I was recently reminded that, some time ago, the current leader of the opposition in Australia said he wouldn’t be rushing out to get his daughters vaccinated against cervical cancer (I believe he was the Minister for Health at the time, but I could be wrong).
I don’t quite understand arguments against it (that is, most arguments I have heard seem unconvincing). Can someone explain in a clear and logical way why some people are opposed to most girls in high school being vaccinated?
I am aware that some people argue against vaccinations in general. I’m more interested in arguments specific to vaccination against HPV.
I don’t know how it goes in Australia, but over here, the argument is that driving is really dangerous, and seat belts, by mitigating that danger, only encourage people to drive, which they shouldn’t do, because it’s so dangerous.
That’s it. “Sex is bad! Girls need the threat of death to keep them from having sex!. And if they have sex anyway and die, oh well they were just sluts and deserved it.”
Agreed that it’s a control factor. “Now that this is out and publicized, I can withhold it from my daughters and let the threat of an STD that causes cancer and can lead to death hang over her head as the penalty she’ll face for having sex when I don’t want her to.”
I suppose I was hoping that that there was an argument that didn’t boil down to “it’s more important to protect girls’ virginity than their health”.
That may have been somewhat naive of me.
Mind you, I had kind of assumed that that’s why Tony Abbott (the pollie mentioned in the OP) is against the vaccine - it’s consistent with other comments he’s made.
Yep.
They don’t call Australia’s next Prime Minister the “Mad Monk” for nothing.
He is also opposed to abortion, delayed the availability of RU486 as Health Minister, referred to his daughters’ virginity as a “gift” for their future husbands, etc., etc…
He’s a stereotype, old-school Catholic prick, who’s managed not to put his foot too far in his mouth so far in the campaign.
What strikes me about arguing against HPV vaccination is that this stance not only endorses ‘capital punishment for women sleeping around’, which is vile but at least consistent, but also ‘capital punishment for perfectly monogamous women whose husband sleeps around’.
I support the use of the HPV vaccine in girls but there are some rational reasons to decline it.
In America relatively few women currently die of cervical cancer - a few thousand each year. (Generally women are picked up by Pap smears early.)
The vaccine does not protect against all serotypes that cause cervical cancer. It is not yet clear how long the protection will last for the serotypes covered (and some may have more risk of risky behaviors in their 30’s than in their early teens), or if the other serotypes that the vaccine does not protect against will shift to cause more cervical cancer with time. Best estimate is that the vaccine will be unable to prevent 30% of cervical cancers even if 100% of girls get vaccinated.
The vaccine is fairly costly, does sting some, and is three shots - a bit of an inconvenience.
Putting those all together some have rationally asked if the benefits are worth the cost (both economic and discomfort/inconvenience). Best estimates are that it will have real benefit but at a fairly high price - about $24K/quality year of life saved. It is a reasonable question.
Now I still think it is worth it and advocate for with my patient families (pediatrician speaking) but not with the passion that I do for many other vaccines … I’d go to the mat over the meningitis vaccine for example. Deciding against the HPV vaccine, or at least waiting until the girl is entering High School, is not irrational.
There fears against it however are irrational. It is a safe vaccine. Hurts, yes. Some girls faint after it, stand up slowly with an adult standing close by. But the internet stories are just hysteria.
The rational argument becomes more pronounced now that the vaccine is also approved for use in males. Indeed there are real benefits that can be gained by vaccinating males as well. First off you’d further reduce cervical cancer if you reduced the amount of males that had the virus and were exposing female partners. Secondly males do get cancers from HPV as well: cancers of the penis, anus, and some oral cancers. These are less common than cervical cancer (albeit less uncommon among gay males) but they are not an insignificant item. And there are genital warts prevented by the vaccine too. The issue is if the marginal benefit is worth the marginal cost. And for this indication the powers that be are still not sure - the vaccine is approved for use in males but neither recommended for or against by the powers-that-be. I am telling my 11 year old and older boy families about it and offering it but with that explanation, and the proviso that insurance coverage may be a bit sketchy at first, and having few takers so far.
Much of the opposition to HPV vaccines comes from the same people who trash vaccination in general, using the same bogus arguments about “health risks”.
The data from research trials and clinical use shows that Gardasil is as safe as other vaccines - meaning very safe. There’ve been no serious side effects or deaths attributed to the vaccine. More detail here.
Legitimate questions have been raised about the cost of HPV vaccines and whether mandating it for children is cost-effective and wise. If I had a daughter I’d want her to be protected from HPV and the inconvenience, cost and potential medical implications of dealing with HPV infection (such as treatments for cervical dysplasia (precancers) which can impair fertility).
I see that DSeid has covered other concerns well. I’ll add a couple more thoughts - first, Pap tests, while a fine method for detecting cervical dysplasia/carcinoma that has saved thousands of lives, are not perfect and miss some abnormalities. They are a complement to and not a substitute for HPV vaccination at the present time. There is concern that some women who’ve been vaccinated may feel they don’t need Pap testing and so may go on to develop cancer if vaccine protection is incomplete or they’re infected by an HPV strain not included in the vaccine. Education is important here.
The current leader of the opposition in Australia has a number of reprehensible views.
To put this into perspective (and this comes from a lifetime supporter and ex-member of the Liberal party - the party of the leader of the opposition), he is a Roman Catholic who holds very extreme views. He advocates virginity until marriage but admits that he succumbed to temptation with his then girlfriend. 20+ years later he is reunited with his long-lost son, only to find out that his girlfriend had sex with more than one person at the time and the leader of the opposition is not the boy’s (man’s) father.
Frankly, for me, anything he says is tarnished with his extreme beliefs.
In my opinion it comes down to his belief that “sex is bad,” so anything which acknowledges that young (unmarried) people have sex should be opposed on principle.
But perhaps I’m jaded because I am about to face the choice between a party whose policies I have always disliked and a party which I support but which is lead by a moron whose policies are religious-driven nonsense.
To be any good, the vaccine has to be given before the girl in questions starts being sexually active. (Otherwise, you get that whole “closing the barn door after the horse got out” situation.)
To do that, the girl’s parents are put in the position of trying to assess their own daughter’s potential sex life and then working backwards from when their little princess first starts getting it on and OMG OH NOES!!! brain seizure
That’s the best that I can do. No other argument has ever been put forth, that I’ve heard.
Notice that although it is recommended, as I understand it, for boys to also get the vaccine (thus preventing them from spreading HPV, and also the virus is becoming implicated in a few other cancers anyway) no one is up in arms about protecting their son’s virginity. Bah.
If that were true, the companies that make these vaccines would not be trying to get them on the market for use in older women. It has to be more of a sure thing if it’s given to a woman who hasn’t been sexually active yet.
Another one has been put forth in this thread. This Australian guy might be a jackass but not everybody who has questions about this needs to be dismissed as an idiot.
Correct, IME. Most of the anti-vaxxers reject the vaccine first, and rationalize their position later.
FWIW, most of the anti-HPV vaccine argument was that “condoms work just as well” so it isn’t necessary. At least, so I was told at the anti-vax message board from which I was banned for posting pro-vax propaganda.
Most of the rest of it was “we don’t know the long-term effects - maybe it causes autism like other vaccines” and the discussion went downhill from there.
