All posts tagged "Hpv Vaccine"

Two Wisconsin sisters say a vaccine against HPV shut down their ovaries, likely preventing them from ever becoming pregnant.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Some adolescent girls who get the HPV vaccine to prevent cervical cancer wrongly think they no longer need to practice safe sex, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

I think I'm mildly obsessed with the HPV vaccination and the resistance to it.  The whole thing is a perfect storm of important issues for me: science and skepticism, feminism, public health policy, sexual health, religious delusions, the power that folk beliefs have over human choices, emotional vs. rational decision-making, and the ideological conflict between reality-based policy and aspirational policy.  (Not that I think that conservative aspirations towards a sexual system where every human being has one other they touch in a sexual way---including hand-holding and kissing---and no more is a good aspiration. It's creepy.)  I wish the conflict over this vaccine got more attention from wonky sorts, who I think are mildly wary of the sex thing, because it's really a perfect example of the various forces coming into conflict in our culture. I wrote about it again today for XX Factor, and was pleased to finally see a criticism of my point of view that wasn't coming from a place of squeamishness about sex, weirdness about preventive health, or just illogic.  KJ at XX Factor argued that we shouldn't rush into making the vaccine mandatory (she does think it should be mandated eventually), because there would be a backlash, and that if we wait until it's become more normal, it will be easier to pass mandates.  That's a reasonable position and she may be right.   That is a typical pattern for many vaccine roll-outs, though not all of them. I tend to think that the HPV vaccine's reputation as the "sex shot" may make it a special case, and that we need to address often unspoken fears about female sexuality as much as we do unwarranted fears of the vaccine's safety. Some times what it takes to get over these fears is seeing with our own eyes that positive choices about sexual health in minors don't result in more sexual risk-taking.  But I admit that we're all just guessing here; I've never seen any empirical proof either way that mandating a specific vaccine erodes opposition to it faster than an education campaign can. 

Via Jill comes this amazing evidence of how out-of-touch and extremist sex panicking conservatives have gotten.  As I think all grown-ups are willing to admit, this whole shitstorm Michele Bachmann has stirred about the HPV vaccine is just pure sex panic (with a side dose of anti-vaxxer nuttery, but really, this is bigger than that), and Ayelet Waldman was alarmed by all the people who've convinced themselves that all ladies who Do It are Snooki and Paris Hilton (and therefore "good" girls have no need for vaccination against a common STD).  In an effort to breathe a little reality into the debate and remind the public that there's a whole sea of women between the categories of "virgin" and "whore", she put up this tweet:

MEXICO CITY — Mexico plans to administer the vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV), which can cause cervical cancer, to all girls beginning next year, the country's health ministry said Tuesday.

[rebelmouse-image 24750137 original_size="280x429" expand=1]So, Mary Elizabeth Williams has called me hysterical and claimed I'm ruining feminism with my supposed irrationality because, on Twitter, I criticized a piece she wrote about her pediatrician accidentally giving her daughter the first dose of HPV instead of the scheduled meningitis shot.  When a cascade of people attacked me, I defended my point of view, both that the heavy drama surrounding this was unnecessary and, far more importantly, that Williams' choice to treat the HPV shot as somehow separate and more fraught than every other vaccine fed a very dangerous narrative about this vaccine, and she should have been more responsible.  Her response minimized and distorted her original piece, and overplayed my reaction, in my opinion.  But let's take my objections one at a time, for clarity's sake.