Cervical Cancer Vaccine

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has endorsed the practice of inoculating young women against HPV. Nothing monumental, really. Women's health has finally been given its due in the medical community. The pharmaceutical companies are not philanthropic in scope, as they respond to shareholders whims. It is another day in the world of medicine.

Or is it?

The target demographic for this vaccine is young women (or girls) who are between the ages of 11 and 12. Parents have the opportunity to protect their daughters against HPV and keep them from harm's way of cervical cancer. Because HPV is a sexually transmitted disease, there are parents who are bristling at the concept of inoculating their daughters. Imagine that...a parent has an opportunity to help in the fight against cancer, keep their child healthy and people are making it about....SEX.

What is wrong with this? There is even a poll on MSNBC asking your opinions on the vaccine. One of the responses for selection is, "No. She's too young to worry about sexually transmitted diseases." 12% of 60,488 responses (as of time of writing) actually chose that.

So...what we have here is a frigid society putting their hang-ups with sex ahead of their daughters' health. There can be no dispute. The primary, suggested, targeted age is pre-teens. This is not done for hoots. This is done for the sake of efficacy. But, because there is a connotation, an inkling, a mere suggestion that sex is involved, people immediately ram their heads up their asses, rather than looking at a significant health issue.

This does not bode well for anyone. Can you just imagine the indifference or ambivalence, let alone recoiling against the concept of a vaccine for HIV? Yes...that is transmitted in many ways, but there is still a sexual undertone, a stigma, attached to this disease.

What is this world coming to when people are so fraught with a false sense of morality that they cannot take advantage of modern medicine to keep them from getting sick??? Let alone, doing the proper thing as a parent...protecting your child.

You can read the article from the AP here.