I just had to blog about it.
In about the last year and a half, the vaccination debate has really started to pick up. With Gardisal, the human papilloma virus vaccine, now out on the market, the debate has struck as to whether or not it should be made mandatory for young girls.
Naively, I assumed this would not be an issue. Who would like see a female in their life be diagnosed with cervical cancer or genital warts?
A little info on Gardisal. Gardisal can effectively protect against the infection of HPV types 18, 16, 11 & 6. These four types combined cause roughly 90% of all cases of genital warts. Even more frightening is Type 16 that causes about 50% of cases of cervical cancer, and Type 18 that follows up with an additional 15-20%. Also, though the evidence is not obvious as it is shown in cervical cancer, Types 16 & 18 are more then likely a contributor to the development of vulvar, vaginal and anal cancers. Gardisal is just about 100% effective against these four types and is, so far, only indicated for girls and women ages 9-26.
HPV is not just a sexually transmitted disease, but is the most common STD. In health classes when I was growing up, I was told (while being scared into abstinence) it was genital herpes that frequented the most people. I was shocked that 1 in 4 people are knowingly or unknowingly carrying the Herpes STD. That, is nothing compared to HPV whereas 80% of all sexually active adults will have contracted some type of HPV by age 50. This points out that it doesn’t matter if you’re a young girl being promiscuous, a responsible condom carrying twentysomehting, a homosexual, or monogamous married wife of two…it’s irrelevant, you can still contract the infection. Unless you have taken a vow of celibacy…for the rest of your life mind you…you are at risk.
So at the state level, governments are throwing around whether to make the vaccine mandatory. Why make anything mandatory? Well usually mandatory vaccines are decided upon how they are transmitted, like measles or something along the lines of that. But by putting this on the mandatory immunization list your not only protecting your child, but vaccinating in groups can in theory provide safety to a community as a whole. More info on that? Wikipedia: Herd-Immunity. Basically though, when a disease becomes an issue of public health, we look at making it mandatory.
When googling the topics, I was saddened by an opinion where the author suggests that requiring the HPV vaccine is what you would call morally unethical. He says: "Here we are talking about forcing a person to undergo mandatory drug therapy (vaccination), when they have no disease, under the presumption that they might get a disease based on future poor behavior."
Whah? Are you kidding me? Future poor behavior? Please refer to my 4th paragraph dear sir and educate before you publish.
Is it not clear that regardless of the behavior of your sex life, waiting till marriage or something otherwise, you are and will continue to be at risk for this? Yes, you will be at more risk with several partners, but please don’t think because you are of a more exclusive sex life that you are free from exposure to HPV; you are still at risk for cervical (and vulvar and vaginal and anal) cancer.
The issue, is simply, and issue of medicine and moral values. I’m not a parent, but it is surely unpleasant to think of your children having sex, whether as children or adults. But while your busy despising the picture, its happening. In front of our eyes or hidden, consensually or by pure force, after school or on dates, in marriages and in monogamous relationships, in what we think is “love” and the flings, for money, when your home and when you are not. Are they rushing to the health dept. to get their partner tested? Is that the first thing on their minds or sometimes…do they have a choice? Often, no. And when it happens, a virus may come with it, a completely non-destroyable, indestructible virus that may even cause cervical cancer.
And now we have a vaccine protecting against it, and there is even an issue of not making it mandatory? It bugs me, it scares me, and I don’t like it. When it comes down to it, you don’t have to vaccinate your child, regardless of if it’s mandatory or not. There is always a little checkbox that can explain your way out of it, personal, religious, health, reasons and what not.
But please understand, you are dooming your child to yet another risk to experience in a world that’s already dangerous enough; to a time where they may have to search to find a specialist that knows how to treat cervical cancer as it is so very rare.
I don’t know what brought all this up, it just struck me in my daily google news indulgence how frustrating this argument is. As someone who went through the three dose vaccination process, I find nothing morally unethical in protecting myself & my partner. We have this medical advancement in our hands, and because someone can’t bare to think of there child having sex and is oblivious to the fact that regardless of the habits of there sex life, they are still at risk….we have an argument. There are plenty of more important issues, let it go.
Infiltrated
Dude. Garbage men don't even have to get out of there big trucks anymore. Is this only in Utah? Maybe I've just never dealt with my garbage so I didn't witness such an advance in technology till now...but woah!
Mexican. As someone who enjoys people watching, it was a field day for me. So many different types of people there for different reasons; it always makes me wonder about there lives. I even got to help some of the Spanish speakers who couldn't figure out which form to fill out. I waited about 20 minutes only to find out my blood-father had petitioned to have his name legally on my birth certificate about 5 years ago and all of my file needed to be redone...costing me an extra $25.00 and 45 min. I decided to venture out to the SS office via iPhone.
