviors that society cannot change.
It’s unfortunate that they must lay blame and remain in denial but “thats life”.
How about safe sex and the vaccine! Who says it has to be either/or? Again, this is yet another ploy to control the sexuality of especially women. The Ultra C’s say theyr’e for smaller govt, but that is a lie covering the truth that they would intrude into the publics’ bedrooms to monitor sexuality.
No one seems to bring up the Jimmie Swaggart type who screws hookers between his rants against women having control of their own bodies! So what if one of these a-holes comes home to his wife after the prostitiute and gives her an STD? In the view of Ultra C’s, she is supposes to die a quiet and obediant death of cancer? Why is it that these a-holes NEVER are concerned about cheating spouses, rape and child molestation?! Answer—because their interest is in controling the destinies of women using their bodies as hostage. If a woman is raped—oh abortion is the greater evil, not rape. If a girl is molested by evil Rev. Uncle, she is not to have a vaccination or birth control or an abortion.
I wish these a-holes would get off of their smug and smirking attempts to force women into submission through using their own bodies against them.
It’s time to stop these a-holes, and NO, abstinence is not the answer! The common people should not be expected to take vows of celibacy like priests and nuns! Priests and nuns don’t always obey that anyway, and if they can’t how are we expected to–besides, we need to protect the innocent–like the little girl who is abused by grandpa, and the teenager who is pressured by her boyfriend, and the woman who is raped in her own home…….
Oh of course it’s these womens’ faults and they should have no contraception, no abortion, no vaccine against HPV, and no choices at all!
Only the ultr-conservative religious men get to make choices—for everybody and especially women.
May 4th, 2005 at 5:59 pmRoger4ever:
glad you recognise the principles of evolution, at least in some form. The rest of your reasoning seems a bit flawed, to put it mildly.
Those vaccines we have for smallpox, polio and T.B. — still doing the job, dude. Likewise, even when the disease agent evolves, a vaccine can likewise be updated.
In contrast to your position, a civilized society should not condone, endorse or tolerate needless sickness, suffering, pain and death MERELY because no remedy will be 100% effective.
Particularly since the standard of 100% effectiveness or “forever” effectiveness is NOT even remotely viable. No scientist or medical doctor would apply such a standard to ANY medical treatment, vaccine or otherwise
That’s none. Not even aspirin. But we should sacrafice people to cancer because the vaccine might what? Be only 95% effective? For say, 10 years before it needs replacement?
So all those lives, all that pain and suffering, and all that money — should be sacraficed on the altar of your notions of sexuality.
Do you, btw, profess a religion? What god is this? Baal? Beelzebub?
The issue of pre-martial sex is just red-herring: just an excuse for some teribly ill-informed people to impose their political agenda upon others.
This is–or should be–a straight-forward public health matter.
Your case against the vaccine is contemptous. At best.
May 4th, 2005 at 6:11 pmHas HPV demonstrated a flu-like ability to recombine? I am not aware of this. Even were this the case, it would seem we could then simply adopt a public health policy similar to that we now practice with flu, in which there is an annual attempt to match vaccine with most likely form of influenza virus.
I would really like to see citations for these bizarre quotes — who is saying these irresponsible things and in what venue?
May 4th, 2005 at 6:13 pmThank you, Aunt Deb. That’s what I was trying get at. As for the sources of such madness, don’t know. I’ve heard related variants explaining why treating HIV/AIDS is a waste of time. I suspect it’s just the standard bad science meme: “until we have 100% argeement/perfection, we shouldn’t do anything.” Like teach evolution, for instance. Alright, I’ll let this one go. Let calmer voices prevail.
May 4th, 2005 at 6:30 pm“Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex.�
Seriously, pretty soon they’re going to be saying letting women out of the house without a chastity belt on is giving them a license to engage in premarital sex.
Can you just see a teenage not giving into her throbbing biological urges - because she hasn’t been vaccinated for this obscure disease? We can’t even get the sillys cows to wear condoms!
May 4th, 2005 at 7:28 pmI think this is the one to bring out the lie to the “pro-life” stance.
For example, I think if you want to reduce abortions, outlawing them won’t work so well, but education - about everything from abstinence, responsibility before sex, responsibilty to use birth control, and help if pregnancy does occur - could really help.
But to the Right, it still leaves open the POSSIBILITY of SEX! And that will not do.
But it’s not so obvious to the public because the issue of “life of the unborn” is in play.
Here, it’s simple. They would rather promiscuous women DIE.
It’s simple. With a vaccine, people don’t die. Without it, they die BUT WE DON’T LIKE SEX, so it’s ok.
This should be slammed in the Religious Right’s face, hard!
“They just don’t want people having sex. They will do ANYTHING to stop the rest of us from it. They are shameless.”
Just my thoughts.
May 4th, 2005 at 9:59 pmRight, because we all like to get our sexual activites approved by the FDA. What we should be spending our money on is determining how, since all these kids are signing abstinence pledges, they manage to still get STDs in an obviously non-sexually-transmitted manner. Because after all, they signed a pledge.
May 5th, 2005 at 2:19 amLet’s burn the heretics like witches. Will that satisfy these crazies?
May 5th, 2005 at 8:27 amFirst the right wingers ban sex toys in some “red” states, now they want to ban sex altogether..Except for them of course!
May 5th, 2005 at 11:14 amSusan, remember, it’s okay for them to have sex because they’re having pure thoughts the whole time…You know, Mom and apple pie.
May 5th, 2005 at 11:43 amQuestion: is mandatory vaccination a federal/state law? If it is, it shouldn’t be. The FRC is free to be against getting vaccinated, but I don’t think gov’t should be able to force/prevent any vaccination.
May 5th, 2005 at 11:56 amTony, in America everyone has the ultimate right to refuse any vaccine (or any other medical service, for that matter) based on their religious principles.
It’s been this way forever. Nobody is going to force a young Nazerene or AOG girl to have this vaccine against her wishes, or those of her parents.
I, on the other hand, will be escorting my 14-year-old daughter straight to the front of the line.
May 5th, 2005 at 7:11 pm[…] The FDA has approved a vaccine to protect against a sexually-transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer. (Cervical cancer affects over 10,000 women in the United States each year, killing more than 3,700 annually.) The vaccine was opposed by prominent religious right groups because they said it would be seen as a “license to engage in premarital sex.” 2:15 pm | Comment (0) […]
June 8th, 2006 at 2:17 pm