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VACCINES
This is off topic but I got pissed off reading this today. I feel like the US press has totally dropped the ball on this issue. This is a photo of an australian girl getting a free vaccine for HPV this year from the guy who invented it (it's called Gardasil, he's australian's man of the year this year because of it). Starting in april, all the 13 year old school girls in australia will get it. While other countries are scrambling to get their populations totally vaccinated for HPV, we're still arguing about it. American religious groups apparently know better than the millions of christians in europe and the pacific. They've figured out that STDs are a good thing for society, and even worth a couple of thousand woman a year dying of cancer. I think it's pretty clear that reaction would be different if the drug was approved for men (it will be eventually), so this is a feminist issue as well. Children used to get Polio from kissing among other ways, maybe we should never have cured it so we'd all grow up shit scared of dying if we kissed someone in junior high school. Nothing like paralysis and a slow death to teach those nasty little 7th grade sluts a lesson.
Anyway, women should know that this vaccine is availible here in the US. Even if only because it was squeezed past the christians as a "cancer vaccine." It is extremely effective and not dangerous as far vaccines go. If you're 26 or younger and plan on being single in the next ten years, I would demand it from your doctor and make your parents pay for it. HPV and herpes are already at epidemic proportions. Among the lower socioeconomic class in the inner city, more than 50% of the population tests positive for herpes. The general white community is probably fast approaching 25% and accelerating. I should stress that herpes is really nowhere near as big a deal as people make of it; most people don't even have a single symptom. I'm just making the point that these diseases are rampant and out of control. HPV has a variety of different strains that differ in danger. And it's believed that most of the infections are cleared after a period of time ranging from months to years. But it wouldn't be crazy to estimiate that 25% of people are infected with a strain that causes either cervical cancer, cervical displasia, or little bumps outside and/or inside your body. If you're a woman living in new york in your twenties, there is a very significant chance that your next boyfriend, even if he's a nice clean guy with relatively few partners and never displayed symptoms of anything, will give you something. That's what an epidemic is. This vaccine will protect nearly all the women that get it from getting genital warts or cervical cancer. Probably even women that have already been sexually active for a long time. It seems worth it to me. I know 4 friends who've gotten abnormal pap-smears back and ended up getting leeps. That's where they stick a big microscope down there and burn out a portion of cervical tissue. They were pretty upset and it upsets me that they didn't need to go through with that. This vaccine only protects from the worst strains of HPV. So abnormal pap-smears from an HPV infection will still occur but a vaccinated woman can feel very confident she hasn't been infected with a strain of HPV that will end up giving her cancer or cervical procedures that will complicate pregnancy. Unlike most things in life, this vaccine is, excluding religious nitwits, a no-brainer.
Posted on Wednesday, November 29, 2006, 1:34 PM
Comments
There are a couple of things that I think are ridiculous about how the vaccine is panning out in the US. I was actually at my gyno yesterday and was asking her about getting the vaccine. She said that most insurance companies don't cover it and it's $200 a dose and it is 3 doses. She also said that there are 18 strains of high-risk HPV and the vaccine available only covers 2 of those strains. She was saying that at this point only Merck has one out and, as far as she knows, Pfizer is the only other one working on a vaccine to come out in the beginning of next year. Of course, I am not a scientist, but I don't know why if the technology is there to protect against 2 strains, why not more drug companies invest more money to come out with a vaccine that covers all 18 strains and make that readily available to people for free or a low cost? Who knows, but like you said, HPV is rampant and this vaccine should be made available to everyone. There is no reason why every woman shouldn't get it.
Posted by: Ryan on December 1, 2006 7:37 AM
The vaccine actually covers four strains as far as I know. Your doctors words are typical "don't tell me what to do, I'm a doctor" bullshit. It covers the two strains that cause nearly all of the cancer deaths in women. They are particularly virulent and can cause lesions on the cervix that can progress to cancer more quickly and more often. Most of the other types of HPV cause some abnormal papsmears here and there but rarely lead to cancer. The other two strains the vaccine covers are the two that most often cause little bumps but almost never cause cancer. Basically it covers all the HPV you don't want and forgets about the rest.
Posted by: Andy on December 4, 2006 3:20 AM
The plan is to vaccinate young women where they will get nearly a 100% result and not waste time vaccinating older young women many of whom may already have been exposed. Since, with regular pap-smears, cancer is often caught before it can progress, your cervix has been deemed expendable. So I'm saying that for the price of a couple ipods, you might want to consider it.
Posted by: Andy on December 4, 2006 3:26 AM