And of course, there are even worse things girls can get from unprotected intercourse. I worry about these things that give kids a false sense of security. I remember the looks on some of my students’ faces when I told them that birth control pills did not protect them from STDs.
susie
As a father of a daughter, I don’t worry that giving a girl a vaccine for a skin disease is promoting promiscuity. I fail to understand that argument myself, as of the women I know who have admitted to getting an STD, very few would fall into the promiscuous department. The vast majority got them from long partners that had dubious pasts they did not know about, or who were running around on them without their knowledge (and yes, some of them were married).
I would hate for my daughter to have to live with Genital Warts, and the long term higher risk of cervical cancer if it were something that could be potentially avoided.
Also, knowing that HPV is a SKIN disease, and incredibly common not simply an STD is another fact that most are unaware of. Provided the infection does not get onto the mucous membranes, generally most folks never even know they have it and it goes away on its own. You don’t have to have intercourse to get HPV infections, obviously for it to infect the membranes it would have to be exposed, but that doesn’t mean its all from intercourse etc.
I certainly would not give this to a 9 year old, and would tell anyone who wanted to force me to to get bent. I am concerned with the adverse reactions and long term risks as well, which are not known at this point.
For many years, I complained about the fact that the CDC admitted that condoms don’t stop the spread of HPV, yet HPV (via cervical cancer) was killing thousands of American women every year.
But publicizing that fact would have gotten in the way of the Condom Campaign, so the CDC quietly let the disease spread.
When the vaccines came out, it allowed the government agencies to suddenly address this issue—since they could do it in a way that wouldn’t get in the way of The Message (”Do whatever you want; just use a condom.”)