Posted on 09/18/2011 6:31:18 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
Cancer treatment has made great progress in recent decades, but the tragedy is that so much of our effort to combat this scourge is just that: treatment. Once a disease appears, there is only so much that can be done. It would be far cheaper, more effective and less traumatic to prevent it.
A vaccine for cancer would be a triumph for public health. Did I say “would be”? Actually, it is. Such a vaccine exists for one of the biggest killers of women. But Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., is against it, and she’s not alone.
Two different vaccines block transmission of the human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes 70 percent of all cervical cancer in this country, as well as most anal cancers and some cancers of the throat, vagina and penis.
Each year, says the National Cancer Institute, more than 12,000 American women are diagnosed with cervical cancer alone, and some 4,000 will die of it. That’s not counting the genital warts HPV can cause.
It’s a nasty but very common bug that the world would be better off without. Universal inoculation would be a huge step toward eradicating it and the suffering it causes.
But there is a big impediment to its use: HPV is sexually transmitted, which makes the vaccine controversial — especially because to achieve maximum effectiveness, it has to be administered before the recipient becomes sexually active. And in this country, 6 percent of youngsters have sex by the age of 13.
“How does THAT help destroy Perry?”
Are we talking about the same thread? This is related to “Bachmann’s vaccine Panic”... If you think it has something to do with Perry then read my request again.
Unfortunately medicine is also about risk.
Well yes, yes she would.
She is dumb and an embarrassment to the GOP and conservatism in general.
-- ... but neither do I think antibiotics be MANDATED by the government. --
There are probably some exceptions, but for the sake of simplicity, EVERY government mandate has exceptions; and the exceptions have exceptions too. Sometimes individual will is forced to bend to the public good. Nothing is risk free, and sometimes innocent people are harmed by government action; sometimes MORE innocent people are harmed by government inaction.
I think there is NO reasonable justification to make HPV vaccination mandatory, but I reach that position based on the rate of infection, the communicability, and the rate of complications per infection. By way of comparison, influenza is a bigger killer than HPV, and has similar quality in that most people who get it, cure it. Some people, unfortunately, die of it [flu, and HPV, both].
But I think the justification for mandatory immunization against measles, diphtheria, and other diseases is an appropriate balance. Especially since, in most states, a person can opt-out of ANY vaccine, and is ALWAYS excused if the person, or his family, is known to have a significant risk of adverse reaction.
As long as I am on my soap box, Perry's action is very troubling to me, for several reasons. It's unjustified public policy; he was willing to bypass not only the legislature, but also the administrative agency empowered to make those calls; his friendship with people in Merck does create at least an appearance of cronyism/favors for a friend; and he's been misleading in his self-defense (for example, "not mandatory, it had an opt-out").
Hmmm, your comments make me think of someone else.
She had no rational thought in the effort. She was ruled by emotion, by fear, by feelings. She is shown to be unfit to lead
I agree. I was just being diplomatic after being told I was a major freak and mean.
One thing I’ll add is that side effects to Gardasil in 2007 were found in about 1700 individuals. It may be that if Gardasil will inflict as much harm as it will prevent.
It doesn’t make sense from a cost benefit point of view.
If cervical cancer from HPV were much more prevalent then it might make sense.
Parents are right to be outraged at mandating this vaccine.
Ronald Reagan said “Trust but verify.” People say some strange stuff. Especially when trying to impress someone they are in awe of meeting.
Bachmann is getting loony. She thought that she was going to have a shot at the presidential nomination as she seemed to think that people looked to her as a TEA party leader. The TEA party might have people that speak up for TEA party values, but we need no leader.
I like Bachmann, I just don’t want her near the presidency. Same for Sarah Palin. She is outstanding in her current position of master gadfly and she has to answer to no one for what she says. If she announces for a presidential run, she don’s the shackles that that role represents.
I looked at several of the case histories on the link you provided, MulberryDraw, and they were all nonspecific cases of "got sick or died of unexplained causes" that occur from all sorts of reasons every day across America.
Can an allergic reaction to an ingredient in any vaccine kill a certain individual?
Yes, so can the sauce at the Fourth of July pot luck picnic that had peanuts in it. (The neighbor claimed she used no peanuts .... She just used "Thai sauce".)
If you are looking for anything that is absolutely 100% safe, MulberryDraw, even driving to Church on Sunday, you will not find it on the Planet Earth.
How many cervical cancers are correlated with HPV?
Essentially all of them.
Approximately how many American women die from cervical cancer every year? ..... Year after year after year?
Four thousand (4,000) of them every year. .... And it's not a pretty way to go.
Anecdotal evidence. Those same things happen to kids entirely randomly, and studies have found that they aren’t happening with any greater frequency to kids who get Gardasil than those who don’t.
There have been 35 million people vaccinated with Gardasil. To believe the hype, we’d have thousands of dead kids, and hundreds of thousands of kids with life-threatening illness.
But the studies of the reactions find no reason to question the vaccine as safe and effective. The CDC still recommends this vaccine.
Interestingly, there are really no reports of bad reactions to the other HPV vaccine. Only the one that people know the name of.
There have been 35 million people given Gardasil.
VAERS is the official report of "adverse reactions". This isn't medically verified "caused by vaccine" reactions -- this is EVERY adverse reaction reported that happened to anybody who received the Vaccine before they had the medical condition. It defines the WORST CASE of reactions.
There are a total of 18,727 reports. Of those, 8% are serious, or about 1498 total. Only 66 people have died after taking the vaccine. No deaths have been medically attributed to the vaccination.
I have no idea where they get their statistics. Mine come directly from the CDC
But what these people fail to tell you is that VAERS isn't a report of adverse reactions medically tied to the vaccine. It's simply a report of things that happened AFTER people received the vaccine.
People get sick and die all the time. Medical studies done on the VAERS information finds that people are not getting sick or dying at any higher rate after receiving the vaccine, than those who do NOT receive the vaccine.
It's good to have a healthy interest in the truth, but not to deliberately mislead people into thinking VAERS is a medically sound list of reactions to a vaccine.
I also think it is absurd that we are arguing over the medical merits of a specific vaccine, and listening to anecdotal evidence about it, as part of our presidential campaign.
JOBS. DEBT. ECONOMY.
The liberals must love us right now. We are excuting a scorched-earth policy on our republican field over a medical vaccine that most of the free world finds perfectly sound.
I thought something had happened to you when you didn’t show up in any of the recent pro-Romney threads.
I'm sick and tired of some Perry defenders dropping the "lie" word everytime somebody says something they don't agree with. ..... FreeReign
As the saying goes, FreeReign, you are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts.
The claim that a certain teenager became "mentally retarded" as a result of a Gardasil shot deals with a certain fact. A factual claim is either "true" or "false" and is not a matter of opinion.
"A horse can read the Gettysburg Address."
"That's a lie."
"How dare you question my opinion?"
I can assure you that, if that mental retardation claim had been true, that case would have been plastered all over the medical literature by now.
If you disagree, don't whine about it. Prove it.
Find that nonexistent teenager.
If you do, you will be able to tell CajunConservative and me, "I told you so!" and rub it in hour faces.
Better yet, you will be $10,000 richer.
Bioethicist Offers $10,000 Reward For Proof of Bachmann Vaccine Claims
I have nine words for you: Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Hepatitis, diptheria, tetanus, Smallpox, Polio, Rotovirus. All of these vaccinations have had instances where there has been a reaction to the inoculation. They have also saved millions of lives. The sub-culture that follows conjecture and non-scientific theory and forgoes these critical vaccines are responsible, currently, for the return of diseases that were all but wiped out. Polio is making a comeback due to blatant ignorance on the part of a few who ignore facts surrounding hundreds of millions of safely dispensed vaccines.
Sixty one million doses of Gardasil were dispensed up through 2010. There have been 17,500 reports of adverse reaction (ranging from injection site itch, headache, fever, lethargy, and 11 to 18 claimed cases of death). That is a better record than the aforementioned nine accepted vaccines.
And of course not all false statements are lies if one uses the most common definitions of the word "lie".
The VAERS database is a complete list of every adverse reaction reported by someone who has been vaccinated. It is the “worst-case” possible list of reactions. Being listed in VAERS does not in any way mean the reaction was caused by the vaccine. It is “temporal” (meaning “after the vaccine”), not “causual” (meaning “caused by the vaccine).
Referencing the VAERS database to stir up fears of a vaccine is dishonest. There are two other methods used when evaluating drugs, and those are medical studies that look through the VAERS data and determines if the reactions are causual.
Those two methods have found little concern for the vaccine. No deaths have been medically attributed to the vaccine. The reports of bad diseases like GBS have been studied, and the occurance of GBS in vaccinated people is no higher than the occurance of GBS in non-vaccinated people.
In other words: You get GBS and haven’t seen a doctor for years, you just curse your bad luck. If you get it a month after getting Gardasil, and see some politicians telling you Gardasil is an evil vaccine that will kill you, you assume your GBS was caused by the evil vaccine.
Would you believe me, who buried a child my friend lost at 12?
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