Gardasil again

[neadods]

Step in the right direction - federal panel unanimously recommends girls aged 11-12 be vaccinated with Gardasil, with side comments that it should also be made available for females aged 9 - 26 at their or their parents (depending on age) permission.

This is one step closer to saving thousands of women from death by cancer. 4,000 preventable deaths per year in America alone.

And this is the reaction to such a pro-life position:

"If that [making the vaccine mandatory] happens, state officials, not parents, would become the primary sexual-health decision makers for America's children. That's the way things are done in dictatorships, not democracies," said Linda Klepacki of Focus on the Family.
---
"This is not a communicable disease that would keep kids out of school like mumps or rubella," said Gerald Tirozzi, executive director of the National Assn. of Secondary School Principals, whose members include middle school and high school administrators. "To make this a condition to enter school — I think parents would become very upset, and many would see this as a signal to their daughters that they can become sexually active," Tirozzi said. "I think there would be a lot of push-back." It's only a communicable disease that could kill the girls. Slowly, painfully, expensively. That shouldn't bother the parents half as much as the idea of darling daughter ever parting her thighs.
---
``You can't catch the virus, you have to go out and get it with sexual behavior,'' said Linda Klepacki of Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian nonprofit group that opposes efforts to mandate Gardasil vaccinations. ``We can prevent it by having the best public health method, and that's not having sex before marriage,'' Klepacki said. Best public health method? Care to stack that claim up against any other public health threats? Abstinence going to cure avian flu, lung cancer, heart disease, the common cold? No? How about ending rape, pedophilia, sexual abuse? Not that either? But don't worry, Ms. Klepacki, if any of the latter happen to a girl and she later dies of HPV-related cancer, you can add insult to injury by saying she went "out and get it."

This Klepacki seems to be a mine of mind-twisting quotes. I'd google her, but I have a feeling I'd end up needing a shower and lots of brain bleach.

The Guardian in England lays it out on the line in that refreshingly British way: Which is the greater evil, cervical cancer or sluttish behaviour? ... Because being vaccinated against a potentially deadly disease could make girls slutty. Seriously. ... [R]ead: "Only whores get cancer."

But after all that, a shining light of sanity and reason:
Two national health insurers, Aetna and WellPoint, the parent of Blue Cross of California, said they would follow the committee's recommendations and begin reimbursing for the vaccine immediately. HIP-HIP-HUZZAH FOR THEM!

Comments

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

This whole "it'll encourage girls to have sex" business is pulled out of their asses. Kids already have to have a string of shots before they can go to school, and most of them neither know nor care what they're for. What's one more added to the list? If the PARENTS don't make a big hoo-ha over it, the kids won't even notice.

[svilleficrecs.livejournal.com]

The $$ saved in public health dollars alone makes this a no brainer.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I'm insured by Wellpoint; yeas! Will call and try to get my 15-year-old an vaccination appointment next week.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

There were good reasons for me to opt out of my health care (CIGNA) from work in favor of adding me on to maya_a's plan, which is from Aetna. Now I feel even better about it, seeing my insurer taking the high road as an early adopter.

Focus on the Family is a batch of loonies. The one you quote seems to be the one in charge of putting wingnuttery into words. *ugh*

[amilyn.livejournal.com]

How about ending rape, pedophilia, sexual abuse? Not that either? But don't worry, Ms. Klepacki, if any of the latter happen to a girl and she later dies of HPV-related cancer, you can add insult to injury by saying she went "out and get it."

I ADORE your Total Sarcasm Mode. I wish those what needed to hear this would understand that what you're saying is that they are crazed, misogynistic and wrong rather than insistently misunderstanding and saying, "YES! Exactly!"

I grew up with people whose primary concern was about sexual behavior...but with very little emphasis on how to prevent sexual assault. I found out that Yet Another of my students (14) has already been assaulted...and that makes half a dozen or more that I know of. It's getting to a point where I'm wondering if there are any who HAVEN'T...and I cannot understand why EVERYONE does not see this as the epidemic that it is and why they're not horrified and working to teach folks how NOT to hurt one another and...SUCh a mess.

[flaviarassen.livejournal.com]

Of course the health care providers are for the vaccine.
& not because they are for women's rights. They know that
an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure - & they
don't want to be sued by some woman who gets cancer
because *they* wouldn't pay for the vaccine....

[karenmiller.livejournal.com]

Yanno, assuming the elevator goes up for this woman, I really wanna be there when she tries to explain all this to Jesus ...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH

[nemo-wistar.livejournal.com]

Why the hell do we have seat belts? That's only giving drivers the wrong message that it's okay to get in an accident. It will encourage BAD DRIVING!! Accidents don't happen when you sit at home in your house, watching TV. You have to GO OUT AND GET IN ONE. Besides, making the state government require that we wear them is only shifting the responsibility of accident prevention to them, and not to the potential driver.

Oh by the way ... suppressing a vaccine because of your own sexual puritanism is something done in THEOCRACIES. Also, HPV is not exclusively sexually transmitted; you don't have to have sex to get it, though that's one way to contract it. It's transmitted through the skin, so you could be "following the Lord's will" and still end up needing a hysterectomy because Ms. Klepacki thinks sex it icky and boys have cooties.

Ms. Klepacki needs to be knocked out with a 3' dildo and shipped to Madagascar in a box marked "free hooker" in Malagasy.

[hellocalamity.livejournal.com]

Echoing the previous comments on the idiocy of "it will make kids go out and have sex." I mean, what 16-year-old girl is going to be like, "if I have sex I could get pregnant, contract herpes or HIV, or be seen as a slut - but what's this, I won't have to worry about dying of cervical cancer in 40 years? That's all the incentive I need to spread my thighs!"

Not only this, but I would wager that most kids don't even know that the virus can cause cancer, so getting the vaccine wouldn't be any sort of deterrent lifted! I mean, I'm 19 and consider myself pretty knowledgeable about sexual health, but seriously, I had NO idea about the connection between an STD and cervical cancer until I read the first article about the vaccine. I have no clue how it escaped me for so long - I didn't even have abstinence-only sex ed - but there you go.