California lawmakers continue to fine tune a plan to require Gardasil vaccinations against human papillomavirus, which is transmitted by sexual contact, for all pre-teen girls in both private and public schools in the state, worrying many parents due to California's reputation as a leader in such decisions.Ok, so what have California parents done or been doing - other than objecting - to prevent such exposure?
If you may recall, I posted some time ago that the University of California reported that a bit over 82% of their female students graduated with Herpes, a life-long reward for a moment or two of carelessness and stupidity. Less than 3% reported to have had the STD before entering college, but then again, today's university graduated females think nothing of lying, so who knows?
Obviously, the state feels something has to be done to help slow this STD epidemic in America - and epidemic it is - just vastly under reported by the mostly female(and probably infected) talking heads known as the national media.
So why do so many young girls who go to college get nailed with this lifelong misery?
Probably because the parents who are screaming about these proposed shots never taught them a damn thing about safe sex practices. You know... Always planned to, but just never got around to it....
So now the State wants to try to prevent one kind of rampant STD over the objections of bug-eyed ranting and screaming outraged parents over shots for their precious little babys, just like the ones you see on "Girls Gone Wild".
What would you suggest?
5 comments:
I want to think that if this was just about some lumpy labia, there would be no vaccine. The big deal in my eyes is that the vaccine helps prevent cervical cancer (which is caused by some types of HPV). On the other hand, only 12000 women are diagnosed with HPV-related cervical cancer a year, and 4600 die because of it. In the grand scheme, that's not a lot of people. If we can save 4600 people a year with a harmless vaccine, why not do it?
The problem with HPV is that you can have it for years and not even know it. It's mostly undetectable unless you develop a wart (and happen to notice) or have a pap smear come back funky.
As for the real solution: I don't know. It depends on what you think the problem is, and I can't decide on that. Is it too much sex? Too much unprotected sex? Insufficiently advanced medical practices? Who takes blame for the fact that 75% of the people in this country have HPV? Is the people, considering that the people they got it from couldn't have known they had it in many cases? Hell, you can get it from your mom at birth if you're really unlucky...
To put it more clearly, it's a wicked problem. There's no solution. There's no cause that you can directly address with a cure. All you can do is treat the symptoms (which extend beyond one person's body) on as many levels as possible.
One last thing comes to mind: all the prophylactics in the world won't save you from HPV. The virus spreads through genital skin contact, not fluids, and that skin can be anywhere in your "crotchal area". The only real prevention available until now has been abstention.
All good posts....
And after having read them several times, I have no clues how to respond.
I rather glibly asked a question about the objection of parents over the State's heavy-handed attemopt to address a real and growing problem, only to realize I have not a single answer.
I do consider the Christian Scientest approach to curing sickness(no medicine, just prayer) in an child as unacceptable, and support intervention in those cases. But this blanket approach is worrisome.
If it's a skin-contact spread disease, wouldn't some type of antibacterial/disinfectant be the ticket?
Of course, there's always the oldest cure: Don't screw around, and you won't get VD. Worked for me, and it works every time it's tried, but that makes too much sense for the PDR of Mexi-fornication...especially Helly-weird!
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