Cervical cancer vaccine -- success or sabotage? (Goodman)

[struggle4progress]

BY ELLEN GOODMAN
[e-mail]

<snip> In clinical trials, a new vaccine was 100 percent successful in preventing the virus that causes most cervical cancer, the second-leading cancer killer of women in the world. Every year some 10,000 American women are diagnosed with it, and nearly 4,000 die. It now appears that with government approval and funding, we're on our way to ending this scourge. <snip>

Meanwhile, Gene Rudd of the Christian Medical and Dental Associations acknowledges the worries of fellow travelers: "I've talked to some who have said, 'This is going to sabotage our abstinence message.' " <snip>

At the heart of the debate is the fact that the vaccine works against the human papilloma virus (HPV), which is sexually transmitted. Since HPV is transmitted skin to skin, not just through intercourse, condoms aren't wholly effective against it. <snip>

Henry Waxman found that two-thirds of the abstinence-only education programs are teaching the "right message" with the wrong science. Your tax dollars are at work -- to the tune of a billion dollars -- teaching students that touching another person's genitals "can result in pregnancy", that "there's no such thing as 'safe' or 'safer' sex" and that loneliness, embarrassment, substance abuse and personal disappointment "can be eliminated by being abstinent until marriage." <snip>

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/13148277.htm

[havocmom]

1. Just say no to sex with fundies

Don't wanna sabotage their abstinence message!

Liberals, on the other hand, are sexy.

[struggle4progress]

2. Great rant on DU's front page, linking this Goodman column:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5343865

[havocmom]

3. Thanks for the heads up. I generally go right to latest forum page

and seldom check DU home page.

Just galls me people are more concerned with controling morals over protecting health. Piss on the lot of them.

[mzmolly]

4. I personally need to know more about this vaccine before I would indulge.

That's just me.

[struggle4progress]

5. Merck's Gardasil and GlaxoSmithKline's Cervarix are apparently ..

made by assembling protein components (from certain papilloma virus strains) into a virus-like particle, expected to be noninfective because it lacks DNA. Antibodies from the immune response to the vaccine are then available to attack natural virus if it occurs. I think Gardasil is now headed for FDA review.

That's pretty much all I know about the subject right now ...