The Dusty Dog

Gardasil and the Fight for Womens' Lives

When I read in the news that researchers came up with a 100% effective vaccine against the human papilloma virus (HPV), I considered it a major advance. HPV is the primary cause of cervical cancer, as I understand it. It's a great advance, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved it for market. This from Alternet:

The pharmaceutical giant Merck produced the vaccine, known as Gardasil, which will be nothing short of a lifesaver for countless women. Cervical cancer is the second most prevalent cancer killer among women in America, striking nearly 14,000 each year. Of those, nearly 4,000 die. Poor women and women of color will benefit the most from the vaccine, as Latino and black women suffer the highest rates of cervical cancer. Lower-income women typically lack the funds and health insurance necessary to have regular screenings for HPV.

According to the article at Alternet, Family Research Council, "opposes it on the grounds that it might encourage promiscuity among adolescent girls. Now that the FDA has approved the vaccine, conservatives are already working feverishly to limit or even prevent its use." Interesting, and really sick, in my opinion. So, I took a gander over at the Family Reseach Council's website, and there is nothing whatsoever about Gardisil, the vaccine, except some video of ABC and NBC newscasts about the vaccine, and some rather minor hesitation articulated by the FRC. But, hesitation nonetheless. What is wrong with these people?

I would bet, dollars to donuts, that if prostate cancer was considered to be an STD, a vaccine for it would be approved so fast, the FDA's collective head would fly off as they spin it to market. But no, this is a vaccine to protect women from cervical cancer. Women. They are worried that girls will become more promiscuous if given the vaccine. What about the boys? Nothing about the boys, of course, because they are not the ones who would benefit from this vaccine. A sicker bunch of moronic thinkers as those found at the Family Research Council would be kind of hard to find.

According to Katha Pollit of The Nation, in her column Virginity or Death:

Not so fast: We're living in God's country now. The Christian right doesn't like the sound of this vaccine at all. "Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful," Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council told the British magazine New Scientist, "because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex." Raise your hand if you think that what is keeping girls virgins now is the threat of getting cervical cancer when they are 60 from a disease they've probably never heard of.

posted by Dusty Dog at 6/17/2006