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Common Sense Prevails

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The federal advisory panel looking at the HPV vaccine has recommended, unanimously, that 11- and 12-year-old girls be routinely vaccinated, with vaccinations for girls as young as 9 up to the discretion of parents and doctors.

ATLANTA – Taking up a sensitive issue among religious conservatives, an influential government advisory panel Thursday recommended that 11- and 12-year-old girls be routinely vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices also said the shots can be started for girls as young as 9, at the discretion of their doctors.

The committee’s recommendations usually are accepted by federal health officials, and influence insurance coverage for vaccinations.

And this is great news:

The committee also voted to add the HPV vaccine to the coverage list for the federal Vaccines for Children program, which pays for immunizations for the poor. That could mean $50 million to $100 million in additional spending in the first year, government officials said.

What’s interesting is that, despite all the furor over the vaccine in certain influential conservative-Christian quarters (yes, Daddy Dobson, I’m looking at YOU), the actual public hearings weren’t exactly filled with the Sex=Death crowd:

Some health officials had girded themselves for arguments from religious conservatives and others that vaccinating youngsters against the sexually transmitted virus might make them more likely to have sex. But the controversy never materialized in the panel’s public meetings.

Sounds like the Schiavo Effect: entirely too much attention is paid to the whining of a minority of very loud religious leaders on an issue which the vast majority of people, including religious conservatives, feel is a private matter.

Now, the panel didn’t go so far as to recommend that the shots be mandatory for school admission, but you’d never know that from the whining coming out of Colorado Springs:

Another organization, Colorado-based Focus on the Family, was even stronger in voicing fears that states would require schoolchildren to get HPV shots.

“By giving its highest level of recommendation, the panel has placed strong pressure on state governments to make HPV vaccinations mandatory,” Linda Klepacki, a Focus on the Family analyst for sexual health, said in a statement.

“If that happens, state officials, not parents, would become the primary sexual-health decision makers for America’s children. That’s the way things are done in dictatorships, not democracies.”

Oh, but what’s this? Evidence that the wingnut’s main argument against the vaccine, that it would promote promiscuity, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?

Surveys suggest the shots will have little effect on youngsters’ sexual behavior, said Nicole Liddon, a behavioral scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a recent survey of virgins 15 to 19, only 10 percent of boys and 7 percent of girls cited fear of disease as a reason not to have sex, Liddon said.

So, congratulations to ACIP for making a decision on the merits, not on the noise from the religious right.

Now, if you could talk to the FDA about Plan B…

10 thoughts on Common Sense Prevails

  1. Heh. Like kids even know or care what’s in the injections.

    Ask ANY kid after a vaccine, and they’ll tell you something to the effect of “I got a shot so I wouldn’t get sick.” They don’t have a clue about whooping cough, mumps, measles, Hep B or anything else.

    They just know they don’t like shots.

  3. WTF?

    If that happens, state officials, not parents, would become the primary sexual-health decision makers for America’s children.

    No, this is about cervical cancer not sexual-health. Its a decision to protect women from disease in the future. In this case it so happens it affects the cervix instead of the liver or kidneys. Jeez.

  4. Spiiderweb, that’s a particularly weird comment in light of the way the neocons DO want the government to interfere in personal sex lives.

  5. It’s only been in the last few years that HPV as a disease (that causes Cervical Cancer) has come to light in the public consciousness. I remember a friend telling me about HPV and how she was amazed to find out what a high percentage of women had it in some form or another; It wasn’t until later that I discovered that it was linked to cervical cancer. I suspect that the wingnuts are capitalizing on our ignorance of the disease in order to push their agenda.

    If a vaccination for HIV had been developed in say, 1984, I can see much the same thing happening now as it did then, because people were still largely ignorant about HIV’s causes and effects. As it were, if the HIV vaccine were released today (with the same caveat as the HPV vaccine–that it must be administered before the individual became sexually active), I’m not sure even these wingnuts would be putting up the same fight–there have been too many intervening years of death and activism. It’s not that they don’t think the same thing: AIDS is to them, after all, God’s punishment for homosexuality; it’s just that if they opened their big yaps and said “no, we’re not going to vaccinate our children against HIV because we believe in abstinence” they would have a lot of very unpleasant media attention on them. As it is, the HPV vaccination has come along early enough in the public’s consciousness so that they can create this “opposition voice” without the risk of an overwhelming portion of the public knowing the truth about HPV and dismissing them.

  6. I just don’t get it. Does the existance of an HPV vaccine suddenly render meaningless diseases like HIV, syphillis, herpes? Of course this is really about cervical cancer, or at least, should be… but even if it weren’t, how does vaccinating against ONE deadly STD turn us all into runaround sluts???? Don’t we still have to worry about HIV???? These neoconservatives are just too whacky for me.

  7. In a recent survey of virgins 15 to 19, only 10 percent of boys and 7 percent of girls cited fear of disease as a reason not to have sex, Liddon said.

    Assuming myself to have been typical virgins between the ages of 15 and 19 when I was in that age range, I assume the number 1 reason not to have sex was “I can’t find an interested partner”.

  8. Oh, but what’s this? Evidence that the wingnut’s [sic] main argument against the vaccine, that it would promote promiscuity, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?

    Let’s be fair. The reason published in Focus on the Family’s website for their opposition to mandatory vaccination is exactly the (only) one I’ve heard on the street:

    This is not a disease like chickenpox or measles that a child can transmit or contract while sitting in the classroom. This vaccine is for four strains of sexually transmitted forms of HPV.

    That is, it makes sense to vaccinate kids against diseases that can be transmitted through casual contact because, by introducing a child who isn’t vaccinated into a school setting, s/he can transmit it to others (and, if exposed in a school setting, can contract it); they would argue that schools should only require parents to vaccinate their kids against diseases that they could transmit or contract merely by attending school.

    You obviously don’t have to agree with their reasoning. But you should at least be honest about what it is.

  9. Leyan,

    That’s their most recent reason. Originally, they were against it because they claimed it would give people an excuse to engage in non-marital sex. I’ve even seen members of the theocratic right saying the would consider opposition to an HIV vaccine because it would remove the threat of AIDS, leading people to engage in sex the right doesn’t approve of.

  10. Leyan — the problem is that a girl can be as chaste and Godly as her father would like her to be, but that’s not going to make one damn difference if the man she marries had sex with someone else before he married her. Most strains of HPV are nigh indetectable on men, so even if his penis doesn’t break out in purple warts there’s a good chance he has it and will give it to his virginal wife on their wedding night.

    The notion that vaccinating a woman against HPV will make her promiscuous is not just a red herring, it’s a hateful lie. HPV is so low on a woman’s radar for reasons to not have sex (compared to pregnancy or HIV) that there’s no reason not to vaccinate against it. Instead, the rightwing is ensuring that cervical cancer will stick around for a good long time and the vaccine will be required for generations to come.

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