Posted on 01/20/2007 12:54:51 PM PST by wagglebee
Let's walk through a medical minefield together.
Merck & Co., a major drug manufacturer, has developed a vaccine called Gardasil that protects against some forms of the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus. Another pharmaceutical company is nearly ready to market something similar.
Good.
Experts claim HPV vaccines can protect women against cervical cancer.
Terrific.
For the vaccine to work, it should be administered before a woman becomes sexually active.
Logical.
So, health professionals recommend that girls as young as 11 receive the shots.
Troubling.
There's only one conclusion to be drawn by this tender age limit: more than a few girls are having sex at 12.
These waifs don't need a vaccine. They need morals. And parents to tell them not to have sex in middle school, lest they catch a nasty disease. Like genital warts, which are not prevented by the shots.
Then again, who needs parents when you have state government?
Enter Del. Phillip Hamilton of Newport News. He's introduced HB2035, which would add the HPV vaccine to the list of inoculations girls will need to enter sixth grade in the fall of 2008. You read that correctly. Sixth grade.
This isn't just a single shot. It's a series of three. The cost is about $360, and according to news reports, some health insurance companies don't cover it.
Not to worry. On Friday, Hamilton told me that once the vaccine is mandatory, chances are insurance companies will pay.
Hang on to your wallets, folks. This is going to cost us.
"If it becomes mandatory, the health department has to offer it for free," Hamilton acknowledged.
Of course, taxpayers fund the health departments, so we'll get to pay - twice. Once in our insurance premiums and again in our taxes.
The price for this medical munificence? When I spoke to him, Hamilton didn't have the data.
The delegate does know he's against cancer, though. Hamilton told me that if drug companies develop vaccines against other cancers - prostate or colon, for instance - he'd support making those immunizations mandatory, too.
The justification for all this government meddling in our immune systems requires a leap of logic that Hamilton has made: You must equate the danger of HPV with devastating diseases such as polio.
Sorry, delegate. There's no comparison. HPV can be controlled by behavior. Behavior that shouldn't be going on in middle school.
Parents who think it's a good idea to vaccinate their little girls against sexually transmitted diseases can do it. No need for a mandate.
You may wonder why Hamilton introduced this measure.
Is he responding to parental demand? Is he doing this because pediatricians think it's a swell idea?
Nope. In fact, The Pilot reported that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends the vaccine but isn't yet asking states to make it mandatory.
According to news reports, Hamilton, chairman of the House Committee on Health, Welfare and Institutions, introduced this bill at the behest of the pharmaceutical industry.
Let's at least be honest and call this the Merck Mandate. How many votes would that get?
Parents who think it's a good idea to vaccinate their little girls against sexually transmitted diseases can do it. No need for a mandate
See how easy common sense is?
More experimentation by drug companies on our population. How do we know that these drugs won't permanently damage these people. The drug companies are not concerned with curing you of anything just treatments.
funny how you draw that conclusion when the subject of the article was morals, not money. And that most people when they comment on this vaccine don't comment on who should pay, but instead talk about sex.
Having a little responsibility for their actions will prevent it just as effectively, and NOT cost the taxpayer anything at all.
Until they or their parent(s) can afford to pay for their own shots, I don't agree that it should be a cost born by the taxpayer either. People can and should be responsible for their own health and well being. If they are victims of themselves, too bad.
Assumption or not, like I said, why put it off?
It is also troubling because giving girls this vaccine is tacitly giving them permission to engage in immoral behavior.
I've been vaccinated against Hep A and Hep B, and have never felt that I have permission to share needles with Hepatitis patients. In fact, I don't think the vaccines I've received have informed my behavior at all.
Probably because boys don't have vagina's and uteruses which is where the virus-disease manifests itself into cancer at a later time in the girls life.
Influenza is an RNA-based virus with a high mutation rate. HPV is a double-strand DNA virus with a much lower mutation rate.
They're trying to do this in Colorado,too--another conservative state. I would want my daughter to get this but I DON'T want the government forcing my daughter to get it--under the assumption that she will havve sex before marriage.
This is a whole lot like condoms in schools. We tacitly assume that our kids will start grooving well before marriage and so we try to "accomodate" their behavior. Condoms and HPV vaccines should be available--don't get me wrong--but they should be last restorts for those who don't follow the societal standard of abstinence.
Much lower but still mutates.
I call them rinos or statists.
The original post is wrong about it's going to cost us. If it becomes mandatory, and everybody gets it, then along with everybody who was vaccinated and wasn't at risk, everybody who was at risk also got vaccinated. So now, nobody gets cervical cancer, or next to nobody. Think what that has to do to medicare and medicaid costs. The upfront cost of the vaccine pales in contrast to the downstream cost of treatment, even though many are vaccinated and fewer end up getting the cancer and needing treatment.
The vaccine might, tragically, come too late for a few of the most unfortunate girls who run into the wrong man in some insecure location, or who make one mistake and it's one mistake too many, or who get mickey finned or whatever. But age 11 ought to cover pretty much everybody.
Actually, dog - "libertarian leaning conservatives are becoming "... well, LIBERTARIANS.
Not Democrats! (sheesh, where did you get THAT from?)
So does the birth control pill.
They just resent people who don't know how to spell Canadian.......oops, sorry, it's Saturday and I feel giddy.
FMCDH(BITS)
Ding ,ding, ding....that is a winner.
HPV doesn't require penetration for transmission. Genital contact will do it.
what about men? won't this prevent the infection of the virus in men? why not have hamilton test it out and all the members of congress try it first?
it does have a disclaimer, its says "may" guard
Let me tell you something about young girls..if they want to have sex, the thought of getting an STD will not stop them. I don't know how I feel about this issue, but I do not believe this will do anything about promiscuity.
Abstinence before marriage followed by monogamy is 100% guaranteed to prevent ALL sexually transmitted diseases.
Look at premarital sex rates over the past fifty years. With the introduction of birth control pills, the adjudication of infanticide and various other aspects of the "sexual revolution," premarital sex has gone from the rare exception to the decided norm. I find it difficult to believe that all of these efforts to remove the "risks" of teen sex haven't been a factor in increased promiscuity.
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