I understand your point about vaccinating females for HPV before they become sexually active, but why vaccinate little girls a decade before they likely will be exposed to the virus? I guess what I was trying to say and didn't say very well was that I wouldn't want to have to explain to a little girl or the rest of the family why she was being forced to have a vaccination for a disease frequently associated (rightly or wrongly) with sexual promiscuity. If this vaccination is a good thing for every woman to have, there's plenty of time for it later.
Although I don't question your motives at all, I have a sick feeling that there may be more to this movement than disease prevention. Something just doesn't compute.
Plus, if you wait until a girl is about 16-18 you can reasonably talk to her about the risks vs benefits of the vaccine. I don't think a 10 year can have that same conversation.
Personally, I would probably like to wait until my daughters are 18, and they can take charge of their own personal health.
If you vaccinate 12 year olds systematically, you vaccinate a large percentage of the female population before they've become sexually active. It's an arbitrary age, but it's one that's intended to cover the largest potential pool of women. It doesn't matter if your kid loses her virginity at 13 or 30 -- she'll be protected.
The only way mass vaccination makes sense is if it's administered as a standard at a set age. You could set the standard at 17 instead of 12, but the only result would be that more women would become infected with HPV.
I wouldn't want to have to explain to a little girl or the rest of the family why she was being forced to have a vaccination for a disease frequently associated (rightly or wrongly) with sexual promiscuity.
Then don't. For one, many women who have had only one sexual partner contract HPV. For another, do you really think if your kid got the cholera vaccine (no longer routinely administered) you'd feel you had to go through lengths to explain that cholera is contracted by drinking water contaminated with a diseased person's feces? I think you could probably find a creative, and less disgusting way to express the need for the vaccination.