The point is about risk, though. Risk of contracting HPV, and risk of dying from the effects of it.
Certainly, celibate people have virtually no risk of HPV. But, there are plenty of people with perfectly normal sex lives who never contract HPV, either.
By contrast, before the days of Chicken Pox vaccines, there were very, very few people who did not contract Chicken Pox by merely attending school.
As I said, considering the mildness of the risk of dying due to Chicken Pox, I am not necessarily in favor of that being a mandated vaccine, either. But at least there is an argument there that, if children didn’t get the vaccine, they would be virtually at a 100% risk of contracting the disease.
Statistically, yes. I’m making that claim. You don’t drive public policy on the extreme end of statistics. That’s what parents are for. If you live in an invironment where all your friends are pregnant at 15 then your child is a candidate for the shots close to that age. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at the numbers and direct public access to those who need it and can’t afford it. That’s different than forcing 11 year olds to take it.
Question for those who think it is good for this vaccine to be mandated…what do you think the critera should be for mandating a vaccine? That is, what level of risk of contracting the disease, and what level of risk of harm do you think justifies mandating it?
You’re extrapolating an all or nothing argument out of forcing 11 year olds to get the shot. Clearly there is a benefit to sexually active women. Given that almost all cases of it are delt with through the immune system the argument should be made that it be treated like any other health issue for “at risk” persons. You target shots where they are most likely needed which is NOT 6th graders. They would be the least likely to need it. Any public intervention should be in the form of financial assistance and education.
So I think you are overstating the definitiveness of that 75% number. The same cite says that only 1% of those people develop cervical cancer, so I still maintain that risk is quite low. And even if the 75% number is valid, there are other ways to lower the incidence of HPV contraction, other than mandatory vaccines.
I want to make clear that the fact that HPV is strictly sexually-transmitted is only part of the reason I object to its being made mandatory, and that it has nothing to do with moral issues, or that ridiculous charge that it gives girls “permission” to have sex. It is not the sexual transmission element of it per se, but just the behavior-specific aspect of it, and the fact that it is not contracted through causal contact. The other factor is risk of serious harm…for example, if the vaccine in question was for genital herpes, I would be even more adamantly against it, as herpes is not lethal. If it was for HIV, I would probably be for it (given proper testing), as HIV is almost always lethal.
For me, the combination of low risk of contraction COMBINED WITH low risk of serious harm is what my objection is based on.
If they are sexually active, chances are good it’s too late to prevent her contracting at least one of the four strains. They are that common. It’s better to give the vaccine too early than too late, since too early just means that she didn’t need it yet, while too late means that it doesn’t do anything.
The 11 year olds will be at risk as they get older. If you wait, the vaccine may not offer any protection.
We give vaccines to populations that aren’t at direct risk all the time. For example, we give the rubella vaccine to kids even though the disease is generally mild in that group. The real risk from rubella come to pregnant women and their fetuses who may wind up with birth defects as a result of exposure.
Hep B is still spread primarily via blood and bodily fluids like semen that babies are unlikely to come into contact with. Yet we still give the vaccine shortly after birth both because high risk populations are harder to reach and the disease is more likely to lead to chronic infection when acquired young.
There has been a real undercurrent in this thread that sexually active women do not deserve protection against an illness as bad as cancer. I find that very disturbing.
I don’t know where you are getting that “undercurrent.” It has nothing to do with the sexual activity per se. If the only way to transmit HPV was through a different very specific activity, such as, I don’t know, shaking hands or something, and this was the ONLY way it could be transmitted, I would feel the exact same way. AND, as I stated before, if the risk of contracting cancer and dying from it was higher than the less-than-one-percent range, I might also feel differently.
I was under the impression that drugs were tested before being put on the market-- but as someone who’s currently taking Gardasil, I’ll gladly let you know of any adverse effects.
For those of you balking at 11-year-olds having sex, see you in a few years! As previous posters have mentioned, having protected sex can still result in HPV. Same thing for unprotected genital-to-genital contact – you know, the kind lots of people engage in even years before actually losing their virginity. Like, say, in their early teens.
Once again, my objection does not have to do with the morality or reality of young people having sex. It has to do with the level of risk involved, and whether this is enough of a public health menace to take away the parental right to choose whether a child receives a vaccine or not.
I am afraid that the “it will give the teen permission to have sex” argument that some have made has overwhelmed the debate on this issue, so that even those of us who are not making that argument are accused of doing so. It’s a pity, because I do think there are much better objections to mandating that vaccine than that one, which I expect most people will not take seriously.
Just as a clarification, do you mean that you agree with me on the general principle that there should be a high risk factor in order to justify a mandatory vaccine, or do you mean that you agree with me that this specific vaccine doesn’t have a high enough risk factor to justify it? (Not trying to challenge you in any way, just curious as to your particular agreement here.)