Friday, September 19, 2008
This is one of THE most scrutinized vaccines in the history of vaccines research and development. It has only been in actual clinical use for 6 years but researchers say that is has been held to the highest standard during its testing phases. This prophylactic (prevention) vaccination has...
Taking this out of the arena of sexual politics is essential because it's not giving teens "permission" to have sex, in my opinion. It's saying that kids will and do make terrible mistakes in their sexual growth, but here's one mistake that does not have to result in death. As an ultra-conservative Christian, I am all for abstinence, but I am also realistic enough to know that it is NOT always going to happen. Some kids will do it deliberately to rebel, some will do it feeling horribly guilty, but it's going to happen. Kids have sex, no matter their upbringing.
When you have a toddler and a swimming pool, you don't want the child to go near the pool without a parent, but do you deliberately avoid putting a cover on it in order to teach your child a lesson that could end in his death? No. You cover it, gate it and lock the gate so that your child cannot be hurt. You simply cannot teach that child that the consequences of going near the pool could be tragic. The child has no frame of reference for that. Teens have no less a sense of immortality.
My very dear friend died just 16 months ago of an unbelievably aggressive form of cervical cancer. It was a bitterly ugly road to the grave. She was only 31 and leaves behind a husband and 3 young children (the youngest of whom was only 5 months old when her mother died).
Will my daughter be vaccinated? You bet her life.
And as of today a new bulletin shows that the vaccine has additional protective benefits:
The human papillomavirus vaccine Gardasil has been approved for two additional uses - prevention of vaginal and vulvar cancers caused by HPV types 16 and 18 - the FDA announced on Friday.
The label expansion was based on follow-up of more than 15,000 female subjects who participated in placebo-controlled trials of the vaccine. Among subjects who tested negative for HPV-16 and -18 at study entry, precancerous vulvar or vaginal lesions (all related to the two HPV strains) developed in 19 placebo recipients - and none of the Gardasil recipients.
Note - The vaccine was not effective in women who had previously been infected with either HPV strain.