August 16, 2012
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Gardasil & Garbage Medicine
I am generally NOT anti-immunization.
I appreciate that Polio was gotten under control using the Salk vaccine, and is now virtually unknown in most parts of our country, and Europe. I think people who break the immunization chain based on now proven bullshit from a doctor who can no longer practice medicine in the UK are both stupid, and selfish…because they put other people’s kids at risk.
But when Gardasil came out, it bothered me.
Overnight, every doctor my daughter saw was pushing it.
So, I did my research.
What I discovered bothered me mightily.
Facts…not opinion, or fiction.
1. There are more than a dozen strains of HPV that they think can cause cancer. Gardasil protects against two. This makes me think we are giving our daughters a false sense of security.
2. The “protection” wears off at age 25…and there is no booster.
3. They suggested it initially for girls ONLY…leaving boys to become infected carriers…and THAT is garbage medicine. How are you supposed to get a sexually transmitted disease under control by treating just ONE gender?
4. They assume early sexual activity…which is why they want it in girls as young as 12. I acknowledge that kids are having sex younger these days…but 12?
5. Young men are ambivalent about HPV…figuring it is not THEIR problem. Great foresight guys. I know you may have FWB’s, at the moment…but someday you just might pick a lady you like a lot. I’m pretty sure that if or when that happens, you won’t want to give her cervical cancer. And now they say that infected males have a larger risk of acquiring throat cancer…but hey…don’t let THAT worry you.
So…short form. I think it’s stupid to only immunize half the population.
I think Gardasil is questionable protection. And I believe out attitudes about sex are completely screwed up. Thoughts?
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Comments (19)
I am an old guy born in the 30′s. We had one cure for sexual activity–marriage immediately.
The sex revolution is here over the Pond, as in your country and most of the world.
I have heard about this vaccine. I am with you–age 12. Crying out loud, a 12 year old should be playing with Barbie dolls and out laughing it up with her girl friends.
I know the reality is that kids are doing ‘it’ earlier. So, I guess we have given up on teaching values of any kind–it is, after all, a lost cause.
If there is a vaccine that will protect young potentially sexually active girls, even temporarily, I think it should be used.
Boys need to be held accountable for their actions, so if some kind of vaccine will help them, the should take it. Obviously, boys should be well informed in the proper use of quality condoms. Girls need to be better trained to be completely unwilling to have sex unless a boy uses a condom, even if they are on birth control.
It is a tough issue. I just feel bad that our children are going to learn the hard way that sexual morals were there for a reason. Sadly, adults are increasingly poor examples themselves.
I am saddened by all the very cute young church gals that my wife has counseled due to unplanned pregnancies while they still lived at home.
Don’t get me started. I just feel very bad for all these sweet young girls being led astray.
frank
@ANVRSADDAY - Hi Frank…if I thought it really DID protect the girls, I’d say Huzzah! But 2 of 12 is not really protecting them, is it? And it ignores the fact that the males WILL be infected, and will infect every woman they sleep with…for the rest of THEIR lives.
We locked up Typhoid Mary because of the lives she put at risk…but we are not dealing with this from the male side. And THAT concerns me deeply.
I actually know several people who had sex for the first time at age 11-13. It’s not as uncommon as you might think. I also don’t necessarily think the age of when the vaccine is recommended to be given correlates with ages that have sex. It more likely to be that young so kids are more likely to receive the vaccine with other ones they need for school and whatnot.
As for Gardasil providing a false sense of security, I think this greatly depends on the information parent share with their children. If a parent has an open and honest relationship with their children about sex and sexuality, then I really think their kids will have a better outlook about sex, themselves and WANT to make better decisions and to protect themselves.
HPV is a relatively new thing in the medical world and so is a vaccination against it. You can’t expect them to get it right the first time when all of this is in it’s beginning stages. As time goes on, things will improve and change.. they have done so already.
@Saridactyl - I think my concern here is the attitude. For thousands of years, girls got the short end of the stick when it came to the risks involved with sex. We were the ones subject to pregnancy. If we “lost our virtue” we were counted as whores, and shunned. Social diseases were considered the product of “loose women”…not people of both genders engaging in sex.
And now medicine has joined the fray. Polio would never have gotten under control had they only vaccinated one half of the population/. So why are so casual about this one? (And I think they raced it to the market…but that’s just me)
@galadrial - It is terrible that everyone cannot get together on this since cancer is so awful. I fight skin cancer all the time.
@galadrial - I understand what you’re saying, but I’m not sure that it’s really about dirty girls. Yes, they rushed it to the market, and started out only giving the vaccine to girls, but it harms girls directly. Girls can get cervical cancer. Yes, boys can be carriers, but I don’t think they fully understood the relationship of the virus between men and women. They thought that HPV was not harmful to men, when really it accounts for many cases of genital warts in men. I think their line of thought was that it doesn’t harm men in the same way it does women and they were flawed with that thinking. They realized it and they now offer the vaccine to boys.
@galadrial - The 2 strains it protects from accounts for 75% of cervical cancer cases ad 90% of genital warts cases. It aslo accounts for 70% of vaginal cancer and 50% of vulvar cancer cases. That’s actually quite a bit..
I agree that ideally, both genders should be vaccinated, but that may be a hard sell to the parents of boys. And I think 12 is the right age, because some girls do have sex very early, and the vaccine must be delivered before they are exposed to the virus. As a parent, you may be able to assess the likelihood that your child will have sex early, but the doctor can’t.
@Saridactyl - Ok…I have read the same stats. But they keep changing their numbers…and that DOES concern me. I have a 21 year old daughter. Do I want her assuming she’ll be ok just because she has a shot? One of the leading side effects of the drug is that more than 25 percent of the women FAINT within 5 minutes of getting it.
Faint? From what? The same girls get shots and give blood all the time. What in the shot is such a great insult to the system that they faint? It was approved during Bush’s administration. Which gives me pause. They also approved one drug as a food product, that they found too risky in pill form…at a far lower amount than most people would consume as food.
Call me crazy…but I think they stopped doing research when they got their patent…period.
@ANVRSADDAY - lol, one of my relatives got caught in the barn, and they forced them to get married. That was back in the day.
You know, everyone uses sex against me, so I just want to be circumcised. I think that would solve a lot of our problems actually.
@Colorsofthenight - Yes, in my days, many couples got married and the law was that if you got a girl pregnant, you married her. That was common. Couples are still human–even in the 1930′s. Couples got hot and bothered and did it and many had to get married.
I guess sex is used against all of us in some way. My wife sees it as a male thing and kind of like a reward. Not sure even after all these years.
@ANVRSADDAY - they use it to make me do stupid things and lose my position at work. That’s a favorite game.
My father died of cancer. (Asphyxiation due to respiratory arrest due to organ system failure due to “cancer of unknown primary source”). That puts me at a MUCH higher risk than the general population to get cancer and die from it. When I went away to college, I [a virgin who had NEVER had a serious boyfriend and practiced abstinence] was REQUIRED to receive the Gardasil vaccine (that was 2008). Something didn’t sit right with me about the vaccine or the fact that I couldn’t go to college (on a full ride, mind you) without it. I am chronically ill and no one assuaged my fears about how it would affect me. I gave consent because I didn’t want to lose my scholarship.
Four years later, I hate the college I attend and realize that I should have refused, that I am intelligent enough to receive a full ride almost anywhere and it shouldn’t have been a factor in my HEALTH. Hindsight is 20/20, as cliche as that is.
You bring up some good concerns. I would hope that we do not accept everything so lightly and go too fast.
@galadrial - If someone believes that this vaccine makes them invincible to HPV, cervical cancer or the like then their problem isn’t with the vaccine, it’s with the person who has received the vaccine.
As for the fainting, it’s a very painful shot. That can attest for a lot of it. I remember getting my booster shot in the 4th grade and I got incredibly light headed.
I am glad that Gardasil is not pushed in here. Probably they must have done the research. I don’t know. I wonder of this the drug companies that try to push the medical people into doing it, so they get more money. I know there is a lot of advertisement.
I think you are right about the who attitude of the boys, I do not understand this need to have sex at 11 and 12 , like there is nothing else in the world to do.
@seedsower - I just hoped we would realize that there is a CONNECTION. But that seems to be hoping for too much.
My 14-year-old daughter has had two rounds of the shots. My 11-year-old son has had one round. My pediatrician is recommending it for both sexes. Neither of my children know what it is specifically for, I don’t think they need to know other than all their shots reduce their chances of illness. I haven’t heard that it wears off at 25 though. However, humans do develop an ability to fight off HPV infections by age 30, not sure how that all works with strains that cause cancer though. It protects against 4/5 strains of HPV and those two strains of HPV it protects against cervical cancer cause like 70% of the cancers. I think that’s a good enough reason. Neither of my kids fainted after the shot, but my daughter did faint when they pricked her finger for an iron test before the first shot.