I meant to post a thread about this when I first heard about it, but I haven’t had time. I’ve checked around to see if someone already started one about it, but I don’t think anyone has. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Part of me thinks, hooray for encouraging smart women’s health choices.
Part of me is outraged that the assumption is that all teenage girls will be promiscuous and therefore needs the government to require them to be immunized to lessen the effects of such behavior.
Part of me worries that there may be unforeseen problems with this very new vaccine.
And, taking it to the extreme, part of me worries that if we eventually get to the point where we can technologically/medically prevent diseases that result largely from irresponsible and/or uninformed decisions, what is there to prevent some people from making those decisions?
And then I think I’m just blowing it out of proportion and maybe this is a good thing for all parties after all.
Well, you don’t have to sleep with lots of people in order to get HPV, so it makes sense to vaccinate before the kids come in contact with it. I really don’t know why people who are in favor of other vaccines are so opposed to this one (besides the normal caution that should be taken when considering using a new product).
This certainly is extreme. Sometimes people end up with diseases through no fault of their own. And even if it is their own fault, I can’t see the point of not curing diseases as some sort of deterrant. People are going to continue to make bad desisions whether there’s a chance it could make them sick or not. Thats what we (as a species) do.
I would never suggest we not cure/prevent a disease that we have the know-how to cure/prevent. That’s just kind of stupid. I guess I was thinking about parents who force their daughters to take the pill so they won’t get pregnant, and their daughter winds up sleeping around because she figures it’s not hurting anything.
I agree; rare is it that someone decides against something because of the consequences. I think it has more to do with the values we have as members of society. I’m not a murderer; it’s not because I don’t want to go to jail, but because I value life and consider it immoral to kill. In the same way, I’m not promiscuous, nor was I as a teenager. But it probably wasn’t/isn’t because I fear STDs, but because I value sexual activity as being part of a meaningful relationship.
And obviously not everyone who gets HPV did so because they were promiscuous, or irresponsible. But unlike HIV, I think it is only ever contracted sexually.
I think the vaccine is a good thing, and if it’s proven safe, should be regulated as much as other vaccines are. The fact that this one has gotten bogged down by being tied to promiscuity is a sad reflection on our attitudes about women and sex.
HPV is EXTREMELY prevalent, can cause serious problems ranging from fertility issues to cancer (particularly for women), and is often undetected by its carrier. For instance, I got it from the very first man I slept with. He didn’t know he had it, and was floored to be told about it. I get to live my life with that consequence.
A few things here.
a) I’m glad you acknowledged that this is taking it to the extreme.
b) If we could prevent all sexually transmitted diseases, I can’t fathom perceiving this as anything other than a Good Thing. The needless suffering of millions of people could be eliminated.
c) STDs don’t result from poor decisions. They result from people screwing, and not necessarily promiscuously (see me, above). To equate screwing with poor decision-making is… archaic at best. Disease is not punishment for sin, but can be a consequence of sexual activity.
To vaccinate your children against HPV does not mean you presume they’ll sleep around. It means you presume that at some point – as healthy, normal adults – they’ll have sex. And it means you love them enough to prevent one unhappy possibility.
If you understand all of this, then I’m not really sure what you’re concerned about. You say that you wouldn’t suggest that we don’t prevent a disease that we can prevent, yet you’re not sold on a vaccine meant to prevent a strain of HPV. Then you mention that peple want the government to vaccinate because they assume that girls will be promiscuous, then that you know people can get the disease without sleeping around. As **Beadalin ** says, it only takes once. That one time might not even be consentual. Now, who knows how many partners the average person has before they contract HPV. It doesn’t have any bearing on whether or not the vaccine is a good thing or not though imo.
The hypothetical promiscuous girl and her family probably have a lot of issues if she’s being forced her on birth control. Plus, with the vaccine, after your rounds of shots are over, that’s it for the rest of your life. Putting a virgin on birth control now, just in case, doesn’t provide protection years down the line.
Its not people will think they can just sleep around all they want because they won’t get HPV. There’s still syphilis, gonorrhea, genital warts, herpes, AIDS, pregnancy. This one vaccine is not a free pass anyway. It prevents a type of cancer for crying out loud. People need to get past their puritanical reactions to sex and see that this IS good.
I see the idea of requiring the vaccine as a reaction to an equally irrational and extreme opposite position: parents who would deny their daughters this protection out of the highly unlikely expectation that their daughter will not have sex until she marries another monogamous virgin. On a personal level I actually can understand that as an ideal, but on a statistical level it is very unlikely. That this break with reality is so common that the government would intervene with a requirement is troubling. OTOH, the government actually does need to mandate most vaccines, because if they didn’t too many parents would find some reason not to get the kid vaccinated. And on a public health basis it surely makes sense to prevent measles, mumps and cervical cancer.
Frankly, I’m insulted at your equation between requiring the vaccine and assumption of promiscuity. Certain strains of HPV cause cervical cancer. Cervical cancer kills women. This vaccine prevents HPV*. It doesn’t matter whether the virus is sexually transmitted, airborne, or spread via repeated viewings of American Idol, THIS VACCINE WILL SAVE LIVES.
People who are promiscuous deserve to get cancer and die from it as a horrible warning to others? I mean, seriously, what the hell? What about people who simply fell in love with and trusted the wrong person, who by far seem to make up the vast majority of people I know who contracted STDs?
Experiences already shared in this thread which show you that HPV can be contracted from a single intimate contact. (HPV is spread by skin-to-skin contact and is highly contagious, much more easily spread than HIV or other STDs.) Here’s another sobering thought for you… sexual contact isn’t always consensual. Hell, it might be too late for some of those 9-year-old girls! They may already have HPV. That’s the world we live in.
Can we just worry about keeping people alive long enough to save their souls, please? Thanks. :rolleyes:
Edit - *I believe the vaccine might prevent only the cancer-causing strains of HPV, I’m not sure.
My mom would have had me in for that if it had been around when I was younger. I wish it had, but I’m too old.
I can’t believe there are people who would rather chance that their daughters get cancer than admit that they will eventually have sex and get them the vaccine!
Even if they don’t want to admit their daughters might have sex, they could just think about it in terms of their daughters eventually marrying someone who might have had sex with someone else prior to meeting their daughter. Geez, are people that far in denial, that Puritanical in their thinking?
For a certain set of individuals with some really unhealthy ideas about sex, HPV was the ace in the hole. For a while, there was no evidence that cnodoms could prevent its spread. This quickly morphed into “comdoms DON’t prevent its spread*,” and some conservative groups were able to use it a scare weapon.
They got a lot of help from the show ER on this.
The thing nobody seems to get is that the girls aren’t required to get the vaccine.
Quoth the link:
(Bolding mine, of course.) Parents may chose not to get their children vaccinated by simply signing a form that say (in more technical terms, I’m sure) “We’ve thought about it and decided not to. Thanks anyways.”
Beyond that, all of my opinions on the matter have already been voiced (far better than I could have done) by lisacurl. The vaccine could save your child’s life; what’s more important than that?
I’ll weigh in against mandating such a thing. I fully understand the potential benefits of such a vaccine (I now have two friends who have had cervical cancer). It’s quite likely that I’ll have my daughter vaccinated… at some point.
The vaccine was just approved last summer. The data is simply not out there regarding long-term side effects (if someone has links to such data, please post; I’ll read them with an open mind). The “protecting public health” aspect of this vaccine isn’t as strong as, say, with measles - you can’t catch HPV from the kind of casual contact that spreads measles, rubella, etc. I don’t think there is any reason for the school district to push such a thing.
Do I think the vaccine will turn out to be an important public health issue? Absolutely. Do I think it has the potential to save lives? Absolutely. Will I rush to have my kid be the first one on the block to be immunized? No. Will I hold off on it out of some misguided attitude of “if I do that, she’ll think it’s OK to have sex!”. Oh hell no.
Disclaimer: I have a child with autism (though no connection with vaccine as far as we can tell), and another child who has been known to have paradoxical reactions to medications - including vaccines. And the whole family has major allergies. Therefore, I view anything with impact on the immune system with extreme caution bordering on if not quite achieving paranoia.
I’m no expert, but I do work in an immunology lab. If the HPV is carried on the skin surface, then a vaccine for a male is pointless. If a male carries the virus internally (blood, semen, etc.), with no noticable symptoms, then vaccination would help.
However, cervical cancer isn’t airborne. And while HPV is easily spread through skin to skin contact - it is unlikely that an infected person will accidentally spread it to an entire classroom. Nor does it spread or develop as quickly as measles or mumps.
I like seeing the vaccine advertised. I would like it to be very available and routine. I might even be for having it subsidized so the monetary costs of getting vaccinated were minimal to non-existent. I would highly encourage eligible people to get the vaccine. But having this vaccine mandated rubs me the wrong way.