You won’t be forced to have your child vaccinated for HPV. There’s an “opt out” clause. (Didn’t know you lived in Texas.)
As long as your daughter remains a virgin she’ll be OK. Then, she’ll marry a virgin & neither of them will ever have sex with anybody else!
It’s… it’s genius!
I didn’t say I did. I said I “would not like,” which is merely stating how I would feel if it were indeed mandated in my state.
It’s actually getting kind of amusing how my argument has been mischaracterized, and how everyone is ignoring the fact that I have said several times that I will probably get this immunization for my daughter (of course, she is 2, so by the time it is appropriate for her, we will know a little bit more about it).
One more time, for the people in the back who can’t hear me. It’s not about whether or not I think the vaccine is a good idea. If it works, and it’s safe, it’s a good idea. My problem is with MANDATING such a vaccine. I have a brain, and I am perfectly capable, as are all of us, of deciding if we want our daughters to get this vaccine or not. It’s really quite simple.
The thing I can’t agree with is that if something is a good idea, that means it’s the government’s job to force us to do it.
Sarafeena, just wanted you to know that I’ve been treated for cervical cancer three times now and I’m still wary of this vaccine for (at least what I’d thought before reading this thread) obvious reasons. I have two daughters and I do not know at this time if I’d consider it. I appreciate the option but I’m not real fond of the idea of it becoming mandatory so soon, with or without the possibility of opting out.
No I do not live in Texas but my oldest daughter does. She’s almost the age where she can make the choice herself. She has zero interest in sex at the age of seventeen (I know, she must be lying to mom, right? because all teens have sex!).
Maybe by the time my two year old is 11 I’ll have more confidence in the vaccine.
Thanks for adding your POV to this thread…it is interesting to hear from someone who has been dealing with cervical cancer (I hope you are doing OK???)
I am no expert on the subject of HPV & cervical cancer, but I have been following news stories & such regarding it for 20 years, since I was in college. A good friend of mine was diagnosed with HPV at the time, just when the link between the two was becoming known, and another friend of mine was diagnosed with cervical cancer, although I think in that case she was never diagnosed before hand with HPV. Needless to say, both caused major concern for my friends, and I am well aware of how serious this can be (both are fine now, thank goodness). None of this, for me, adds up to the necessity of mandating a vaccine. The unfortunate thing for my friends at the time is that there was not a lot of information available about either the virus or its link to cancer, although at least women were being recommended regular pap smears, which is always a good idea anyway.
I have always thought it was a failing on the part of the government that information has not been more readily available about this virus and the risk of cancer, and that the first a lot of people heard about it was after Merck developed this vaccine, and stands to make a lot of money with it (with government contracts, no less). It is pretty clear to me that Merck’s involvement with this is a conflict of interest, and IMO the government should spend a little more time educating people, and a little less time selling Merck’s vaccine for them.
BTW, is anyone interested in answering my question from post #63:
I am genuinely curious as to what people think the critera should be. Should all vaccines that are available be made mandatory, just in case? Or should it be only vaccines for diseases that have any kind of a mortality rate, no matter how small? How much risk should people allow to take upon themselves without the government stepping in?
The correct answer is to first look at diseases that are passively spread and then apply formularies to the cost of the vaccine against the likelihood of mortality.
After that it should be administered to adults and high-risk groups first.
Makes sense to me. Do you believe that the government should ONLY mandate vaccines for diseases that are passively spread? (Just making sure I understand you.) If so, I would agree with you completely.
Anyone have a differing opinion? I imagine so, since so many have disagreed with my and Magiver’s opinion on this, but nobody seems to want to give their POV?
Yes, that’s what I mean. If you don’t have some kind of guide then you’ll end up with a growing list of shots. 10, 20, 30, 40.
If there’s one thing I figured out very early in life it’s that laws are easy to enact but rarely are they removed. Even without a Nannystate mentality we are destined for a barrage of well meaning people who, with no job skills beyond being popular, believe they are qualified to control our lives.
I’m with Sarahfeena, put your intellect where your mouth is and quantify all those Big Brother feelings with a quantified method behind government intervention.
I got raped at school, so yes, just attending school could have exposed me to HPV, but for me 11 would have been too late. I read about rapes happening in schools during school hours every year. I heard about far more when I was in school. So at least some girls are at risk just by being in school. I assume that most schools are already trying to prevent rape on school grounds, but it would be nice if one of the consequences they protected for were cancer.
HPV and the cancer it causes is prevalent enough now that we tell all women to see their doctor every year for a pap smear. We don’t tell them you only need to do this if you are sexually active.
The law allows you to opt out for philosophical reasons, so no one is being forced to have their child vaccinated. I support the law and it saddens me that so many think that we shouldn’t make it universal because transmission of HPV is sexual. I can understand if one feels the vaccine has risks, which is one reason I am ok with the opt out clause. I am not ok with the idea that we can just tell our daughters to not have sex and then close our eyes and turn our backs to this.
I am not ok with that idea either, and anyone who has characterized this as my argument is just plain wrong, and will not find any evidence in this thread or anywhere else that this is my opinion on the matter. The fact that several people have implied that this is my argument does not make it so, and it does make me wonder at the motivations of those people.
The fact is, I have REPEATEDLY said that this is not my argument, and explained what my argument actually is. My argument is that the risk is not great enough to warrant mandatory vaccinations. Does this mean that the risk is zero? No, and I never said it was.
I apologize for the implication that horrible things such as rapes do not happen to young girls at school. The point of mandatory vaccines, however, is to prevent widespread epidemics of dangerous diseases that are easily spread from person to person by sitting next to them on a bus, or sitting next to them in school. These are activities that virtually all children are involved in every day, and are the reasons that virtually all children used to contract illnesses such as measles, mumps, etc. This is simply not the case with HPV.
Again, I would like to stress that, once this vaccine is shown to be safe, I believe it will be the responsible thing to do for parents to have their children vaccinated, and it will be good for the AMA to have doctors recommend it to parents, etc. That does not mean that the government should be in the business of requiring it.
I am not feeling particularly inclined to lay out my entire argument AGAIN, but I am interested to hear a counter-argument that addresses my actual POV, vs. what people are claiming my POV to be. So again, does anyone want to tell me what they think the criteria should be for making a vaccine mandatory?
Please keep in mind, when singing praises for the courageous Gov. Perry that he has received copious campaign donations from Merck, the pharmaceutical company that stands to profit many millions of dollars for this mandatory vaccination. Also be aware that the successful lobbyist for Merck used to be Perry’s chief of staff. What a coincidence.
Merck is quietly pushing for such laws in a number of states. In my state, New Mexico, the governor refused to sign such a bill, but did sign the one that requires insurance companies to cover the cost of the vaccination and to fund coverage of the vaccine through Public Health. I got my daughter the shot right away. It’s a good preventive measure to take. The quiet for-profit campaign by Merck makes me sick, though.
We all know you can trust the drug companies to be honest. They would never fake test results or pay off experts to cook up statistics.
I would want an unbiased authority to test . I am not sure that is possible any more.
I think I love you, but what am I so afraid of, a love there is no cure for??
Oh, sorry.
I think…whatever it takes, bubelah.