It's interesting this came up, I just got a bracelet-making kit in the mail promoting this very vaccine: Merck is lobbying the states to require HPV vaccinations for girls [1].
Merck & Co. is helping bankroll efforts to pass state laws requiring girls as young as 11 or 12 to receive the drugmaker's new vaccine against the sexually transmitted cervical-cancer virus.
Some conservatives and parents'-rights groups say such a requirement would encourage premarital sex and interfere with the way they raise their children, and they say Merck's push for such laws is underhanded. But the company said its lobbying efforts have been above-board. ...
Gardasil, approved by the federal government in June, protects girls and women against strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, that are responsible for most cases of cervical cancer. A government advisory panel has recommended that all girls get the shots at 11 and 12, before they are likely to be sexually active.
But no state has yet to add Gardasil to the list of vaccinations youngsters must have under law to be enrolled in school.
I am, as always, against states legislating this sort of thing; vaccination is a decision parents should be making for children, not the state. However I am supportive of this particular vaccine.
We're selective (and delayed) vaxers in our house. The kids didn't get the chicken pox vaccine; they did get the MMR and polio vaccines. And when the time comes I'll definitely be getting the girls vaccinated for HepB and HPV.
The argument that vaccinating against HPV somehow encourages premarital sex is ridiculous. I just can't imagine a girl saying to herself, "Well! Things sure are heating up in the back seat here with Jimmy! Guess I better cool things down or I might get HPV since Daddy wouldn't let me be vaccinated!" Because I remember being 17 and being hot and bothered enough that nothing else really mattered all that much. (And no, there was no Jimmy, nor a back seat, more's the pity. I just sat around by myself being hot and bothered.)
Not only that, but there's no guarantee that if Jimmy marries the girl before she has sex with him that he hasn't had premarital sex himself--and then passes on HPV to his virginal wife. Punishing your daughter by potentially giving her cervical cancer if she has sex--at any point in her life--seems, well, not really all that loving an attitude for a parent to take.
The bracelet? Josie's wearing it. In two years, she'll get that vaccine. I may or may not be here when she's a grown woman, but wherever I am I want to know that I did right by her--and I want her to know it, too. If a vaccine can stop her from getting cervical cancer, you bet I want her to have it.
New poll: Do you intend to vaccinate your daughter against HPV? [2]
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