The HPV Vaccine Debate Continues
I knew when I posted “Should We Immunize Teen Girls Against HPV?” that it was an issue that would provoke some very passionate responses. I also know that I do not have all of the information I need to make my own personal judgment about the issue at this time.
I would like to thank everyone for sharing their viewpoints and for taking the discussion back to (and adding to it) on their own blogs too. The discussion is not over, by any means. We have all pretty much agreed that more education and better testing needs to occur, but the biggest area of disagreement seems to be whether or not it should be a vaccine that is mandated by the government.
For more viewpoints, information and discussion on the HPV vaccine:
- Gayla’s Place: Immunizing Teen Girls Against HPV - Gayla has a unique and extremely knowledgeable viewpoint on the topic of the HPV vaccine and STDs in general.
- Kristen King gives her input at Lively Women in Texas Mandates HPV Vaccine
- Author Sarah Collins Honenberger discusses the issues in her blog ReadWhiteLies.com
- Angela declares Yes! We Should Immunize Teen Girls Against HPV - Angela, like Gayla, also has personal experience to share.
Since my goal is to give parents, like myself, as much information as possible, to make their own informed choices and opinions, please let me know if you know of other sites where this discussion is also going on.
6 opinions for The HPV Vaccine Debate Continues
Dirty Butter
Feb 26, 2007 at 12:15 pm
I haven’t decided yet how I feel about the government requiring it, but I know I would want our daughters to have it, if they were at that age again. We found out one of our daughters was sexually active when she told me she thought she was pregnant. She turned out to have the virus, but wasn’t pregnant. Talk about good news/bad news!
Angela
Feb 26, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Hi Char ~
I for one am glad to see that there are others like yourself out there (like me too) that are interested in things like sexually transmitted diseases, cervical cancer, genital warts, educating the public, awareness and advocacy ~ things of that nature.
I’m glad to know that you are one that is actually going to take your time and do some research into this subject. So many times people will take the conspiracy theory route OR the political side of an idea and then run with that as fact as to what is best for our children. It’s too bad that not all children have the maturity level to speak for themselves. I would imagine if a child could see into the future to find out that they would be hospitalized for cervical cancer treatments and know that they had the chance to be vaccinated – they would probably want to know why they weren’t vaccinated for this stuff.
This is a slippery slope when you add the word “sex” into the mix. The same controversial discussion will probably come up if and when they figure out how to put together an HIV vaccine. Would you keep your kids from having THAT vaccine done? Or is it just too scary because it’s about a sexually transmitted disease.
I’ll go ahead and play devil’s advocate here and say that there are many people real good at sweeping reality under the rug. These same people would prefer to call their oral herpes cold sores instead of admitting that they have herpes. It just makes me sick enough to want to puke!!
So basically vaccines are ok as long as they don’t correlate to a sexually transmitted disease. Add children into that equation and you have one hot topic on your hands. But it’s ok to advocate the more normal vaccines that we take our children and babies in for because we want to do what we can to prevent bad things from happening.
A lot of time and many years went into the development of this vaccine. You can bet all three of my girls will be getting it. They have a chance to avoid two types of HPV that cause cervical cancer and two types of HPV that cause genital warts. Wild horses couldn’t keep me from signing them up to have it done!
Gayle
Feb 28, 2007 at 7:59 am
Char,
I’ve now weighed in with my take on the HPV vaccine over at Parenting Teens. There were some really interesting articles on it in today’s Atlanta Journal-Consitution, which I’ve linked to, as well as linking to your blog and the others who are discussing it.
char
Feb 28, 2007 at 8:06 am
Gayle - Thanks so much for continuing the discussion. The more this issue gets discussed, the better decisions we can all make!
Angela
Mar 1, 2007 at 8:43 am
Hi Gayle ~
Thank you so much for linking my herpes blog on you note that you write over on your blog. I’ve added your blog to my newsreader and will be by to check it out every time you post something new. Oh and I haven’t had time to read what you wrote yet about the HPV vaccine to prevent cervical cancer but I will make it over there some time today.
Betsy Thiede
May 28, 2007 at 2:58 pm
http://www.infowars.com/articles/science/vaccines_hpv_vaccination_reaction_images.htm
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