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Approved doesn't mean available
Jun. 9th, 2006 08:23 amMy f-list exploded yesterday with joy that the FDA had approved Gardasil, the vaccine that protects against HPV and therefore against cancer. I would be a great deal more personally joyful if I wasn't so aware that the FDA has also long since approved the pill - which hasn't stopped the growing American Taliban from trying to make sure that just because it's legal doesn't mean it's going to be available to the women who want it.
When we can get Gardasil without a bunch of hysteria about sex and sexuality, THEN I'll rejoice. Because I have yet to see a single article about this vaccine, its testing, its uses, its coverage, etc. without at least one quote from Focus on the Family and its ilk, always beating the drum that abstinence programs - which haven't worked to stop STDs, teen pregnancy, or even abstinence from sexual activity - will magically protect women from cancer. As if that has anything to do with saving women's lives or the many ways in which virtuous girls can become exposed to HPV.
The message being touted here, under all the handwaving about being glad that the vaccine is available just as long as it isn't made mandatory, is simple: Don't make us protect our kids, because we think the little sluts deserve cooter cancer if they don't toe the line. Katha Pollitt states it beautifully in Virginity or Death! It's honor killing on the installment plan... Faced with a choice between sex and death, they choose death every time.
The FDA approval was only the smallest of steps in the right direction. The real battle is not yet begun.
When we can get Gardasil without a bunch of hysteria about sex and sexuality, THEN I'll rejoice. Because I have yet to see a single article about this vaccine, its testing, its uses, its coverage, etc. without at least one quote from Focus on the Family and its ilk, always beating the drum that abstinence programs - which haven't worked to stop STDs, teen pregnancy, or even abstinence from sexual activity - will magically protect women from cancer. As if that has anything to do with saving women's lives or the many ways in which virtuous girls can become exposed to HPV.
The message being touted here, under all the handwaving about being glad that the vaccine is available just as long as it isn't made mandatory, is simple: Don't make us protect our kids, because we think the little sluts deserve cooter cancer if they don't toe the line. Katha Pollitt states it beautifully in Virginity or Death! It's honor killing on the installment plan... Faced with a choice between sex and death, they choose death every time.
The FDA approval was only the smallest of steps in the right direction. The real battle is not yet begun.
