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tenayaI just saw a item on the news that there is a new vaccine that would be 87% effective in preventing cervical cancer, saving 4,000 women in the US every year and 300,000 worldwide. BUT, Ted Baehr, who was in town for some sort of family values script competition, and is in favor of family values and abstinence, is against the vaccine because he thinks if women had the vaccine, we would be more promiscuous. Apparently he is not alone in thinking this. I can NOT understand this. Dead women, mothers, sisters, daughters, are preferable to a really unlikely scenario that if you got a vaccine that would protect you from a STD that most women haven't heard about, you would run out and have sex. WTF?!
There's great news for women: Merck's new HPV vaccine, Gardasil, has been shown to be 100% effective in preventing the two most common strains of HPV, the human papilloma virus, which is known to cause cervical cancer. These two strains are thought to be responsible for about 70% of cervical cancer cases. Cervical cancer kills an estimated 300,000 women per year, 4,000 of those in the United States. Merck hopes to improve the vaccine to make it effective against up to 87% of cervical cancer cases.
To be fully effective, the vaccine must be given to girls and women before they become sexually active (or at least before they are ever exposed to HPV).
To all reasonable people, this is fantastic news. Reducing cervical cancer rates by 87% ( or even just 70%) is phenomenal. We live in a world full of unreasonable people, however, and some actually oppose this breakthrough preventative measure.
Prevailing in many of these right-wing fundamentalist attitudes about the new cervical cancer vaccine is a presumption that all sex is bad and that cancer is divine retribution for having sexual intercourse. Further, HPV has long been a part of the religious extremist anti-sex agenda; the American Family Association's " Agape Press" propaganda outlet, the American "Family" Association itself, the "Family" Research Council, Focus on the "Family", the Concerned "Women" for America and their Culture and "Family" Institute all make heavy use of HPV as their sexual boogeyman in the closet to spread fear, guilt, shame and misconceptions about sex.
http://web.morons.org/article.jsp?sectionid=2&id=6554
There's great news for women: Merck's new HPV vaccine, Gardasil, has been shown to be 100% effective in preventing the two most common strains of HPV, the human papilloma virus, which is known to cause cervical cancer. These two strains are thought to be responsible for about 70% of cervical cancer cases. Cervical cancer kills an estimated 300,000 women per year, 4,000 of those in the United States. Merck hopes to improve the vaccine to make it effective against up to 87% of cervical cancer cases.
To be fully effective, the vaccine must be given to girls and women before they become sexually active (or at least before they are ever exposed to HPV).
To all reasonable people, this is fantastic news. Reducing cervical cancer rates by 87% ( or even just 70%) is phenomenal. We live in a world full of unreasonable people, however, and some actually oppose this breakthrough preventative measure.
Prevailing in many of these right-wing fundamentalist attitudes about the new cervical cancer vaccine is a presumption that all sex is bad and that cancer is divine retribution for having sexual intercourse. Further, HPV has long been a part of the religious extremist anti-sex agenda; the American Family Association's " Agape Press" propaganda outlet, the American "Family" Association itself, the "Family" Research Council, Focus on the "Family", the Concerned "Women" for America and their Culture and "Family" Institute all make heavy use of HPV as their sexual boogeyman in the closet to spread fear, guilt, shame and misconceptions about sex.
http://web.morons.org/article.jsp?sectionid=2&id=6554
