Guardian UK: Vaccine but not heard (STD vaccinations)

[marmar]

Vaccine but not heard
American conservatives think laws that require STD vaccinations would endorse premarital sex. Why are cowardly lawmakers starting to agree?

Ann Friedman


When Rick Perry of Texas became the first governor in the United States to require that all sixth-grade girls in his state get vaccinated against the human papillomavirus (HPV), conservatives became alarmed. HPV, after all, is a sexually transmitted disease, and the vaccine - which protects against those strains known to cause cervical cancer - works most effectively if girls receive the shot before they become sexually active. To many rightwingers, that's tantamount to endorsing teen sex. "Premarital sex is dangerous, even deadly," said Leslee Unruh, president of the Abstinence Clearinghouse. "Let's not encourage it by vaccinating 10-year-olds so they think they're safe."

Perry, a conservative Republican, presides over one of the reddest states in the country, but when he handed down the vaccine order in February, he sounded less like Unruh and more like a liberal women's health advocate. "The HPV vaccine does not promote sex," he said. "It protects women's health." Nonetheless, Perry's order doesn't guarantee that the HPV mandate will actually take effect. The religious right has lobbied hard for legislation to block it, and the Texas House of Representatives recently approved a measure to repeal Perry's order.

The fight over mandatory vaccination across the country began last June, soon after the FDA approved the vaccine, Gardasil, which was developed by Merck & Co. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that all 11- and 12-year-old girls be vaccinated, but left it up to individual states to decide whether they wanted to make the vaccine a requirement for enrolling in public school. Within the first few months of this year, bills to make the vaccine mandatory cropped up in 20 state legislatures, and passed in three - Virginia, New Mexico, and New Jersey. But legislation has stalled in many other states, in no small part thanks to efforts by conservative "pro-family" groups.

A California bill was shot down last week after state legislators on both sides of the aisle expressed skepticism. Some states, such as Colorado, refused even to approve a compromise measure that would merely require doctors to inform parents that the vaccine existed. Recently, in Georgia, vaccine legislation was tabled by its own sponsor, who told a reporter, "Sometimes there are ideas that are ready, and sometimes there are ideas that haven't percolated enough." ....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ann_friedman/2007/03/hpv_1.html

[varkam]

1. Not just conservatives are against vaccination

There's also a sizable progressive contingent against it as well, albeit for different reasons.

[Sukie1941]

3. "Progressive conginent...."

So, what are the reasons???????????

If you are a guy, you really don't have any reason to post about this topic unless you have a teen child.

[varkam]

6. Easy, friend.

I'm not against vaccination. I'm for vaccination. I do not have a teen child, but that does not prevent me from forming an opinion on issues. For example, I am a male but I have opinions and views on gender equality. Likewise, I am white but I still have views and opinions on racial discrimination. Just because one does not have a dog in the fight does not mean that their opinion might not contribute to the discussion.

As for what are the reasons, well, that's a good question. Some believe vaccines are harmful, some believe they're ineffective, but mostly it's just a disdain for anything big pharma.

[Sukie1941]

8. Err on the side of intelligence

Thanks to "pharma," I am still living at age 65 (thanks to Foxamax, which I no longer take, my osteoporis is under control) and hope to get to where my Mom is at age 93. Without "pharma," she would have died 10-15 years ago. She has managed to keep one step ahead of the grim reaper because she has the best of doctors here in So. Oregon!

But I am not stupid, either. I don't take drugs that I think are not helping me healthwise. When I think of my mom, her brother, parents and grandmother driving west in 1919 in a Ford Model T touring car (two months on the road) and my great-grandmother Audubon's journal mentioning the terrible death toll from the 1918 flu (a cousin of today's bird flu), I can only hope that my kids and their kids will have the advantage of good medicine to protect them, politics aside. Same for Elizabeth.

[varkam]

10. Welcome to DU!

And I completely agree with you. Pharmaceuticals are some of the principal reasons we are living longer and healthier. Just giving people a heads-up, I suppose :)

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

9. my family knows cervical cancer very well

two women in our family have suffered it, one had been a full blown hippy the other got HPV from her husband, who would go on to attempt suicide over it.

All the young women in our family are in the process of receiving gardasil, if you say were putting the profits of Merck ahead of their health, I say fuck you, this isn't academic or ideological for us.

[varkam]

13. Well

All the young women in our family are in the process of receiving gardasil, if you say were putting the profits of Merck ahead of their health, I say fuck you, this isn't academic or ideological for us.

I guess it's a good thing I'm not saying that.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. Take a look at the Health forum to find this "progressive" contignent

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=222

though frankly, their hatred of the vaccine doesn't seem very progressive to me. Some are just against "Big Pharma" making profits, but some here on DU seem to resent any vaccines at all. It's a crusade for them. Varkam has argued against them many times, I think.

[varkam]

14. Merckenaries

That's one of my favorite ad homs floating around the health forums. If you happen to disagree with that particular flavor of "truth", then you're a paid shill for pharma.

And yes, I have argued against them but I've had no discernable effect. There are still some who are pushing a mercury / autism connection. Oh well.

[Sukie1941]

2. Survival of the Fittest

I really don't care if parents immunize their girls against this virus.

If these kids die, then we rid ourselves of the less intelligent amongst us and they won't be breeding MOTS, especially in the Sowth.

I worked with a management person at Wal-Mart, and her baby daughter got whooping cough because neither the mother nor the baby were immunized.

There is nothing people can do to stop this kind of stupidity. Legislation doesn't work. More and more parents don't immunize their young kids. My mother who is 93 almost died of diptheria as a small child because there was no protection. I can only guess that parents who refuse to immunize their kids are sorry they have kids.

[Deja Q]

4. But intelligence has many forms, and we have some unintelligent folks running corporations...

I believe in Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. To deprive fellow Americans of the same thing is wrong.

Also, consider why mum or the baby were not immunized - maybe they couldn't afford it? And while some mothers have certain problems, others marry jerks, have expensive degrees, are more intelligent than you and I combined, and can't get ahead. How do you explain that?

[Sukie1941]

7. She could afford it

Management at Wal-Mart does fairly well financially. Yes, she could afford it.

When I worked for the Oregon State Health Division in the 1980's, I volunteered with the Red Cross to visit with young mothers at University Hospital in Portland, Oregon. My job was to convince them to give their babies their "shots." Some of these mothers were 13 years old and were more interested in talking to their friends on the phone than paying attention to the babies in bassinets in their rooms.

You do the best you can.

I had a friend who died from cervical cancer. It was unnecessary. She was a good Democrat and busy with her political ambitions and had no time for a Pap smear.

[juno jones]

5. Cannot believe I have to say this

most of us are not against vaccines, but check out FDA SCANDALS on the DU search...would you trust this government to make this MANDATORY? They have substituted party favorites for real experts in ALL areas of science. Maybe after this administration is gone I could concieve of it, until then, hell no! The FDA has been fucked over as completely as the USDA (PET FOOD!) or the goddam judicial system (can you say FASCISM!) in the last 6 years. I keep my medicine pre-Bush because the apes have had run of the henhouse and the golden eggs for way too long. I will agree with you in a democratic administration. Until then....sorry. And children don't die of this... we only die in 40 years when we are not-so-cuddly adults....

On edit...pap smear... now THATS what we need for free, sponsored by the gov'mint, that really saves lives! You still need a pap smear vacc or no 'cause it ain't just those 3 strains of HPV that cause cervical cancer, in fact they account for less than 50%...

[depakid]

12. So every other country in the world that approved this vaccine

is corrupt as well?

Your post is precisely why we need to mandate immunization schedules....