All I know is, making it impossible for a child to attend school if he or she has NOT been injected with a vaccine is a pretty heavy. It’s even more heavy when said vaccine is for a sexually transmitted disease. Couple that with the fact that you are making all 11 year olds get it when it appears that minority groups in this age demographic are the group at risk.
Yes, for years and years it has been known that the more sexual partners a female has, the more often cell grown abnormality shows up (which can, if left untreated, lead to cancer). This fun fact becomes even more monumental when the demographics of minorities and whites are showing different sexual behavior patterns thus muddling the issue of sex, cancer, and whose business is it in the first place who’s messing around with whom and why? In this day and age you simply cannot have the government say, “OK! everyone who is not white, line up over here and get a shot!”
This mandate that all children in Rhode Island get this HPV series is coming out of a state that has perhaps one of the highest – if not THE highest – rate of childhood immunization in the country. This is due, in part, because Rhode Island is also one of the states that religiously has the most women and children on state aid. State aid and vaccinations go hand and hand. If you are on state aid everything is covered. The insurance benefits of the state aid program are generous. Disclaimer: my children and I have been on state aid at critical times in our lives, so I’m not making this up. The state is very much in your business about the kids’ well being. I would imagine that the state finds preventative medicine such as vaccines for cancer as a potential cost savings considering that the average age for a cervical cancer diagnosis is 48 years old. I would also venture to guess that someone on state aid would not be typically asking for the religious exemption paperwork necessary to opt out of any shot.
It’s probably worth noting at this point that this HPV shot mandate is happening in a state that reported less than sixteen deaths due to cervical cancer last year. In fact according to the RI Department of Health’s own white paper they claim a grand total of zero deaths from cervical cancer. (http://www.acscan.org/pdf/breastcancer/factsheets/state-facts/Rhode-Island.pdf)
Although I would image that treatment is uncomfortable, cervical cancer is treatable. What’s even more interesting is that it is easily spotted during annual routine GYN visits before it even gets to the dreaded OH MY GOD!! IT’S CANCER!!! stage. And even more interesting is that you will hear time after time when researching this topic that American women get this virus fairly regularly and cure themselves all the time with no intervention.
Then how is it that twenty three states are all suddenly NOW talking again about the purportedly dire consequences of not getting this series of shots for your boy or girl? And speaking of, why is it only 23 states? What were the criteria for making the sales / lobbyist list? The only thing I can think of is the sales funnel at the drug company.
In 2007 The American Academy of Pediatrics was not advocating mandatory Gardasil vaccination. One source of opposition from pediatricians was cost. Buying enough H.P.V. vaccine for 100 girls would require a practice to lay out nearly $40,000 in advance. Many doctors said that the insurance reimbursement for giving the vaccine was not adequate to compensate them for administering it. Even the Texas Medical Association was not supporting mandatory vaccination back then. Maybe things have changed at the doctor’s office with ObamaCare?
I’m really not sure, but I bet Mike Toomey, Governor Rick Perry’s former chief of staff, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/16/texas-governor-rick-perry-staffers-lobbyists_n_966072.html might know how that happened. Or you could ask lobbying group, Women in Government. They get funding from both Merck and Galaxo Smith Kline now.
Long story short: if you oppose the mandate because of “parental rights” prepare to have your “conservative” views attacked. If you are opposing the mandate because you sense pharmaceutical companies are taking over, brace yourself for being branded a “liberal”. If you are curious about this vaccine at all, prepare for lots of polarizing debate about vaccines in general.
*** IMPORTANT NOTE: if you were one of the first to opt for the series of shots, you need yet another series. The old version of the vaccine – which RI is still offering until the doses are used up – does not protect you from the newly discovered strains of the cancer causing virus.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/women-who-received-hpv-vaccine-may-need-another-shot/
