We could eliminate cervical cancer, but then more people might screw!

The BBQ Pit
1

(Adapted from my LJ, originally via Amanda at Pandagon.)

As you may or may not know, cervical cancer is essentially a sexually transmitted disease, caused by particular strains of the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). A vaccine has been developed that could eventually just about wipe this out, as long as it is given prior to the onset of sexual activity. But, of course, some religious nutjob groups are opposing it:

I do not believe that I live on the same planet as these people.

When I did Gyn Onc back in medical school, I saw plenty of cervical cancer. Not much affected me more. Who gets it? Youngish women, in their 30s and 40s usually, often with children at home. In my mere two weeks on Gyn Onc, I saw more than one of them die a horrible death. We could prevent that, but then the nutjobs won’t be able to shake their finger and say, “Shoulda kept your panties on.”

These people just don’t seem to grasp one of the most basic concepts in existence–people will fuck. Shake your finger all you want, they will fuck. Show them pictures of the rotting corpses and diseased genitalia of those who fucked before them, and they will fuck. Put them in steel-belted, triple-padlocked chastity belts and lock them away in dungeons, and they will manage to find a way to break out and fuck. True, some may not–but the rest will.

A good 80% of the maladies that I treat could be prevented or at least ameliorated by lifestyle modifications. If people would stop smoking, stop drinking, stop living on a diet of pork rinds and white table sugar, get off the damn couch every now and then, take some damn responsibility for their lives, and yes, stop engaging in ill-advised intercourse, then I’d have to get a job in a record store somewhere. (A man can dream…) I give the same advice about lifestyle changes over and over and over, and it makes almost no difference.

For instance, I preach hellfire and brimstone about cigarette smoking, slapping my palm with my Washington Manual of Internal Medicine like the King James, and I’d bet half of them light up the second they step outside the hospital. When these people come back in with emphysema or lung cancer, I could just scoff and say it was their own damn fault, and send them off to die. But I can’t do that. Medicine has to approach life as it is, not as we’d like it to be. Yes, if everyone stopped smoking, the more common lung cancers would virtually disappear–but if it were in my power to make them disappear some other way, I’d be a sick bastard not to do it.

Here we have something that could be in our power. But if there’s even the slightest chance that this could cause some young girl to give up her precious, precious chastity, then I suppose it’s better to let those women die. (Where is that sanctity of life bullshit now that we need it?)

I just can’t believe that I live on the same planet as these sick, sick people.

2

Ah, yes. The fundie nutjob right.

I wonder if it’s occurred to them that HPV is only one of many STDs. Even if cervical cancer is eliminated, there’s still gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, HIV, hepatitis, herpes, and God alone knows how many more diseases out there. Besides, IMNSHO, it’s irresponsible not to use the vaccine.

I wonder if the fundie nutjob right has ever considered the possibility that a woman can contract HPV from her spouse? Probably not.

Robin

3

Does this really surprise you?

The fundies want to control what you do fron birth to death.

4

No, but occasionally my fury gets re-ignited.

5

But admit it - with the American people being so overwhelmingly anti-cancer, you have to admire the courage of those few willing to publically take a pro-cancer stance.

6

Traditition is tradition.

7

Jeez, what amazes me is; “HOW MANY TIMES WILL IT TAKE BEFORE YOU REALIZE THAT ABSTINENCE DOES NOT WORK.”

People are going to have “pre-marital” sex not matter what you f’ers do.

Damn! It’s like they’re like that stupid monkey that keeps trying to fit the square peg into the round hole.

8

Dear vaccine opponents,

Assuming the vaccine will be thoroughly tested and demonstrably safe, what are you thinking? If women are dying of cancer that’s as easily preventable as this, what kind of a culture of life is that? Have you no respect for life that is established?

Sure, abstinence is the best way to avoid sexually transmitted diseases. But face it, not everyone is going to remain abstinent. You know this.

I hope the culture of life comes through on this.

9

Is it also possible that this vaccine could prevent warts (of any type), as well?
Or would you need one to more specifically target that strain? Because I had a damn painful wart on my finger last year, and it was a bitch to get rid of.

10

This may actually be the most evil thing I’ve ever seen the religious right attempt.

11

I think you’re underestimating their ambition.

12

Other than the Holocaust, the Crusades, the Inquisition,?

Or did you mean the most evil thing the religious right has attempted this week?

13

Yup - they want to go way before birth and way beyond death…

14

The religious right was not responsible for the Holocaust. The Nazis were.

I don’t like them any more than the next liberal but let’s not get carried away.

I do think actions like this one illustrate how much they resemble an American Taliban. The American left should use Bridget Maher’s comments to demonstrate just how truly crazy the religious right is. Her idiocy deserves to be Exhibit A at every Democrat rally in the entire country. Very few Americans would agree with her insane stance.

15

I’m not sure you do. Last I checked you and I were on that blue one with the green strips, and I’m just not sure where these psychos are spending their time. Hardly matters since they’re causing us so many problems over here.

16

I don’t know how old lavenderlemon is, but it seems reasonable to assume that those things all occurred too long ago for him/her to witness them, quite apart from them being unconnected to the Religious Right, which is specific to the United States in the last few decades.

17

No-they want to control you before you’re born, hence the need to bear upon those who might create you while engaging in a little houghmagandy. :wink:

18

No, but we cannot stop being outraged. We cannot stop reacting.

It’s even more basic than that: people should bloody well be allowed to fuck. There is no reason to try and stop people from fucking. It is only if there were that the question if it’s possibly to stop people from fucking even would become relevant.

19

HPV is PRIMARILY sexually transmitted, it doesn’t mean it’s ONLY sexually transmitted.

DoctorJ- please correct me if I recall incorrectly, but wasn’t there a study of Australian women with HPV and only one prior sexual partner which showed that in some cases their sexual partner was not an HPV carrier? Thus suggesting that HPV can be contracted in other ways, possibly from non-sexual skin-to-skin contact etc.

Although having many sexual partners increases your risk, cervical cancer is not unheard of in women with only one partner, nor for that matter is it entirely unknown (very rare is not the same thing as never happens) in virgins.

Public health experts should weigh up whether the vaccine is a good idea or not, not people who have a vested interest in making sex as dangerous and therefore unappealing as possible.

When it boils right down to it, patient autonomy will still be in effect.
I want the vacccine, I want my child to have it, fine we get it. You don’t want the vaccine, you don’t want you child to have it, fine you don’t get it. However, your child gets to the legal age of consent, they can do whatever they want, without your consent or knowledge. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.

20

Ignorant shit like this really makes me hate religion. Culture of life my ass.