Mike the Mad Biologist

I want to follow up on a point Amanda made in response to my post about the Texas plan to immune all girls against HPV. (Maybe between the two of us, we’ll rub some good points together and come up with an idea…) Amanda writes (italics mine):

…it’s true that the opt-out policy does mean that it’s going to be a lot harder for vindictive, misogynist parents to refuse to protect their daughters from cervical cancer. It’s the difference between neglect and active abuse, really. Without mandatory vaccinations, denying your daughter preventative treatment was easy, since you simply had to neglect providing it.

Under the opt-out policy, however, if you want to keep your daughter in danger of getting cervical cancer, you have to get an opt-out form, fill it out, sign it, and make your daughter take it back to school and then the school officials will know that you’re the kind of creep that would rather have your daughter be dead from cancer than to face up to the fact that she is going to grow up and have sex one day. On top of that, you run the risk of having your daughter get cancer or even just genital warts one day and remembering that you took action to deny her treatment that would spare her this pain. I don’t know about you, but if I found out my parents had a chance to spare me from a disease but they went out of their way to make sure that I wasn’t spared, I’d be furious. I may even refuse to speak to them again. I’d blame them for my cancer. And I’d be right to do so.

For the last several decades, the theological right have not had to deal with the specific consequences of their actions–particularly since those driving the theological right are mostly men. It’s easy to ‘moralize away’ horrible outcomes when it’s someone else’s body and life. But it’s much harder when you might be called to account for your decisions. In this case, if your daughter dies from cervical cancer, it’s your fault: not the gummint’s fault, not the Evul Libruls’ fault, not Michael Moore’s fault.

Yours and yours alone.

Of course, the other thing is that by not vaccinating your kids, you put other children at risk–at least until we have a national HPV vaccination policy. But that will have to be the subject of another post.

Comments

#1 bar
February 5, 2007

I find it interesting that a red state was first to introduce compulsory vaccination for a sexually transmitted disease. From listening to US liberals, I’da thought that all the blue states would have introduced such a requirement first.

Maybe you guys (i.e. US citizens) are just bimodal about politics. Get real, there are hundreds of issues, only two parties. No way has either party got a monopoly on common sense.
#2 Cheeto
February 5, 2007

Don’t be silly – of course it has to be Michael Moore’s fault. He’s FAT!
#3 Ben
February 5, 2007

I guess I will never understand how a 17 year old is sentenced to 10 years in jail for getting a blow-job (true case) and not protecting your kid from lethal deseases is not a crime.

A whole nation discusses some nipples shown on TV, although MTV shows more nipples in their news mags. What a hypocrisis.
#4 Luann
February 5, 2007

How is it putting OTHER kids at risk if a girl doesn’t get the vaccine.

You mean she should take it so some young dumb full of cum punk can fuck her all he wants without getting warts on HIS dick.

TOO fucking bad.
#5 llewelly
February 5, 2007

How is it putting OTHER kids at risk if a girl doesn’t get the vaccine.
You mean she should take it so some young dumb full of cum punk can fuck her all he wants without getting warts on HIS dick.
TOO fucking bad.

And in the next step, ‘young dumb full of cum punk’ has sex with you, or one of your friends, and you or your friend gets cervical cancer.
That’s why it’s important to get as many people as possible vaccinated. That’s why I pointed out in the other thread that vaccinating women was only half of the answer. That’s why in earlier threads I argued Merk was dangerously mistaken to only test the vaccine for women.
#6 Mike the Mad Biologist
February 5, 2007

Luann,

You’re a fucking moron. Boy A gives HPV to girl A. Girl A has sex with boy B, who acquires HPV (often asymptomatically). Boy B marries girl B–for argument’s sake, a chaste virgin who is ‘cum punk’ negative. She gets HPV, cervical cancer, and then dies.

This is why it’s called an infectious disease. Thankfully, being an idiot isn’t communicable.
#7 Susan Och
February 5, 2007

This may be a dumb question, but I’m wondering….

Since men can get the virus, and spread it, why are we only vaccinating girls? Wouldn’t it make sense, if we’re going to issue a mandate, to mandate it for both sexes?
#8 Chromosome Crawl
February 6, 2007

Susan- because the idea of ‘herd immunity’ is beyond the thinking of most folks who have grown up having been vaccinated and without the childhood diseases of the past. Think of how shocked people are when an outbreak of pertussis or whooping cough pops up in their neck of the woods and how they don’t seem to connect the dots to high rates of vaccination. Public Health – forgotten until it bites ya……
#9 DMC
February 6, 2007

Susan that was…I think…Luanns point.

But the real answer is that men don’t want their penises messed with. They want to be ablt to stick em in an girl they want without rubbers or other interference and cum to their hearts content, wash it off, and move on to the next one.

And women have made it easy for them, getting stuck with the kids, the medical bills, the child support, and the diseases.

The get whats cumming to them.
#10 Sean
February 6, 2007

Susan, Chromosome Crawl, and DMC,

The HPV vaccine is currently being recommended only for girls because the initial studies were done in girls and so the FDA approved it for girls. This was done precisely because girls are at a much higher risk of severe disease (cancer!).

Merck is studying the vaccine in boys now. It may well work just fine, but that’s not a given, since the cervix is biologically a much different surface, structurally and immunologically, than the penis. So, the studies have to be done first.

Why rush to proclaim that vaccine researchers, the CDC, and the American Academy of Pediatrics are ignorant of the concept of herd immunity? Or that the study design was based on male bigotry? Come on, guys.
#11 Greg
February 7, 2007

“being an idiot isn’t communicable”

Surely, you have heard of missionaries? And advertising?
#12 DMC
February 7, 2007

Sean, bullshit.

Men don’t take a male birth control pill, although it would be possible.

They want women to make their pussies available, and be discease free, to any hard cock that come along.

BUT they do NOT want their cocks tampered with.

They sure as hell don’t want to risk blood clots, stokes or cancer.

No sireeee!!!
#13 llewelly
February 7, 2007

The HPV vaccine is currently being recommended only for girls because the initial studies were done in girls and so the FDA approved it for girls. This was done precisely because girls are at a much higher risk of severe disease (cancer!).
Merck is studying the vaccine in boys now. It may well work just fine, but that’s not a given,

In that case, I apologize for my earlier remarks that Merck was ‘dangerously mistaken’. I had not read that studies of the vaccine in men were being pursued.

In any case can you show that Merck’s announcement that they would pursue trials of an HPV vaccine in men preceded articles this ?
If you cannot you should not be surprised that some assume Merck needed to be prodded into testing the vaccine on men.

Beyond that, Susan only asked asked a question, and for you to imply that she rushed ‘to proclaim that vaccine researchers, the CDC, and the American Academy of Pediatrics are ignorant of the concept of herd immunity? Or that the study design was based on male bigotry?’ is insulting, and implies that you failed to read an earlier comment in a short thread.
DMC and Chromosome Crawl certainly implied bigotry and ignorance were the cause, but they did NOT accuse ‘vaccine researchers, the CDC, and the American Academy of Pediatrics’ .
#14 Sara
February 7, 2007

There’s also cost to be considered – there’s not as much return on the investment of vaccinating boys and men as there is on vaccinating girls (and women to catch them up, immunologically speaking). I wrote a post about a paper I read looking at the costs and benefits of different strategies for vaccination, if you’re interested in details.

If I were Merck, I’d want to double the amount of vaccine sold. If I were trying to decide whether to vaccinate all genders or spend my public health dollars on HIV prevention or any other problem, I’d want to know exactly what I was buying.
#15 DMC
February 9, 2007

IN other words Sara, theres dollars in them there disease free pussies that are available to any man with a hard cock and a persuasive manner!

And why should men take any risks? Stokes, heart disease, cancer. Not for their penises, no way, Jose.

Wham, BAM, thank you m’amm!

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha