HPV Vaccine Shenanigans (Again)
 

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/16672533.htm

I think certain people in Texas need educated on the fact that as WOMEN contract the HPV from MEN when they have sex, a CELIBATE WOMAN can marry an INCELIBATE MAN, who is completely unaware he is carrying HPV as it does nothing to men, and have sex with him and CONTRACT HPV.

And how is this encouraging these young women to be promiscuous? There's still pleny of STDs to threaten them with, parents, ranging from Herpes to AIDS.

And don't give me some stupid line like "I should be able to say what my kids get vaccinated with", because there are already a ton of shots they HAVE to get so they don't contract and spread various different diseases, and you should be entirely aware that despite your best efforts, your precious little children are one day going to be grown adults who can do whatever they want, including make stupid decisions about the amount of people they sleep with, and can therefore contract HPV and then spread HPV all over the place if they aren't vaccinated now. So despite your best efforts to pretend that your child CANNOT POSSIBLY EVER BE A VECTOR FOR HPV, EVER, think again.

EDIT: Oh, and I overlooked the fact that a woman can be RAPED as well and contract it.

What I'm trying to say, is, if there is a way to prevent a disease, why would you NOT have your children get it so they are as protected as possible? Would people be saying this kind of stuff if it was an AIDS vaccine? Or a herpes vaccine?

Personally I think giving it to girls in sixth grade IS giving the impression that it's because that's when some are becoming sexually active to these people. What parents have to realize is this is coincidental. I remember not being vaccinated against Measles-Mumps-Rubella and then Hepatitis B until about sixth or seventh grade. Starting middleschool is just another set date where vaccines are given out, just like when they started elementary school. So it shouldn't be looked at as the vaccine being given at that age because that's when some of the children are becoming sexually active (especially since they'd be off by a year or more with some of these stupid kids) it's that that's when all the other vaccines are given as well so it just fits in fine.

It'd help if you'd link to an article or something, or alternately just more summarized the matter up for discussion so people'd know what you were talking about.

Just saying, there's a lot of people here who this is the first time they've ever heard about HPV.

Anyway my personal feelings on the matter are hey, even if a woman is never raped and marries a celibate husband despite having been unbelievably promiscuous, that's still no reason why she ought to be obliged to go get goddamn cancer.

Honestly this shit is like if there was an innoculation for pneumonia, but your parents refused to let you get it because "That'll learn the kid to go outside when it's goddamn raining."

Link added.

And yes, it is unseemly how some people still support this idea of "Well, they had premarital sex, they deserve it!" as if no one ever had a differing belief on that subject. Or was at one time a (stupid) teenager.

I think parents that 'opt-out' of this treatment should have their children taken from them. It doesn't matter whether you think they won't be sexually active, or whether you think sexual activity is wrong.

Having sex against your parent's wishes should not be punishable with cervical cancer, and any parent that thinks it should be shouldn't have children.

Further, any parent that simply thinks their kids will never ever have sex ever no matter what is an idiot and should have their kids taken from them just for that.

Further yet, I think it should be mandated for boys as well. Sure, it doesn't affect men who contract it, but they still become carriers, so inoculating boys could help stop the spread to those women who don't get the shot.

Yes, it could be given to boys as well, but it you inoculate all the girls then it would be moot, I believe. I dunno. If you're going with better safe than sorry, though, then yeah, boys should be innoculated too.

I'm just putting this out there.


Your daughter isn't getting it daily, nightly, and ever so rightly. Good for her.

The vaccine is not going to kill her by it's sheer prescence in her blood.

I'm kind of guarded on this one. On the one hand, it seems to be the best we can do at the moment, and that's overall a good thing. On the other hand, you're taking a vaccine that might protect you from some types of cancer. In some ways it just seems to be overmedication.

Also, while there've been no noted side effects so far, the only longitudinal studies are about five years back. long term effects haven't even been studied yet.

In addition, the vaccine was tested on 11,000 women, which, while larger than most samples, is still a very small sample of the population.

I don't mean to be doom and gloom here, I just want to point out that this isn't a miracle prevention. 30% of cervical cancers can still be contracted even while protected by the vaccine. Also, there's a note about how women aren't supposed to take the vaccine if they're pregnant, saying they should give birth before taking it. I don't see any notes of whether there were any studies done on women who had the vaccine (all 3 shots) and got pregnant later on. There could be a number of dangerous consequences in any number of different directions simply because this is a very new drug.

http://www.cdc.gov/std/hpv/STDFact-H...ne.htm#hpvvac2

Or you could... Y'know, do a little parenting... I mean, this is like saying condoms are bad because they make sex safer.

Genital HPV is probably the most common STD sexually active people have. The majority of them don't know that they have it, since most carriers are asymptomatic, especially men. There are also several different strains of HPV that can appear on different parts of the body. Genital HPV is the only variety that is worrisome at the moment, though. The strains the vaccine is meant to fight are the ones that cause precancerous lesions on the cervix. The other strains of genital warts cause warts to appear on other areas of the genitals. Both varieties can be removed using methods such as cryotherapy, LEEP, and biopsy.

Worse yet, HPV can be transmitted even when sexual partners practice safer sex.

I happen to think that anything that reduces the risk of cancer deaths caused by HPV is a good thing, especially since practicing safer sex is no guarantee that the virus won't be transmitted. I only wish that they had developed this vaccine 30 years ago.

Oh, so that whole being able to opt-out thing doesn't count as a parental decision?

And since when is California a bigger "hotbed of immorality" than Texas?

It's been my experience that parents who have this opinion often have daughters pregnant out of wedlock at 16, 18, and 19. When it comes to the sexual health and well-being of one's children, one cannot afford to be in denial.

Yes, because everyone knows that a man in power in Texas cannot possibly make a responsible decision that will help preserve the physical and reproductive health of young women without having a badly-cooked meal beforehand.

Right...because no one ever gets HPV from having post-marital sex. (Also, I'd make a snide comment about people who think that Someone wants people to die of cancer...but that's something for the specified thread.)

Funny...part of me thinks it's giving my daughter permission to not have to struggle with the spectre of cervical cancer like some other members of her extended family. People are going to experiment sexually, whether they start at 15 or wait for marriage like Jessica Simpson.

By the way, some people have gotten HPV as a result of being molested as children.

Really? I couldn't tell!

All in all, I think it's a good idea to get the vaccine. The parents who are freaking out need to realize 1)they can choose not to let their children get the vaccine and 2)sexual experimentation will happen, whether they like it or not. As with HIV, all it takes is one sex act to become infected. Unlike HIV, though, one can still get infected even when one practices safer sex. A study cited in the wikipedia article estimates that 75% of women will be infected with at least one strain of HPV by the time they reach adulthood (since men are almost always asymptomatic carriers, there's really no way to estimate how many of them will be carriers by adulthood). With something so common and so easily spread, it only makes sense to take measures to prevent a form of cancer that can be rapidly fatal if not detected early enough.

First off, overkill. You think that parents should have their children taken from them? First off, I would hate to see the state have more power in that regard. Second off, where would the children go? They're in sixth grade, for Christ's sake.

Second off, I don't plan on having sex before marriage. And I'm very sure that's something I can keep, as I don't plan on getting drunk anyways. And no, you can't plan for everything.... except I can damn well sure make sure that I don't go sleeping around with people. Hell, apparently half the girls on my campus have a permament STD, according to my campus health service. That's just -wrong-

But, hell. Make boys have it. (It actually might be a good idea just to innoculate the boys, because aren't they the transmission vectors to girls?)

Oh, and:

You're really big on that whole "Take the kids away". I don't think you've thought your clever plan quite all the way through though.