"Well, you're a dirty whore. A little cervical cancer'll learn ya."

I think more lessons could be learned if guys dicks would just fall off. Anyway, I didn't chide you (for once), Ace. I know you are a girl's vagina's best friend. :)

Ace, your comments are really screwed up.

I think for you one sex partner would be "promiscuous".

What's wrong with letting the kid grow up and make up their own mind about getting vaccinated? Why should sexually inactive people be forced to inoculate themselves? Why should I let others force me to get my gets shot up? This isn't riskless, you know, and we've been getting along okay without this serum for a while--society isn't falling apart for lack of it.

Getting vaccinated is a good idea but forcing others to do it for diseases communicated through optional behavior is Big Brother at it's worst.

What's wrong with letting the kid grow up and make up their own mind about getting vaccinated? Why should sexually inactive people be forced to inoculate themselves? Why should I let others force me to get my gets shot up? This isn't riskless, you know, and we've been getting along okay without this serum for a while--society isn't falling apart for lack of it.

When would the kid "grow up" and make this choice?

Why would we expose her to cervical cancer during this "growing up" period?

What kid is going to tell her parents, "Yeah, I know you think I'm sexually inactive, but actually I'm banging the entire woodwind section of the marching band, so I really think I need this shot"?

To back up Ace, from a Star Ledger article:

“The best way to prevent HPV is through abstinence,” said Bridget Maher, an analyst at the Family Research Council, a conservative group that expects to campaign against making the vaccines mandatory for entering school. “I see potential harm in giving this vaccine to young women.”

She isn't alone.

A Merck study of 2,053 parents released last year found 11 percent of parents with 13-year-old girls probably or definitely wouldn't want them vaccinated before their 18th birthday. Another 27 percent were undecided.

A separate study last year in the Journal of Lower Genital Tract Disease found 24 percent of 575 parents opposed a vaccine and believed it would lead children to engage in sexual activity sooner than they would otherwise.

And again, in that noted liberal rag, GOP USA:

Asked this week about the HPV vaccine, Scott Phelps of the Abstinence and Marriage Education Partnership cited a recent letter in which he raised concerns about giving the vaccine to youngsters.

“We’re all for preventing cancer, but is this really the way to do it - by shooting this stuff into our kids?” he asked.

“What are the side effects in these young children? And are they told what the vaccine is for? I’d be interested to listen in on that discussion.”

Phelps said issues like the HPV vaccine were a reminder that “we do what we do [that is, promote abstinence] so that these types of ’solutions’ will not be necessary.”

And:

Leslee Unruh, president of the Abstinence Clearinghouse, said in an article on the group’s website that the money spent on developing the vaccines and which parents would have to pay for it “would be much safer spent on abstinence education.”

Ace, not every high school girl is banging the entire high school band. To start treating all of them as if they were is highly offensive and is going to start quite a revolt.

Wait a minute, band dorks get laid? There goes that fundamental assumption I've been harboring for about 11 years now.

I believe in a great amount of parental autonomy but I have to say when it comes to vaccinating against cancer -- assuming this vaccine is as effective as its said to be -- I'm not sure a parent should be allowed to knowingly expose a child to the risk of deadly cancer. To what end? To prove what point?

Yeah, people get cancer and die. It's claimed more than it's fair share of my rather immediate family. So I'll do my best to protect my kids. But it should be my choice.

As to the fruit and nut nuts, while I abhor their stupidity, I'd abhor making laws that require parents to feed their children a particular diet even more, especially since you're talking about a very isolated case here.

And to bring over my comment from the other thread, I would be 100% happy with making it mandatory that all children and their parents were offered the vaccination while still allowing said parents the right to refuse.

That would take care of the mandatory issue for me and still tickle my inner libertarian.

P.S. Dude, what's up with your comments? And why doesn't it ever remember who I am?

Teenage girls are able to get birth control pills wthout their parent's consent aren't they? Not to mention abortions? Why does this vaccine have to be mandatory, why not just make it available to anyone who wants it? Once the word gets out through education, any woman or teenage girl who knows that she would be at risk can get the vaccine, with or without her parents consent.

This blog eats comments.

Short version: We're not exposing kids to cervical cancer. We are leaving the risk of them contracting genital warts. You're talking like a liberal there.

How common are warts among back-seat fumbling teens, really?

Fact is, these judgements are mine to make, no one else's. It's my job to see my kids have the information to make these calls for themselves. If they are not demonstrating good judgement I have to step in and insist upon things like inoculations. Otherwise we have to trust them to make good decisions and let them know our expectations.

Anyway, if a kid is banging the AV squad then she is taking other precautions (we hope) and none of these require parental permission. The idea a kid would keep their activity from their parents is a red herring. Besides, on that logic we should lock them up in steel underwear.

Your intentions are good, but it's too intrusive into my relationship with my kids, and my judgements about their health. Everyone talks about some right to privacy, and I'm all for it. But here is where it should start, not end.

After reviewing the links I've concluded that the first article could best be described as jumping the gun on the potential opposition to mandated vaccinations, but not outright hackery.

I'm somewhat conflicted on this issue. I just found out that my wife is pregnant this weekend, so I'm a potential parent. If I have a daughter, I'd want her to be protected from cervical cancer, but I'd also want to know a lot more about the vaccination before someone forced it on her.

What bothers me about the extreme abstinence crowd is the corner they paint themselves into with their slipperly slope mentality. Much like rabid pro-choicers with their support of partial birth abortion, they sometimes find themselves in specifically morally indefensible positions while advocating for their larger goals.

Not all birth control education is necessarily pro-sex. I think the abstinence crowd would be better served by advocating balanced and truthful sex education rather than simply opposing any mention of birth control.

My fear for my children is not that some teacher might tell them about condoms, but rather that some Planned Parenthood troll will try to pass off condom use as "safe sex" when it really isn't. I don't care if birth control is talked about so long as it is stressed that only abstinence is fullproof, and that teenaged pregnancy is almost a guaranteed ticket to poverty.

Advocating for truthfulness in sex education will be more effective in defeating the pro-fisting crowd than the "punitive prudery" that Ace describes.

HPV, aka genital warts, is the most prevalent of STD's and getting worse. If we have a chance to prevent it we should. It's just crazy to make this an argument about teenage skanks vs. prudes. If a teenager wants to have sex, no amount of dissembling is gonna prevent it. This is just obnoxious.

Starving your child with insufficient nutrition != not vaccinating. Starving has a 1:1 death ratio; vaccinations are precautionary, but hardly a 1:1 death ratio. More like 10,000:1 in the case of cervical cancer.

In this case, I think it's a reflexive antipathy towards "conservative groups", which I think it's safe to say that most people read that as "religious people", or less charitably "whackjobs for Jesus".

Conservative groups question the mandatory aspect; they may even offer a concern that a vaccination that immunizes someone against one "STD" may make it more likely that that kid will increase sexual activity because they think they're "safe". This isn't a far-out opinion. Heather Macdonald (I think) wrote a long piece on the effect public policy has on marginal cases, effectively saying "the snowball effect isn't 100% bullshit".

Interesting debate. The diseases that are routinely vaccinated for are ancient enemies of humankind, and have only been overcome in the past few generations with general vaccination.

That said, my inner libertarian wants to make the decision. I don't want my kid to get rubella or mumps or tetanus or pertussis or cervical cancer. I wouldn't want a daughter being promiscuous, but there isn't a vaccine against that. Reasoned cost-benefit analysis leads me to generally favor vaccination.

“What are the side effects in these young children? And are they told what the vaccine is for? I’d be interested to listen in on that discussion.”

Important point about side effects. The science is unfamiliar to me, so I can't comment, but I'd look at that. I didn't tell my infant son why he was being poked, but when he needs boosters, I'll at least tell him about how bazillions of people have been saved from dread disease at the small cost of a needle poke. If our next one is a daughter, I'll get her vaccinated based on the potential harm vs obvious benefits.

I am generally libertarian/conservative, but I can't fathom why the thought that STDs might be prevented gets Christian conservatives in such a knot.

It seems like a lot of the above people are missing specific information about HPV, the virus in question- it's almost omnipresent in the US population, partially because transmission may not prevented by condoms. Most clinics won't even test for it because it's so hard to identify and most doctors just assume you've had it. If you've had sex with one person who was not a virgin, you're presumed to have been exposed. Therefore, girls can't get sexually active AND THEN get vaccinated because by then it's too late. Besides which, teenagers aren't known in general for their planning abilities. Hence why vaccination has to be early, and preferably mandatory; because one sexual encounter, with a condom, is enough to catch HPV.

You don't have to screw around, you just have to have sex with one person who has had sex with the wrong person.

I cannot get private health insurance because I have the strain of HPV that causes cancer. I got it after I married my husband.

I have to get state sponsored health insurance now (we're both self employed). Part of it will be paid by really high premiums, the rest will be paid by your tax dollars. Or rather, by taxes all health providers in my state have to pay to do business here -- & if you don't think those taxes jack up your premiums you're full of it.

Both boys AND girls should get this vaccine. From what I've read, the spread of these HPV strains are causing an increase in penile and colon cancer in men.

There's nothing primitive about noting the large increase in HPV transmission and cervical cancer resulting from an increasingly promiscuous society. What's so prude about traditional arrangements where you can have totally free and intimate sex with your marriage partner without worrying about diseases? I kind of like it myself.

Whereas I understand the concerns of conservatives who wish to emphasize chastity, it is quite naive to assume that children, even one's own, will listen to such teaching. In this highly sexualized society of ours, teens feel pressured to be sexually active at a younger age. The era of abstinence is over, sadly. We'd be lucky if teens are sexually active in a responsible way.

We also live in a society that, unfortunately, does not stress truth. Witness the rising number of AIDS cases among African-American women partially because many African-American men are having unprotected sex with other men and not telling their female partners.

If vaccination for other diseases are mandatory now, why not add another one? Ought we to let parents allow their child to get a cancer that otherwise could have been prevented? What guarantee does a parent have that their child will act responsibly? Even if parents here feel they would make the right choice, there are too many parents out there who don't know how to care for their kids. Witness the number of kids who die every summer because their parents leave them in a car. Seeing what problems schools and sports authorities have with kids' parents also makes me wary they would make the right choice.

Now, side-effects is another issue all together. But I see no ideological, moral, or philosophical reason why this ought to be opposed. Perhaps the above seems alarmist and whatnot, but it's best to be safe than sorry.

I really enjoy these kinds of debates. They are hard questions, and people are being pretty damned decent.

I inferred from the article that the vaccine was to be administered in the early teen years. Presumably from the "sending the wrong message" angle.

The thought that occurred to me, was how I should explain to my teen aged daughters (I have two), why I am allowing them (presuming I can) to be vaccinated.

There is no HPV test available for men.

So I get to tell my daughters "because I fear you will have intercourse with a man who has had intercourse before, and possibly exposed".

I hate that. I would still do it. But I would hate it.

Make of that what you will.

The Warden:
I agree 100%. Also, congratulations on maybe being a father.

Why does Glenn Reynolds hate me? I was on this yesterday!

Dave: quite true.

Explaining to daughters--especially daughters, what with how protective parents are wont to be of them--would be very difficult. Partly because of the not-so-nice world we live in, sadly, that makes such precautions a matter of debate and serious consideration.

I'm learning quite a bit from this debate.

The rationale for mandatory vaccinations is that you may be involuntarily exposed to a disease that is tranmissible via normal social contact. A vaccine for cervical cancer does not meet this criterion - in most cases it is a voluntary exposure during what goes well beyond normal social contact.

I don't think this vaccination should be mandatory, but I guess I'll encourage my daughter to get one when she enters her teen years (thankfully 7 years away).

yeah, but I think I lied when I said I enjoyed these kinds of debates. I'm just heartsick over the idea.

you AoS pussies are just decent enough not to flame me over this one.

pussies.

I'm just heartsick over the idea.

Next you'll be gob-smacked and voting for Kerry, you promiscuity-promoting smegma licker.

Ah, my heart's just not in it. And flame is not my medium.

in most cases it is a voluntary exposure during what goes well beyond normal social contact

True as that may be, certain aspects are beyond a woman's control, such as whether her partner is telling her the truth when/if she asks him of his sexual past. Although, more realistically, how often do women quiz their partners on their sexual history, history of STDs, latest STD test results, and the like? The last it seemed to me, few people, if any, have such in-depth and detailed discussions prior to sexual activity. One must also factor in situations where a woman's ability to reason or control her environment are less in her power, such as if she and/or her partner is/are in a state of inebriation or the man is progressing against her will.

One would hope a parent would like maximum protection for one's child, to cover any and all eventualities not only in the near future but also in the far future after they have gone to meet their Maker. Even so, not all parents may realize all the arguments for the vaccination (provided it has no major side-effects). In such a case, should a child's potential future suffering, which could easily be permitted in a matter of seconds, be permitted if the parents are not as up to the ball as they ought to be with regard to this issue?

As far as chastity and abstinence goes, also, I see this as less an argument for a woman to be promiscuous and more a sad necessity considering the reality we live in. It's about being prepared, protecting oneself, despite the potential dishonesty/ignorance of others.

True as that may be, certain aspects are beyond a woman's control, such as whether her partner is telling her the truth when/if she asks him of his sexual past. Although, more realistically, how often do women quiz their partners on their sexual history, history of STDs, latest STD test results, and the like? The last it seemed to me, few people, if any, have such in-depth and detailed discussions prior to sexual activity. One must also factor in situations where a woman's ability to reason or control her environment are less in her power, such as if she and/or her partner is/are in a state of inebriation or the man is progressing against her will.

This is nanny-statism at its most intrusive. You are suggesting that we violate the sovereignty of the woman over her body because we know better than she the dangers she will face. Were I a woman, I'd find that insulting and invasive.

ACE: I don't agree with manditory innoculations just because I don't want the government to have that much power. I think it's fine to offer it, but just like most medical treatments, its up to the individual. I have very little faith that the goverrnment gives a rats ass about me or my children. Government and politicians crave money, power and control. That is why the Liberals continued to support the Great Society even when they knew it was causing poverty and destroying the lives of black america. Giving more power to Government is very rarely the correct answer to a problem. Giving more freedom of choice and information to the individual is usually the correct reponse. I'll go with Milton Friedman and libertarians on this issue.

Sex Ed From Wikipedia:



"Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a virus which infects humans. Some of its effects are classed as sexually transmitted disease (STD).



Scientists have identified more than 100 strains of HPV, most of which are harmless. Some can produce common skin warts on the hands and feet. About 30 strains are spread through sexual contact; some can cause visible genital warts, while others can cause cervical cancer and other genital cancers.



HPV is by far the most common sexually transmitted infection. It is estimated that 80% of sexually active adults have been infected with one or more genital HPV strains at some time.[1] The vast majority of infected people suffer no ill effects and never even know that they have been infected, but may be able to infect others. The immune system typically clears the virus from the body within a year, after which the person will be immune to that particular HPV strain.[2]



HPV is an almost unavoidable and invisible consequence of sexual activity, and also of most nonsexual activity, for this reason many health authorities recommend that women have an annual pap smear following their first sexual activity, to ensure early detection of cervical cancer."



"Viral sites may be distributed widely over the pelvic area, and transmission can occur even when there are no visible symptoms; thus, the only sure way to prevent genital HPV infection is to abstain from any contact with the genitals of another.



The American Cancer Society advises that condoms offer only limited protection against HPV. Both Planned Parenthood and the Centers for Disease Control recommend condom use to reduce the risk of HPV, and the latter advises that condom use has been associated with a lower rate of cervical cancer. Since the virus infects the skin and is transmitted by skin-to-skin contact, covering even part of the skin (as with a condom) reduces the opportunity for infection, as the area of contact would be reduced for both partners.



Risk factors linked to acquiring HPV include sex at an early age and having many sexual partners."

A couple of questions. First, how effective is this vaccine against cervical cancer? The article states that the vaccine is ~100% effective against the two most common strains that cause cancer, but what about the others? Second, is there any reason this vaccine couldn't be given in early childhood rather than prior to puberty?

I must say that all the talk of "if they're vaccinated for HPV they'll feel safe" is retarded. I've been through 3 sets of sex-ed (twice in public school, once in boot camp) and none of them talked about HPV. We covered Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, Syphilis (who the fuck came up with these names? The French? I've never seen so many extraneous letters and fucked up letter combinations in my life), and HIV (much better, you can tell that was named by Americans). I doubt that anyone with a basic understanding of the topic would think "Well, I'm protected against this one minor STD so now I can play park the porpoise with anyone I want". Of course this whole issue could be made moot by simply calling it the cervical cancer vaccine, which not only removes any STD association
it's also more accurate (the vaccine only protects against those strains of HPV that lead to cervical cancer).

While I think that the world would be a better place if 100% of the population was vaccinated I can't quite convince myself that making it mandatory. It's simply irresponsible for children to NOT be vaccinated.

I don't agree with making parents do much of anything to their kids, short of outright harming them. That said, any parent who thinks their kid is as angelic as they pretend to be at home, or that getting or not getting a vaccination against an STD is going to make them act more or less promiscuously, is quite likely fooling themselves. It only takes once - catching an STD doesn't require banging the football team. It doesn't even require consent, for that matter.

Warden - I was an HIV tester/counselor for a few years. One of the things that was emphasized to us in our training, and that we were instructed to be sure to relay to clients, was that condom use is "Safer Sex", and the only safe sex is abstinence. It was rare, at least at the clinic I volunteered at, to hear the phrase "Safe Sex", because it just ain't so.

Just wondering,
Has this vaccine had the same testing as Vioxx?

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