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Texas governor orders anti-cancer vaccine for schoolgirls

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by Wildkow, Feb 3, 2007.

  1. Wildkow

    Wildkow New Member

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    Texas governor orders anti-cancer vaccine for schoolgirls. Now that a conservative has shown the way will the dems follow or condemn his authoritarian tactics? Kind of like them to do that you know. Dems called for increased troops or criticized the administration for insufficient troops for the last several years and now that it is happening they roundly condemn it. I guess they still expect to have their cake and eat it too.

    Wildkow
     
  2. huskers

    huskers Senior Member

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    Why would anyone in their right mind be against treatment to prevent cancer. It would be like not getting a polio shot and just hoping not to get it.
     
  3. efusco

    efusco Moderator Emeritus
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    I've got a bit of mixed feelings on this. While I'm generally for vaccinations being mandatory with exceptions granted when the parent can justify the reason this is a little different.

    Most vaccinations are given not only to prevent an individual from becoming ill, but more importantly to provide for 'herd immunity'...to prevent epidemics and the spread of a disease within the community at large.

    Now, I don't know if this vaccine provides any herd immunity...it may, but if so then why shouldn't males be vaccinated as well? I'm not sure the answer to this is known.

    And vaccines are not without risk to the individual...now, the net risk to the community is lower getting the shot, but in any individual they must assume all the risk.

    So, I don't know if I've formed a full opinion on this yet...I'm going to ask my wife (a pediatrician who gives these to her patients) what she knows about risks and herd immunity benefits and ponder it for a bit.
     
  4. Beryl Octet

    Beryl Octet New Member

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    http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/02/02/D8N1PVG80.html

    AUSTIN (AP) -- Gov. Rick Perry ordered Friday that schoolgirls in Texas must be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, making Texas the first state to require the shots.
    The girls will have to get Merck & Co.'s new vaccine against strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, that are responsible for most cases of cervical cancer.

    Merck is bankrolling efforts to pass laws in state legislatures across the country mandating it Gardasil vaccine for girls as young as 11 or 12. It doubled its lobbying budget in Texas and has funneled money through Women in Government, an advocacy group made up of female state legislators around the country.
     
  5. Alric

    Alric New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Feb 3 2007, 04:46 PM) [snapback]384931[/snapback]</div>
    That is because the indication is preventing cervical cancer. I don't know if it actually prevents infection, which anyway its asymptomatic.
     
  6. burritos

    burritos Senior Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Feb 3 2007, 03:46 PM) [snapback]384931[/snapback]</div>
    They should be. Where do the women get it from in the first place?

    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Feb 3 2007, 03:29 PM) [snapback]384927[/snapback]</div>
    If they do they're idiots. I approve of this call. Good for the governer, not folding to conservative religious righties who assert that this vaccine will cause girls to have more sex. Too bad this texas governer isn't the president instead of the idiot we have.
     
  7. efusco

    efusco Moderator Emeritus
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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Alric @ Feb 3 2007, 03:15 PM) [snapback]384935[/snapback]</div>
    It reduces the chance of getting cervical cancer by preventing infection. If it prevents infection in women then to double the effectiveness one should, it would seem on the surface, vaccinate men as well.

    I'm not ready to conclude anything yet, but I'm leaning toward being against this....
    Reasons:
    1)Mandating health care for individuals (rather than for the community at large) has far ranging potential. IOW, should we next madate annual screening mammograms in approproate aged females? How about mandated annual PSAs in appropriately aged males to screen for prostate CA when it can be cured? How about colonoscopy every year or every 5 years based upon risk group to catch colon CA before it reaches a stage that can't be treated? Clearly a tobacco ban is immediately necessary as such a ban would dramatically reduce morbidity in both smokers and those exposed to second hand smoke.

    2)Individual risk is not zero. Now that's OK, IMO, when mandating a vaccination if the affect on the community's health, at large, is to benefit. 1 in 100,000 become sick or die from the vaccine, but 1000 deaths/100,000 are prevented. That makes sense to me. But I have a choice if I'm going to get a rabies vaccination...risk to me is not zero, but it matters not a wit to those around me if I recieve it or not. It still prevents a fatal illness should I become infected (and some do without knowing it), as can the HPV vaccination. Should rabies shots be mandated to individuals too?

    3)Other diseases are preventable as well...if we do total hysterectomies on all women after they've finished having children we stop almost all uterine and ovarian cancer...

    4)Bad consequences of some vaccines haven't become evident for many years and many exposures after introduction. By mandating this we're essentially forcing people to become guinea pigs...while many will accept that risk it is not one that should, IMO, be forced on people when there's no benefit to the community at large.

    Still reserve the right to alter these opinions after a little more data gathering.
     
  8. burritos

    burritos Senior Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Feb 3 2007, 05:34 PM) [snapback]384950[/snapback]</div>
    Like all vaccines, these mandates are qualified with the parent's ability to decline these vaccines via affidavit due to religious or philisophical beliefs. I know, it's a pain on the individual level. But it seems like this is the best compromise to try and protect the public while preserving the individual's rights to be invaded by state mandated vaccines if that's their choice.
     
  9. BORNGEARHEAD

    BORNGEARHEAD New Member

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    Why out of the blue is this becoming mandatory? I'm not buying it. I have a gut feeling something is fishy about all this.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCrUmDa6tT0

    This video is EXCELLENT(please watch the whole thing) but the reason I have posted it is at around 5 minutes in.
     
  10. efusco

    efusco Moderator Emeritus
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    Fishy in that it's being heavily supported and pushed by Merck to get the jump on GSK's version of the same thing. Follow the dollar signs....

    Asked my wife a few things...
    There is, currently, research being done on the use of this in men to facilitate greater herd immunity. But, even just immunizing women will help create some herd immunity in that if the women don't have the infection they can't give it to men. If men have the infection they can't give it to women....eventually it should become very uncommon. If men are also immunized herd immunity would develop much more quickly.

    The potential exists, with wide-spread immunization, to practically eliminate cervical CA.
     
  11. bluejay

    bluejay New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Feb 3 2007, 05:46 PM) [snapback]384952[/snapback]</div>
    I suppose I would qualify as an idiot because I would absolutely refuse to comply with any state mandated vaccine. It is a violation of my civil right's, my reproductive rights as well as those of my daughter. Call me crazy but if I remember correctly, this is the same goverment that once said smoking was good for your health, DDT was safe and necessary, blacks and women were inherentely unequal, and mostly recently "mission accomplished!"

    And let me add, I have a couple of ideas that could also protect the public, like a rape vaccine given at birth to all males to prevent sexual aggression or an anti religious fundamentalist vaccine that could prevent people from participating in wars in the name of God. Now that's some research I'd be willing to fund.

    This type of mandate with all of its unethical connections is outrageous. It is not just a "pain" but an invasion into one's personal life. I am the decider of my life--no one else. . . wasn't this already decided in the constitution.
     
  12. galaxee

    galaxee mostly benevolent

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    well... women are the only ones at risk for cancer. while men are capable of spreading it, they don't have the whole susceptibility to life-threatening disease thing. i don't see a need to vaccinate males provided that females are vaccinated.

    i'm sure they've tried like hell to get policy in place to vaccinate males as well, after all that doubles their profits...
     
  13. fshagan

    fshagan Senior Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Feb 3 2007, 12:46 PM) [snapback]384931[/snapback]</div>
    My understanding is that they are in trials for the vaccine to be used on males. Since the HPV is pretty much benign for males, they were more concerned about getting the vaccine to market for teen girls, who have the most exposure to cervical cancer as a result of HPV. IIRC, it protects against the most virulent forms of the virus, about 85% of the total or something like that.

    When the vaccine is approved for males, I think it should be encouraged for all boys and girls at around the time they have other boosters ... 12, I think. That's significantly before the onset of most sexual activity and could help wipe out cervical cancer in our lifetimes. There are some very surprising studies about the number of young women in their 20's who test positive for HPV on college campuses; its a very high percentage. Even for those that are not sexually active, since HPV is asymptomatic in males, the young woman could marry someone who did not know they were infected and end up like poor Eva Peron.
     
  14. burritos

    burritos Senior Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bluejay @ Feb 3 2007, 09:06 PM) [snapback]384989[/snapback]</div>
    Don't you think the polio vaccine was a good idea?
     
  15. Renocat

    Renocat Member

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    As a woman who had HPV with cancerous changes, I will have my daughter get this vaccine. I was 36 when I had a total hysterectomy. Luckily I had finished having the children I wanted to have (1). 5 years after the hysterectomy I developed a condition in my fallopian tubes that is usually only seen when a woman has had both a hysterectomy and her tubes tied (I did...I had my tubes tied 1 year before the hyst). I spent 3 days in the hospital and 8 weeks recovering.

    If there had been an HPV vaccine when I was younger, If I had received it, If I had not developed cervical cancer, I would have avoided 2 surgeries.

    I worked for 15 years in Public Health in the immunization program. I vaccinated 1,00s of kids and saw a few new vaccines come along. The same questions and concerns that are raised in this thread were raised when Hepatits B vaccine was introduced.

    Bottom...vaccines are a good thing and most (if not all states have mandates about which ones are given to whom at what age.
     
  16. Chuck.

    Chuck. Former Honda Enzyte Driver

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Feb 3 2007, 04:25 PM) [snapback]384947[/snapback]</div>
    Do you know who's term he completed?

    Also, check out him putting the construction of 17 new conventional coal-fired power plants on the fast track > http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6110191
     
  17. efusco

    efusco Moderator Emeritus
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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Renocat @ Feb 4 2007, 10:47 AM) [snapback]385125[/snapback]</div>
    don't misunderstand me...I think this vaccine is good. My daughter will get it. My wife strongly promotes it. I think every girl should get it. I'm just not sure how comfortable I am with it being mandated by law that they have it.
     
  18. fshagan

    fshagan Senior Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Feb 4 2007, 09:29 AM) [snapback]385139[/snapback]</div>
    I see both sides of this issue too. On the one hand, people should be able to choose their own level of preventative health care for the reasons you cited (i.e., the choice to eat at McDonalds every day, drink alcohol, etc. are all inherently dangerous activities). And HPV is entirely, absolutely preventable with "lifestyle choices" (don't have sex with anyone who has had sex with someone else).

    In this case, I think there might be an advantage for those parents who worry that such a vaccine would signal that the state expects their children to have sex: if everyone gets it, there is no stigma. It would make it easier for the doctor to provide along with the 12 year measles booster (or whatever it is they give at 12); "Mrs. Wilson, it's time for Denise's 12 year booster and HPV vaccine."

    Beyond the idea of a state requiring it, conservative parents should recognize that their daughter's future husband could be a carrier due to prior activity before he decided to go on the straight and narrow. Young men are hesitant to discuss prior sexual activities with their future wives, and its considered a minor lie to not disclose this among young men. That minor lie can kill their daughters.

    Does anyone know if the blood tests before marriage test for HPV?
     
  19. efusco

    efusco Moderator Emeritus
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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Feb 4 2007, 12:59 PM) [snapback]385171[/snapback]</div>
    Absolutely...and that's the part that makes me want to support it. The whole concept of not telling kids about condoms will prevent them from having sex, or that telling them will be read as an order to go out and do it. This has similar connotations. My wife simply promotes it as a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer and doesn't raise the issue of HPV being sexually transmitted unless necessary. I think it's safe to assume that all women will eventually have sex...thus they'll be at some risk for getting HPV...thus a shot to avoid that consequence makes sense.

    They still do blood tests somewhere before marriage? How medievil
     
  20. hycamguy07

    hycamguy07 New Member

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    Maybe its a conspiracy, maybe they are actually giving the girls a medication that stops their sex drive until they are 25 (so they just dont want it, the whole abstain campagn!)

    Or they are using the girls as lab rats by testing new meds on them them..

    Or maybe they are turning them into an army of elite fighters like below:
    [​IMG]


    :rolleyes: