US conservatives block cancer vaccine for girls [Public health experts also divided]

newscientist.com ^ | 5-14-2007 | Jim Giles

[metmom]

How about women getting regular PAP screening?

Then there wouldn’t be all those other expenses because precancerous lesions would be detected.

[49th]

‘human nature’ is a crock of shit. What does it mean to be human other than to have the ability to rise above our nature? If we are nothing but slaves to our nature, then how have we managed to build functional civilizations with complex spiritual and moral foundations? This vaccine can save lives, therefore it should be deployed in the broadest and most effective possible way. To do otherwise is negligence on a par with turning a blind eye to euthanasia and the rest of the ‘culture-of-death’ ideas of the left. If you think that trying to prevent teenagers from having sex is more important that protecting their lives you have some screwed up morality.

[darkangel82]

There’s nothing “conservative” about this.

[metmom]

This vaccine can save lives, therefore it should be deployed in the broadest and most effective possible way. To do otherwise is negligence on a par with turning a blind eye to euthanasia and the rest of the ‘culture-of-death’ ideas of the left.

It is not. Pap tests can very effectively detect precancerous lesions. Read the thread; particularly post 53.

We don't need more big government mandated control of our lives. They can't even run the DMV effeciently. Why should I trust a bunch of non-medically trained, paid off politicians to make my personal health care decisions for me?

Anyway, people who aren't responsible enough to make it to the doctor every year for a routine PAP test certainly aren't going to be responsible enough to keep track of when their next booster of the vaccine is due. Then what happens when they miss that? Ooops.

It would only be effective if ALL men and women were forced to get it on a regular schedule mandated and enforced by the government. But only liberals would see forcing people to get something at gun point as a good thing.

[pepperdog]

If the parents want their daughter to have this vaccine it is their call. Personally, if it were my daughter I’d wait. It’s too new and while it sounds great so have other meds that have, later on, been found to have horrendous long term effects. Now, if in a few years there is no danger revealed I’d want my daughter to have it. Just being celibate doesn’t guarantee that she won’t be exposed when she marries. It’s a virus folks and it could be carried by the first man she “knows”. Furthermore, the lack of vaccination and the threat of cancer in the distant future won’t stop premarital sex anymore than the lack of condoms or pills, that can have a much more immediate adverse effect will.

[pepperdog]

Wow! Where did all that weird stuff come from?

[KoRn]

"There’s nothing “conservative” about this."

Oh I totally agree, but the media and the liberals will shout from the rooftops to the contrary.

[baa39]

Yes, you are right. There are now scores of strains of HPV, some more “virulent” than others, and this “vaccine” only targets a few. It would be very foolish, if anyone does ever get this “vaccine”, to assume she is protected by it from HPV or eventual cervical cancer.

The real tragedy here is that most people do not know that the Human Papilloma Virus is an STD, and at epidemic levels. Deaths and surgeries could be prevented if this subject were out in the open.

I imagine that most young women who “decide” to be sexually active before marriage are told by their doctor to go on the Pill, but not educated about the potential of death by cancer 10 or 20 years later from these highly contagious virus strains.

HPV only kills heterosexual women, so it’s not nearly as popular to talk about as “HIV” - although it is vastly more likely to be transmitted.

[baa39]

Little Ray, I love your tagline!

[metmom]

“It would be very foolish, if anyone does ever get this “vaccine”, to assume she is protected by it from HPV or eventual cervical cancer.”

Yet, that is the mentality. There was a politician who had her daughter get it and used all the liberal talk lines. *Now she’ll never have to worry about getting cervical cancer.*

(Pol has plan to nix cervical cancer
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1782347/posts)

I’m afraid that what this will do is lull women into a false sense of security thinking they’re safe against ALL kinds of cervical cancer, after all, it is being marketed as a *cervical cancer vaccine*.and they’ll stop getting their PAP tests.

Plus, the risk of getting cervical cancer is so small to begin with, and would be smaller with routine PAP tests, that it doesn’t seem to be worth the risks of some of the nasty side effects that have been reported.

[WV Mountain Mama]

Thankfully someone else here understands this!! Pap smears are fully covered by most, if not all, insurance companies with only a copay. I am sure if I investigated the Chip programs, I would find that all well visits for kids up to age 18, (probably longer if they are a full time student in college, ju. college, tech school) are covered, and who here thinks medicaid doesn’t pay for this either?! Any doctor will tell you that nothing can replace a conversation face to face with a patient.

I would rather the government give a voucher for a yearly pap/physical for this exam for women who can not afford one than mandate a vaccine that has not been tested on the age of girls they are trying to mandate get it. I know many people think planned parenthood is evil, but I know that my sister went there every year for her yearly exams in college.

btw, I know three people very close to me who had an irregular pap and had the precancerous cells removed in a simple procedure.

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US conservatives Fight for Individual Liberty over cancer vaccine for girls [liberal health experts annoyed someone noticed they're only pro-choice when it comes to killing babies]