Posted on 01/16/2007 7:46:58 AM PST by Thywillnotmine
My daughter will learn to drive in a safe manner, using her seat belt and obeying traffic laws. She will also receive the vaccine.
I read the citation. There is no possible way to infer from what is stated there that 80% of (all) women over 50 have HPV.
It also states that development of cervical cancer is EXTREMELY rare.
If you swim in the ocean, you could be bitten by a shark. Don't do it!!!
No, you're not sentencing her to certain death. But you are putting her at risk for a preventable disease that still kills 4000 American women each year. The safety of the HPV vaccine has been demonstrated by many studies and by years of safe use in other countries.
I'm not saying not to encourage abstinence, or not to encourage her to get pap smears. But do more. Even if she does everything right, she can still get HPV -- in fact the odds are good that she will.
You talk like a parent. The politicians are going to hate you for it. There's money to be had from those shots.
It also lies dormant for up to 20 years.
You said a mouthful there.
Yes. I am sure this is a case of sexist men opressing women and using them as research tools.
The percentage of women with HPV who actually develop cervical cancer is relatively low, but worldwide cervical cancer is still the second most common form of the disease, and even though death rates in the United States have fallen significantly in recent years, the disease still kills 4000 American women per year.
There's reason to believe that 90%+ of cervical cancer cases are directly caused by exposure to HPV and 80% of American adult women have HPV.
Regarding the derivation of that number, I believe it comes from the following study:
Baseman J.G. and Koutsky L.A. 2005. The epidemiology of human papillomavirus infections. Journal of Clinical Virology, 32(1): S16-24. PMID
And if you play Russian Roulette, you could die of lead poisoning. What's your point? If we can take simple steps to eliminate unnecessary risks (i.e Russian roulette) then why not? I'm guessing you probably wouldn't smoke inside an oil refinery either...
If that is the case, and I do believe the number is closer to 99%, why do the so-called "experts" still insist on the lie that smoking and exposure to second hand smoking causes cervical cancer?
HPV types 16 and 18 cause 70% of all cases of cervical cancer, the vaccine provides immunity to those types in addition to the types that cause genital warts.
What are the side effects of this vaccination?
Minimal. A study done on side effects was published in The Lancet. Registration is free, although the articles are generally written by doctors for doctors.
Have there been test groups to see what the long term effects are?
Studies are ongoing, though the only likely side effect for the vast majority of the population is a reduction in the incidence of cervical cancer.
Preventative medicine is nothing new. In the 19th century, US cities were often crippled by small pox and yellow fever, diseases that have been completely eliminated from the Northern Hemisphere by succesful vaccination programs. The only girls who aren't likely to benefit from this vaccine are future nuns. ANY sexual activity, at ANY point in life puts one at risk.
How many "safe" drugs have been approved for use by the FDA only to be subsequently pulled off the market after killing people? No matter the number of studies (most often, as you know, financed, designed and overseen by the companies trying to get approval) there is no way to tell what the long term effects of any vaccine may be on any individual. One can look at populations over time, but one can never say with certainly what an individual's risk may be. 4000 women die every year. How many of those women had annual paps with prompt follow-up treatment? I would wager none.
Ultimately, it's a cost-benefit analysis. I do not believe the benefit of possibly preventing an easily detectable and treatable disease outweigh the unknown of injecting another immune system-exciting substance into my daughter's body.
Immune disorders such as allergies, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, etc. are epidemic and, unlike cervical cancer, on the increase. I can't say with certainty that the large number of immune-stimulating substances we inject into our bodies every year has anything to do with it, but I wouldn't be surprised.
I'll sit this one out.
My aunt had it, and eventually had to have a hysterectomy in order to prevent its spread. As of this time she's clear and we're hoping that she stays that way.
Roughly 10,000 cases of Cervical cancer are diagnosed in the US yearly; of those roughly 4,000 will die.
They are definitely there. My grandmother died of cervical cancer in 1945. Strangely, about 8 years ago, almost every woman I know personally enough to know these details had a 'bad pap' and had to receive treatment for cancerous or 'pre-cancerous' cervical cells. Did their viruses all suddenly 'come of age'? Thankfully, our medical knowledge is much improved since my grandmother's day. One poster mentioned that this virus causes other cancerous warts, as well. Should the government be involved in mandatory vaccination? No. Should we all be aware that such vaccination is available? Yes. Should we bring our children up with conservative values? Of course! But it's like defensive driving -- that analogy again -- you might trust yourself (and your child) but you can't trust everyone else. And this virus is so prevalent that it just doesn't make sense to avoid such a vaccine... the treatment after-the-fact is not nearly as pleasant as the jab. But let's be fair and offer it to the boys as well, so that they are not carriers.
Tobacco smoking alone won't cause cervical cancer. What it does is prevent cellular absorption of folic acid, a substance that can repair cellular damage caused by HPV in the 80% of American women who are infected.
Tobacco, therefore, significantly increases the odds that a woman infected with HPV will actually develop cervical cancer.
. . . as far as anyone knows. More to the point, no one knows the long-term effects of implanting this virus (in the vaccine) in young girls.
The problem with lining up in favor of something also favored by big-government liberals—as good as your motives might be—is that you're stuck with liberals' unscrupulousness. You aren't trying to separate children from their parents, but they are. You aren't trying to produce a generation of girls where the virtuous are made to suffer the same unpredictable health complications as the promiscuous, but the liberals are. So they'll skirt any sensible cautions and sweep problems under the rug to get their way, and try to drag you with them.
They did exactly this with the Pill (for "married couples," remember that?), later revealed to cause strokes, heart attacks, and cancer in young women. Not to mention that it multiplied the rates of divorce and promiscuity about 300 percent. And of course they did it for abortion, which, besides being murder in itself, increases the breast-cancer rate in the mother by 40 percent.
What are these salesmen really trying to sell us? Is it something we asked for? If you decide that simply raising your kids the right way, with common sense, won't be enough, you can just about guarantee unforeseen consequences.
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