The fundagelicals were all up in arms over the human papilloma vaccine — it was recommended for all girls to prevent the sexual transmission of a virus that can lead to cancers of the female reproductive tract. They were agin’ it; it might give their womenfolk the idea that sex is not a punishment, and a few thousand dead girls is a small price to pay for sin.
That might change now, though. Clinical testing has revealed that HPV can cause oral cancers in men, and they are recommending that all adolescents, not just girls, should consider getting the vaccine.
Now the religious right is going to face a dilemma. Shall they encourage this vaccination to protect their precious boy-children, or will it be sufficient to scream against the sin of heterosexual oral sex from the pulpit? And can they even bear to talk about such ‘bizarre’ sexual practices in church?
(via Saneblog)
I can hear the tires screeching as they do a 180
The poll question has been extended to “Do you agree with the board member?”
Don’t be ridiculous. Real Christian Men (TM) don’t perform oral sex.
Like any of them would stoop to pleasing their womenfolk during sex.
Oh, they can bear talking about it. They love talking about it. They are obsessed with talking about it. Its probably just how they cope with having the world’s most repressed sex life.
Normally, I’d assume that once the males were at risk for getting a disease from sex, they would be more sympathetic than if it was just females at risk, because of the natural double-standards reinforced in their mind through their holy book. But, because males can only get it through orally pleasuring their mate, I get the impression that they won’t care. Real men don’t go down on their women, anything but the missionary position is an abomination, etc. etc.
Don’t be ridiculous. Real Christian Men (TM) don’t perform oral sex.
No, but they do borrow their wives’ dildos for the wetsuit ritual.
“Of an estimated 28,900 cases of oral cancer a year, 18,550 are in men.”
Fascinating. They speculate that an increase in oral cancer, “might be a result of changing sexual behaviors.”, which I assume is an increase in cunnilingus. But slightly more than a third of the cases are in women, so let’s just blame all oral sex.
It seems inevitable that oral HPV will also be associated with kissing, for which the fundies will have a hard time justifying a death sentence. But then again maybe not, since they’re nuts.
We should always have advocated vaccinating both sexes anyway since it takes two to tango.
“No, but they do borrow their wives’ dildos for the wetsuit ritual.”
Shiver…
Bwahaha!
To quote the matrix:
“Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.”
BUT WAIT! Don’t vaccines cause autism?
/sarcasm
I can hear the fundies saying, “Wait, how could a virus that affects women–uh, you know where–be transmitted to a boy’s mouth?”
This controversy at least provides an educational opportunity, hopefully to the benefit of women’s health and pleasure.
Baa-zing!
hahaha…
Remember: it’s important to dress in layers.
well there goes another monitor.
Jeebus, I’ll be dead tomorrow.
RE #6 “males can only get it through orally pleasuring their mate”
The HPV vaccine has become such an issue because the virus can cause fatal cervical cancers. But women are receiving the virus through heterosexual vaginal sex. Search Google Images for “genital warts”. Seems that even the most hardened misogynist would shrink at the thought of aquiring this infection.
My tweenage son as well as my teenage daughter have received the HPV vaccine. My son was in the national study. Now I’m glad to find out it will not just protect his future partners, but him as well.
Tosser @12
First the Lewinsky affair, now this – they can’t catch a break.
#3- “Don’t be ridiculous. Real Christian Men (TM) don’t perform oral sex.”
Excepting, of course, the demonic pull of the airport men’s room.
I’d amend your statement to include….”on women”.
Debbie, thank you for helping the study! My daughter will get the vaccine as well as soon as it’s indicated.
About real xian heterosexual men not doing oral sex. Maybe we can ask Republican Senator Vitter about it.
Actually, this is old news–the HPVs that this vaccine attacks are involved in a lot of cancers.
So I wanted my teenage boy to get it. Asked his doctor.
No way, he said. It’s for g-i-i-i-r-l-s!. You’d have thought I was making the kid wear a tutu in public.
On fundies performing oral sex, #19 said, “I’d amend your statement to include….’on women’. Yeah, maybe we should start flooding the fundies with godless books like The Low Down On Going Down. Unfortunately I don’t think this study will sway the Religious Right any. They already believe women are expendable. Is there any reason to think they wouldn’t believe the same about the small number of men among them who are willing to perform oral sex?
I’m just excited that now I can pressure my guy-friends to get the vaccine too. Vaccinating only 1/2 of the susceptible population only helps the vaccinated. If both genders are vaccinated, there will be less threat even to the stubborn who chose to remain susceptible.
“No way, he said. It’s for g-i-i-i-r-l-s!. ”
This is crazy. Vaccinating males helps break the chain of transmission.
Well you know, if HPV was designed by God to cause human cancer, why should we stop it?
True, we prevent any number of other diseases designed by God. However, STDs are special to God, sort of his chosen micro-organisms.
Then again, there was some actual logic to the idea that anything “designed by God” ought not to be thwarted by humans, none in the hodgepodge of conflicting “design” ideas of the IDists. So we could end up with some people who think all prevention of disease is wrong.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
I don’t see why this would change their original argument at all; it’s the same as the one they use for abstinence-only sex ed instead of teaching about condoms:
Sex is a sin and has bad consequences. Anything that mitigates some of the bad consequences is going to encourage more people to sin and is therefore bad.
Christian Scientists don’t do anything to prevent disease (Prayer doesn’t count for anything).
If it’s not bizarre you’re doing it wrong.
No, but they do borrow their wives’ dildos for the wetsuit ritual.
I’m man enough to admit when there’s a gap in my vast knowledge. Could someone explain this joke to me? TIA!
Don’t be ridiculous. Real Christian Men (TM) don’t perform oral sex.
Well, not on women, anyway.
Trying to stop kids having sex by not letting them have the HPV vaccine is like trying to stop folks speeding by banning seat belts.
Has anyone ever commented on the fact that the fundamentalist trolls never show up on topics like this to preach how god is in favor of disease and that by developing vaccines or cures we’re opposing his will?
I know that it’s more gratifying to get mad at the Christian right, but there was plenty of left wing opposition to the HPV vaccine too – typically, from organic health advocates, anti-Big Pharma, and outright anti-vax conspiracists, but even from some hardline feminists, the kind that blame breast cancer and surgery on misogynist patriarchal medicine. Pretty much the patchouli oil and conspiracist corners of progressivism. Some charged that it was a big medical experiment conducted on the bodies of girls for the sake of corporate profits.
Here you go.
here you go
My issue with the HPV vaccine has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the effort to make it mandatory.
For starters, shouldn’t any public health treatment mandate be based on risk? From what I can see, the risk of cancer-caused death in this case is far below the threshold that would require vaccinating an entire generation of girls (and now boys). I mean, we’re not talking about the Black Plague here.
The existing treatment model seems to be fairly effective for managing the identification and spread of the virus. Yes, there are some deaths, but what are the long-term ramifications of vaccinating an entire population of children?
Merck, the maker of the vaccine, is being sued left and right for the Vioxx debacle and a Medicaid drug pricing scandal. Further, they have been accused of bribing state officials to push legislation on the HPV vaccine.
Isn’t it possible that Merck’s advocacy of mandatory vaccination with Gardasil has more to do with recouping their losses from the sloppy science behind Vioxx and their own greed that led to the Medicaid lawsuit? Do we really want to set a precedent where any drug company with deep pockets can make the administration of any drug mandatory?
Anyone with a modicum of drug-science knowledge knows that there is no such thing as a 100 percent safe drug — that the efficacy of a drug inevitably falls as the user population increases — it’s the law of unintended consequences in action. Do we really want to go down this path, just to help Merck out of the financial jam that Merck caused?
Cervical cancer is a far bigger problem in third world countries. Let Merck demonstrate their altruism by making Gardasil affordable and available in those countries, where it will do the most good. As for the US, make the drug available, but not mandatory. Merck should spend less money on ex-cheerleaders turned drug reps to sway gullible doctors, and more money on an honest education campaign about cervical cancer, Gardasil, and the real nature of the risk.
For the record, I’m pro women’s rights, anti-ignorance (religion), and definitely, pro oral.
For Dan, #27
I have seen reports that show circumcised men are far less likely to get HIV. When are we going to see a fundie movement to keep men intact?
From what I can see, the risk of cancer-caused death in this case is far below the threshold that would require vaccinating an entire generation of girls (and now boys).
There’s also a very low probability of having phenylketonuria, but every child is tested for it because it is so devastating for that small percentage to have it and not know. It’s not just the possibility of having the disease that is taken into account, but how severe the disease is for those who get it.
Well…
Since oral sex is considered Sodomy (remember all those sodomy laws that the SCotUS thankfully tossed out), I will assume that they will continue to preach the abstinence only mantra and against sodomy. Heck it might give them a new rallying cry to try and impose new sodomy laws.
There was a post a while back about HPV and measles viruses association with lung cancer. Reported in the journal Nature.
http://scienceblogs.com/digitalbio/2008/04/a_vaccine_against_lung_cancer.php
Can’t remember where I read this:
“If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament”.
Pretty much sums up the situation, right?
(.)(.)
I saw a short segment on the Today Show about the vaccine when the firt bills to make it mandatory were appearing. As I recall, one of the participants questioned the wisdom of this not on religious grounds or based on a wild conspiracy theory, but because the studies that had been done to that point on younger girls were small-N (it may have only been a single study). Of course, being the Today Show, they cut off the discussion after about 30 seconds, so little information on that front was forthcoming. I did read a good discussion of the matter in either Harriet Washington’s (great) Medical Apartheid or Soniah Shah’s The Body Hunters – I can’t remember which.
I do think it’s reasonable to be cautious about this sort of thing in terms of social policy, particularly when drug companies are writing proposed legislation that would swell their own profits.
I’m not a biologist but isn’t HPV a virus? I suspect how you get it (oral or otherwise) has little to do with where the cancer occurs.
I KNEW IT! Vaccinate those boys. HPV is probably also responsible for many penile cancers (icky), besides the fact that women contract HPV from infected men. Try doing a PubMed search for HPV and PENILE. To quote PMC1477576, “HPV-related cancers are a pandemic venereal disease, and the penis is the primary vector of this viral carcinogen.”
The HPV vaccine should be just another childhood shot that EVERYONE gets.
#3
Judging by Ted Haggart et al, not on women anyway!
The problem with vaccines is that for them to be effective at eradicating a disease, a substantial portion of the population needs to be vaccinated. Even a small portion of unvaccinated people can create pools where the disease is preserved and where epidemics can arise.
An example of this is polio. Every child in the US should receive a round of polio vaccinations as part of their normal childhood prophylaxis. A reasonable question to ask would be “Why? How many people get polio in the United States?” The answer is that very few do, but there are parts of the world where it is still endemic (small parts, fortunately), and enough cases make it out of these regions and into the rest of the world that it still represents a threat.
In the case of HPV, the consequences of the disease are very severe, much like polio, so it is worth the small, but finite, risk of the vaccine to reduce the potential pool of carriers.
Does this mean that HPV was on Noah’s Ark? Just curious.
Let’s ship ’em off to Saudi Arabia – they’d fit right in.
As for wOOt – you post boobies but don’t post tits?
Not only did my son get the vaccination when it first was available, our insurance paid for it – which rather surprised me. I was all set to pay for it myself.
Like fundagelicals know how to go down on a woman…
I never understood why boys were not going to be vaccinated against HPV, it would surely protect everyone better. I don’t buy the argument that they have to personally benefit from it, we vaccinate kids against diseases they may never encounter too. I would think that many young men would gladly be vaccinated to protect their partners, they, or their parents should at least have been offered the option.
As a taxpayer — and therefore one of the ones who will be paying for someone’s medical treatment if they get sick — I’d rather my money was being spent on inexpensive prevention measures than expensive cures anyday.
I’d also like to point out that I don’t begrudge the NHS a single penny — the alternative would be far, far worse. I just wish more was spent on front line staff and less on the various levels of management and bureaucracy.
How nice. Could you have made your point without stigmatizing the speakers of non-standard dialects? I’m starting to wonder why I bother to read your blog.
“They were agin’ it; it might give their womenfolk…”
SIWOTI alert: #44
Richard’s comments notwithstanding, one of the issues surrounding the HPV vaccination issue is one of cost: the cost of vaccinating every girl vs. treating cervical cancer, since cervical cancer is easily caught and treated. That said, I’d personally err on the side of prophylaxis.
In any case, as someone who works in cancer surveillance, I’m gonna take this opportunity to gently remind the female readers here that they should be getting regular pap tests. And guys, get your prostates checked out, or ideally removed. Those things are like ticking time bombs! And skin! Don’t even get me started on skin! Find yourself a good dermatologist, and abraid that shit down to the bone! Seriously, one mole gone wild and boom! Stupid, good-for-nothing, death-trap organs….
#44 –
HPV is a virus, but it causes infection where it is contracted. Do you know what herpes is?
“As I recall, one of the participants questioned the wisdom of this not on religious grounds or based on a wild conspiracy theory, but because the studies that had been done to that point on younger girls were small-N (it may have only been a single study).”
The HPV vaccine is most effective if given before exposure to any of the various HPV’s around. Hence why it is given to girls before (hopefully) they have become sexually active.
“Anyone with a modicum of drug-science knowledge knows that there is no such thing as a 100 percent safe drug — that the efficacy of a drug inevitably falls as the user population increases — it’s the law of unintended consequences in action.”
Research smallpox.
“HPV is a virus, but it causes infection where it is contracted. Do you know what herpes is?”
Of course the conditions inside the mouth and inside the vagina and cervix are not dissimilar.
“Anyone with a modicum of drug-science knowledge knows that there is no such thing as a 100 percent safe drug — that the efficacy of a drug inevitably falls as the user population increases — it’s the law of unintended consequences in action.”
So the more people who take aspirin as an anti-clotting agent the less effective it is an such an agent ?
How does the aspirin pill taken by a person know that too many have been prescribe and it is no longer allowed to work ?
I don’t see how this is a gender issue, apart from the fact that HPV was being recommended to girls. I’ve seen nothing (although I can’t rule out a few nutcases who think so) to suggest that fundies would object less to preventative measures against STDs applied to men as opposed to women.
I don’t buy the feminist idea that HPV is symptomatic of the churches oppression of womens sexuality. I think it’s symptomatic of the churches denial of sexuality in general. The churches viewpoint is not that sex education, for example, will encourage their daughters to be promiscuous – but the boys can go get educated, fine. They have a problem with encouraging promiscuity in all children.
And lets face it, to have contracted HPV, someone in a given relationship was being promiscuous (even if it was just making out with someone else). I don’t think it’s suggested that you can get it by sharing teacups. So rather than mess around protecting people against STDs, let’s teach our kids not to be promiscuous. It’s worked so well up to now! Let’s keep at it!
Claiming that kids shouldn’t get the HPV vaccine because it might encourage them to have sex is like saying that if we developed a vaccine against dental caries, we shouldn’t use it because it might encourage kids to eat too many sweets.
#47: “The problem with vaccines is that for them to be effective at eradicating a disease, a substantial portion of the population needs to be vaccinated.”
You are, of course, correct, but your comment assumes that Gardasil lives up to the hype, but can we be reasonably certain of this?
At this point, I’m not sure. Consider this:
1. Merck develops the drug.
2. Merck writes the legislation.
3. Merck pushes the drug at the state level using cold hard cash as an incentive.
4. Whereas available information about the efficacy of the drug is minimal due to either small studies (and possibly, short-term studies). For instance, Merck reportedly can’t say for how long the drug’s effect lasts.
Imagine this:
A church crafts some legislation, say, a law requiring mandatory prayer to the God du jour. The church then tries to bribe state governors to route around the legislative process and the people to make morning prayer to an imaginary fairy, mandatory for all children. If such a thing were attempted, reasonable people would be up in arms. And yet, because of the magic word ‘science,’ too many smart people simply have accepted Merck at their word.
A simple Google of “Merck” and “lawsuit” should provide sufficient evidence to warrant against taking Merck at their word for anything. Why the push to make Gardasil mandatory so fast? Where are the long term studies? Where’s the science?
Too often, we confuse science with business. Gardasil, if it proves to be as effective over the long term as advertised, is science. Merck’s attempt to cram it down our throats, absent comprehensive long-term testing, is business.
#61–
“So the more people who take aspirin as an anti-clotting agent the less effective it is as such an agent ?”
it’s very simple, matt.
you see, the clots build up a *resistance* to the aspirin.
the clots that are sensitive to aspirin are destroyed by it, whereas any clots that, by random mutation, happen to be immune to aspirin’s anti-clotting powers, are more likely to multiply and breed.
and then *your* aspirin-resistant clots can infect *me* with aspirin-resistant clots, and pretty soon we’re all coming down with arcs, i.e. aspirin-resistant-clot-syndrome.
and pretty soon there are vast, dumpster-sized clots waltzing down the avenues of our cities, terrorizing small pets and their law-abiding owners, while the police crouch behind the doors of their squad cars firing off round after round from their puny, impotent aspirin-guns.
yeah, okay, richard said a lot of stupid things in #36.
About the safety of HPV.
It’s been tested on ~11,000 women, with no significant side effects. That doesn’t sound like small number statistics to me.
Er, no. Vertical transmission.
#59
Do you mean where they hunted down the carriers as opposed to simply trying to vaccinate the world? Vaccines were a necessary part of the effort, but it was removing the human sources that sealed the deal.
As you move away from the sources of the disease the public health benefits of vaccines and other treatments diminish. Malaria vaccines aren’t popular in Minnesota or Northern Canada for a reason.
Brownian (#56) wrote: “And guys, get your prostates checked out, or ideally removed.”
Interesting. I never even knew they could be removed. Presumably it’s a tricky procedure, what with the urethra running right through it?
“So the more people who take aspirin as an anti-clotting agent the less effective it is an such an agent?”
No. Poor wording. My bad. What I mean is that the more widely used a drug is, the more likely one is to encounter sub-sets within the population with a higher risk of adverse outcomes. This is because it is impossible to test for every conceivable scenario, so once a drug is in the wild, that’s where the real testing begins.
With good science and responsible treatment, absent the predatory marketing for which the drug industry is famous, these poor outcomes can be minimized.
The problem I see with the HPV vaccine is that too many people seem to be taking Merck (who has a vested interest in the economic success of the drug) at their word, without question.
#69
it’s a piece of cake compared to getting it installed again.
Actually #66, I’ve waded through the FDA approval and followup data and though the clinical trials had no significant side effects, there have been thousands of side effects in the general population. We’re talking a small percentage of millions so it wasn’t statistically visible until now. However, it is only going to beneficial to a smaller percentage – less than 5% of women to begin with because that’s how many have persistent HPV infection that leads to cancer, but only a portion of those will benefit from the vaccine.
This vaccine was not properly tested. And it doesn’t prevent HPV infection!!! Merck says so themselves!
I don’t agree with the fundy logic, but I think this vaccine was premature too.
‘”If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament”.
Pretty much sums up the situation, right?’ – A.N.Onymous
As I understand it, American Men and Women support (or don’t support) abortion in pretty much equal numbers (technically, men tend to support it more, but it’s more or less parity). So, no, it doesn’t really sum it up at all.
If there’s one thing the left and right can agree on it’s the pervasive evil of men. To those on the right, men support abortion because they’re incapable of caring the way mothers can, and to those on the left, men don’t support abortion because they hate women. Granted, the right spin it as a betrayal spearheaded by women (feminists), and the left spin it as a betrayal spear-headed by men (insert any number of names). The reality is that men are generally shouted/guilted out of the argument. It is, after all, a “woman’s issue”.
Like abortion, the HPV controversy is mostly an argument between special interest groups dominated by women.
“How does the aspirin pill taken by a person know that too many have been prescribe and it is no longer allowed to work ?”
Anti-homeopathy.
Transmitted to newborns during birth, children inserting their fingers into their mouths, possibly from shaking hands, using another’s bathtowel or washrag, sharing cigars with our ex-president. This isn’t just about sex. At least not for rational people.
“Serological studies also suggest that less than or or equal to 45% prepubertal children have acquired HPV-16”
http://www.health-science-report.com/alotek/topics1/article51/
#61: “yeah, okay, richard said a lot of stupid things in #36.”
Sir. There’s nothing stupid about oral sex. /snark
If I were going to blame, I’d but the differences in rates on two forms of tobacco use. One is “smokeless” where men dip snuff and take “chaw” way disproportionately to women (it’s, btw, a totally fucking nasty habit). Then I’d add-in pipe and cigar smoking, the smoke of both are (traditionally (when I was young, anyway)) generally not inhaled but kept in the mouth.
I think those two forms of tobacco use, generally not practiced much by women, would be the best explanation as prime cause for the difference. I’d also look at cigarette smoking differences across the population rather than just jumping the gun and blaming it on unknown changes in cunnilingus performance by men. I’d also like to see the data on lesbians before I jumped on that bandwagon. If they have the same proportional differential as heterosexual men, then there might be a better case for the argument.
If not, then whomever breached the suggestion should be knee-capped. We’ve got enough bull-shit medical speculation taken as fact out there that one more isn’t needed.
The HPV vaccine is most effective if given before exposure to any of the various HPV’s around. Hence why it is given to girls before (hopefully) they have become sexually active.
(and John @ #66),
That was the point she was making. It had been tested extensively on adults, but not on the population (young girls) who were going to be receiving it. Again, it was a short segment (and I can’t verify that her claim was accurate at the time, although I believe I also read it elsewhere), I’m no expert on this, and I don’t know what research has been conducted since then. However, we do know that these things can have different effects on children than on adults. I’m in no way advocating that girls not be immunized; just urging caution with regard to state/national legislation.
Moses,
There is also an increased risk of mouth cancer arising from drinking alcohol, and if I recall spirits are more of a risk factor than wine, and wine more so than beer.
#61 & #65 It’s always fun to read the literature: Aspirin-induced hearing loss as a model of sensorineural hearing loss
Reverend Gary Aldridge was found dead in his home in east Montgomery. He was the senior pastor at Thorington Road Baptist Church for the last 15 years.
…
An Alabama minister who died in June of “accidental mechanical asphyxia” was found hogtied and wearing two complete wet suits, including a face mask, diving gloves and slippers, rubberized underwear, and a head mask, according to an autopsy report.
Investigators determined that Rev. Gary Aldridge’s death was not caused by foul play and that the 51-year-old pastor of Montgomery’s Thorington Road Baptist Church was alone in his home at the time he died (while apparently in the midst of some autoerotic undertaking). While the Montgomery Advertiser, which first obtained the autopsy records, reported on Aldridge’s two wet suits, the family newspaper chose not to mention what police discovered inside the minister’s rubber briefs
http://pandagon.blogsome.com/2007/10/09/falwell-colleague-dies-getting-his-autoerotic-rubber-kink-on/
Read the whole thing, there’s even a link to the corner’s report.
oops. my error
Aspirin-induced hearing loss as a model of sensorineural hearing loss
To clarify: She was suggesting that, within the test group of 11,000 9-26 year-olds studied, the number of those who were younger – under 17 or 18 or whatever – was small. Under 500, if I recall correctly (and I may not). If anyone has any information on this (Orac? You around?), I would be very interested in learning more.
#76–
well-played. and your #70 fully answers my #61.
SC,
As I understand it the trial involved over 10,000 girls. That is not a small study and is in excess of what is normally required for drug approval. I also understand that such a large scale was intentional, as this is a vaccine intended for large scale use.
The fundies will continue to deny the vaccine to their girls. They will bring their boys in to be vaccinated to protect them from “wanton women”.
Their religion is misogynistic. They do not care to protect their daughters or any women. In their feeble minds, their god tells them to dominate women.
You’re still walking around with urinary organs?! Somebody likes living dangerously. Anyways, just ask the surgeon to rip your prostate out when he’s removing your lungs (AKA ‘Exploding Tumour Sacs’).
Trust me, you’ll feel a whole lot better when you’ve got a little elbow room inside you. And between you and me, I can’t tell you how much easier shopping is now that I’ve emptied out my coin purse and turned it into a, well, coin purse.
“Their religion is misogynistic. They do not care to protect their daughters or any women. In their feeble minds, their god tells them to dominate women.”
And don’t think it is only fundamentalist religions that have trouble with the role of women. The Anglican Church of Wales recently voted against allowing women to become bishops. Those who opposed such a move cannot really avoid being considered somewhat backward when it comes to the role women can play in society. I would further point out that the Anglicans are one of those nice moderate religious groups we atheists are supposed to avoid offending. Pity they cannot return the favour and avoid offending women.
My daughter is going through the series right now. She’s 13.
Her fundy friend, who is the same age, is not allowed near the shots.
Actually, I asked this question about the HPV shot for boys a long time ago, but not because of oral cancer. I asked because it seemed to me that males are carriers. Wouldn’t you want to reduce the number of carriers?
If it turns out that males also suffer from the effects HPV can cause, that just reinforces the need for males to get the shots, but “being carriers” really should have been a good enough reason.
By the way, for those of you who don’t know, these HPV shots really, really hurt, and it’s a series. My daughter has had her second one, and it just kills her shoulder for days. I’m sure others can confirm this; this isn’t a flu shot. This is more like the penicillin shots I had to take for a nasty infection I had a few years ago.
And yes, the fundies will still complain. “Ew, he did what??”. To cough up too much information, I really, really like it. You’re welcome.
Matt Penfold @ #85,
Again, the question hinges on the definition of “girls.” The CDC page says 9-26 year-olds. What was the age breakdown of that group? How many were in the age group that was to receive the vaccine?
The vaccine has been “recommended”.
Please stop any silly rants about “requiring” all children to have the vaccine.
I’ll only give it to the children that I happen to love, and don’t worry, I hate yours.
What the religious simpletons fail to realize and probably wouldn’t even if they read everything the CDC has on this virus or even the Wikipedia Article on it is that you don’t need to have sex to catch HPV. You can do a search on Conservapedia for HPV to find out all the information they believe is available.
But the fact is that it’s a virus capable of getting through the skin. All that is really required is contact. It just happens that the skin around the genitals, the mouth, the anus and so forth tends to come into more and longer contact than say, a hand shake. So logically if you are making intimate contact with someone for a period of say 5 minutes during sex you are more likely to contract it than the split second contact you’d make during punching someone in the mouth. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to contract it in other ways.
While researchers believe that sex is the most common transmission vector, if you’re statistically unlucky you can get it from a kiss, from a handshake, giving your buddy a noogie, participating in wrestling in school, drinking out of someone else’s glass, or from your mother as you pass through the birth canal. It’s not like the virus cares how it spreads and it only takes a couple of virus particles getting into your body to start infection.
It’s a pretty insidious little bug as well. Most people don’t show any signs or symptoms at all and only certain types cause genital warts or other outward signs. As I understand it ‘they’ are working on tests, but it’s pretty well undetectable at this point in males. It’s not like you can easily examine every inch of ‘the junk’ to find virus particles in an easy fashion and if the virus isn’t currently shedding you wont’ find it anyway.
So inoculating all children against even if sex isn’t a consideration, it is a good idea unless you plan on your child living in a bubble the rest of his or her life and never ever touching another human being in any way.
My daughter, will be vaccinated as soon as she is able to be and anyone who actually cared for the welfare of their children would do the same. Right wingers may claim to care for their children but really, they don’t. If they did they would be pushing to better educate their offspring rather than handing them a loaded gun that feels good without giving them an instruction manual and telling them “God said don’t pull the trigger.”
Einstein’s view on religion.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/12/peopleinscience.religion/print
Rare letter revealed.
Enjoy.
Moses #77, Matt #79
You bring up very good points. On re-reading the article I see that they state that 40% of oral tumors in men were found to be infected with HPV. When they compare cancer rates between the sexes, they were referring to all oral cancers.
Hate to be critical, Dr. Myers, but Dan Savage had this one covered last year:
#91 ” ‘The vaccine has been ‘recommended’. Please stop any silly rants about ‘requiring’ all children to have the vaccine.”
Thankfully, this may be the case now, but it wasn’t the case when Gardasil was initially rolled out. The thing to remember is that the number one goal of all businesses (including drug companies) is to maximize market share, revenue, and profits. Making Gardasil mandatory, which was and may still be the ultimate goal, makes good business sense, from a Wall Street perspective.
I tend to think it’s better to raise the level of public awareness and intelligence through education. Then people can make informed decisions about their health, without the jackboot of government pressing down on their necks.
More science and business education and less Dancing with the Stars crap.
Autumn @ #91 (and everyone else who’s interested),
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/297/17/1921
“Making Gardasil mandatory, which was and may still be the ultimate goal, makes good business sense, from a Wall Street perspective.”
Mandatory around the world ?
Who has the power to issue such a mandate ?
I do know it is not mandatory in the UK, but currently offered to 13 year girls, with a decision on whether to offer to older school-age girls as part of a catch-up program yet to be made. It would seem that boys should also be offered the vaccine.
#98 “Mandatory around the world ? Who has the power to issue such a mandate ?”
Just in the US, I think. SC (# 97) has the link.
Last time I checked US law did not pertain globally.
Matt Penfold,
From the article to which I linked at #97:
Nearly 20 additional states are considering similar legislation,13 and some medical experts in Europe are calling for mandatory HPV vaccination.14
It’s from 2007. I don’t know the situation there now.
Last time I checked US law did not pertain globally.
Not yet, but we’re working on it . . .
#54, Jacob: “How nice. Could you have made your point without stigmatizing the speakers of non-standard dialects?”
Much as ID isn’t a “non-standard scientific viewpoint”, and “rite” is not a “non-standard spelling of right the language that passes for English amongst many people – especially in the southern US – isn’t a “non-standard dialect”. It is an incorrect and ignorant manner of speaking English.
Aegis,
Graduate of the Henry Higgins School of Diction
Ever notice how the fundies who rant for hours about the horrors of homosexual oral and anal sex never seem to find the time to denounce any heterosexual blowjobs except the ones Bill Clinton gets? Blowjobs are sodomy too, goddammit!
And what about all the heterosexual anal sex going on out there? Where’s the outrage?
I always hated that “if men could get pregnant…” slogan. It doesn’t make any sense at all!
If men could get pregnant…they’d pretty much be women.
HPV also is a cause of cancer of the penis in uncircumcised men. (Very rarely, it can occur in circumcised men).
My partner’s father is dying of this disease. It ain’t pretty. If you’ve got uncircumcised male children, the vaccine would seem to be a good idea.
Candy,
I don’t know you, but I’m sorry to hear that. I wish you and your family the best.
Thank you, SC. It’s very sad because he was such a hale and hearty old man. He ditrusts doctors, putting his faith in chiropracters and mail-order herbal remedies and prayer. Same old sad song. He ignored it until it was an awful problem, finally broke down and went to the emergency room. They kept him in the hospital for a week and got the bleeding stopped and his diabetes under control. He was biopsied, diagnosed, and told the bad news. He absolutely refused the radical surgery and since then he’s been rapidly slipping downhill. He won’t go near the doctor, calls all medicines poison, and asserts he’s feeling better every day because of some mushroom extract he orders by mail. Quackery kills.
Candy, all the best with the old man. I hope he decides to take the surgery before it’s too late.
Back on topic: If someone refuses a vaccin, that person’s insurance should no longer cover that disease. That might make a difference.
Richard #96 said
The problem is that vaccination is almost always a Prisoner’s Dilema situation – yes, its better for the individual if everyone gets vaccinated vs no one getting vaccinated. But the best possible situation for the invidiual (in terms of rational, well-informed self interest) is to cheat and not get vaccinated while everyone else does. Cheating allows you to derive all of the benefit with none of the risk. Thus, vaccination is a classic case where the jackboot of government makes perfect sense, because everyone acting in rational self-interest would lead to everyone cheating, no vaccination, and ironically the worst possible outcome for the individual.
Britomart #37
Oh, it already exists. No joke. Want to meet some of the loons? Follow this thread at Sadly, No. On second thoughts, you probably won’t want to bother unless you have a morbid fascination for the far-out fringes of fundamentalism. I mean, male circumcision, for god’s sake? That’s important? Get a life, please.
[Actually, flicking thru that thread again, I gotta recommend it for some pretty sharp-edged NSFW humour … and a monster scary opening poster.]
Damn link don’t work. Try it directly:
http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/9384.html
Why do I look this kind of stuff up?
Christianity Today is unable to give god-fearing Xians conclusive biblical advice on oral sex, though they seem to be leaning towards saying that it is ok:
Apocalipsis finds it immature, but cautions women that they still must perform oral sex if their husband wishes it (no word on cunnilingus, though):
Apocalipsis also has the following helpful advice to offer regarding masturbation:
Apocalipsis link didn’t work…
Also, here’s a fairly amusing proposal for Christian pornography.
Matt @ #60
“Of course the conditions inside the mouth and inside the vagina and cervix are not dissimilar”.
Except for the teeth, my vagina doesn’t have teeth.
Re: Richard’s skepticism:
Bad timing with that dismissive comment on male circumcision. Sorry, Candy. Best of luck to your partner’s father.
I should point out that the fundie loons are – of course – on the stupid side of the argument. Here’s a little taster or two, complete with false analogies, persecution complex, cries of ad hominem and CAPITAL LETTERS!
Aah, it all sounds so … familiar.
Except for the teeth, my vagina doesn’t have teeth.
Hers does.
And Bride of Shrek? You of all people must check out that Sadly, No link. You’ll regret it forever if you don’t.
http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/9384.html
I swear, it was written for you.
Etha @114
A quick bit of google-fu shows that Christians are already filling this obviously neglected niche.
http://sweetchristians.com/
Alas, the site is still under construction…
Pedlar @ #119
That site is briliant. I’ll check it out further later in the day but any site that open with sign stating “My immigrant vagina is angry” shows extreme promise in my book.
Bad timing with that dismissive comment on male circumcision. Sorry, Candy. Best of luck to your partner’s father.
Thanks for the good wishes, and no problem with the comment. I’m a denizen of Sadly,No and I read that thread. I was fairly appalled by some of the comments, especially the comparison of male circumcision to female genital mutilation, as if it’s anything close to the same thing. I thought about entering the fray, but decided against it, especially since a couple of the regulars who are normally sane and astute commenters went absolutely berserk on another regular who simply dared to float the decreased incidence of HIV with circumcision argument as something she’d read.
Whatever nutty reasons the fundies have for not accepting the vaccine, I think it’s reasonable to have a certain amount of healthy skepticism regardless of your religion, or lack thereof. If anyone frames a situation in a black and white context, that just impedes objective reasoning, as far as I’m concerned. While I side with science, I’m still wary of many aims and ambitions of science, and especially commercial science (and military science, of course). In our crusade to eradicate every damned blight nature has that confronts us, we just keep mounting the numbers of crap we continuously inject into our bodies without knowing full well what the long-long term consequences are. I’m not saying one shouldn’t have the best interests of their child in mind for the sake of skepticism, but let’s not be foolish.
For one thing, we have these companies competing for production and sales of vaccines that do the same thing, but obviously must be concocted differently due to threat of lawsuits and whatnot (GlaxoSmithKline’s Cervarix, in this case). I can only imagine how these little additions, subtractions and manipulations that go on in producing vaccines that are made to do the same thing, but made differently. I’m no medical expert, but logically speaking, that just worries me. Plus, the commercial medical industry these days has so much cash on the line, and to be made, that I’m not completely averse to the assumption that they may be cherry picking data, covering up various results, downplaying side affects, and so forth. The FDA, for instance, shouldn’t be trusted so easily ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS3mhjt7TrY ). Vaccine “conspiracy” or not, something of this nature deserves scrutiny. If something is potentially harmful, it does no good to scoff at dissenting opinion.
http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58004
Just as we go poking around in genetic codes and screwing around with nature, eventually we’re going to pass a point of no return where we’ve altered our bodies and our world to such a degree as to negatively affect the natural flow of evolution, I believe. That’d be my reasoning for opposing such medical aid (not some goofy religious reason), though when you have a friend or family members stricken with a virus or disease that could be or could have been prevented, it can cloud judgment. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, or that the HPV vaccine is or isn’t safe, I’m just saying I think everyone should think about the long term affects of all these things we keep pumping into our bodies for a (relatively) quick solution to a problem that nature (our bodies) could likely learn to fend off for itself in a number of generations, or by manipulating other outside contributing factors, if that’s even possible.
Just throwing that out there. I could be wrong.
That site is sheer POEtry!
Actually, IIRC Susie Bright mentioned it (esp. the fisting page) on her In Bed podcast, and at the time I thought it was serious. After reading the reader Q&A section, though, I’m leaning toward parody.
Do you wear eyeglasses? Ever taken antibiotics? Use purified water from the local aquifer? Drink pasteurized milk?
If the answer to any of the above is “yes”, then STFU.
Oh, I’m enjoying this! More bizarreania from the land of Hot Adults for Christ:
http://www.cafepress.com/jesus21/523821
I didn’t read any comments, so apologies if a similar idea has already been posted.
I come from a medical background and have thought that gardasil should be for both genders since its launch.
Men get HPV as often as women. Men give HPV to women (which can then subseqently cause cervical cancer). Why just innoculate women? Why not both genders for A) stopping male HPV infections; and B) double protection of women against a terrible disease, because you can’t catch what the man doesn’t have.
Trust me, you never want to see a 19 year old getting all her reproductive bits cut out and hair chemoed off.
MikeB – your post is ALL kinds of rambly and smacks of conspiracy theory, despite disavowing it so fervently in the same post.
There are many ways in which to respond, but i think the simplest is asking you to, concisely, explain what your beef is with THIS PARTICULAR vaccine.
@62 “The churches viewpoint is not that sex education, for example, will encourage their daughters to be promiscuous – but the boys can go get educated, fine. They have a problem with encouraging promiscuity in all children.”
They *say this, but they don’t really mean it. When I was a baby Southern Baptist fundie, the preacher’s son-in-law, the leader of our Youth Group, warned the girls in our group: “I’d go as far as a girl would let me, but then I wouldn’t marry her afterwards, because she wouldn’t be pure.”
This was supposed to be a persuasive argument for the girls to remain chaste until marriage. It also sounded to my 13 year-old ears like a license for males to act like cads. I was just a male piglet then, but I found that to be so unfair that I walked out and never returned.
Denying abortion rights as well as birth control information is all about punishing girls for having sex. Forbidding their daughters from getting this vaccine is a subset of that mindset. Think of it as Honor Killings Lite®.
“The sadder but wiser girl for me.” – Prof. Harold Hill
My issue with male circumcision is… trying to think of a good analogy, but, how about, asking your doctor to ***intentionally*** make you partly deaf, so you won’t have to worry about the damage caused by hearing some asshole jack hammer rocks next door 24/7. Its fracking stupid to damage yourself, how ever small, to gain some “minor” level of protection which is just as easily gained via 1) some self control, 2) proper use of condoms, and/or 3) people actually getting the @#$#@$#@$#@ vaccines they need to keep from infecting you with shit that you *maybe* get a 1-2% added protection from with circumcision. Its at least as stupid imho as the joking statements made earlier about removing your prostrate, so you don’t have to worry about it later, or replacing you skin with something that can’t get age spots or cancer. The problem is, 90% of the people reading here don’t know any different, don’t believe the people that do know different, and can’t imagine giving up the rather questionable “gain” they think they have, in trade for what might be, for most of them, a 1-2% decrease in risk of something they have a .01% chance of getting exposed to in the fracking first place, unless they opt to be complete idiots and intentionally risk infection, in which case, maybe they have a 50% chance and circumcision makes that a 49.9% chance instead…
Its almost as though, for some people, any risk reduction for certain things are meaningful, no matter how meaningless the **actual** advantage they get is, when compared to 50 other things they should be doing instead. Its almost as idiotic as the episodes of one old TV series I watched once in a while, where the doctor kept arguing for things like free clinical checkups, testing, and complete treatment of diseases for homeless people and prostitutes, only to have the nimrods in the city kept babbling about how they didn’t want to do that, because it might “encourage” more of the stuff they didn’t want, i.e. homeless people and prostitutes, “so why don’t we just do something less expensive, and relatively useless by comparison?” Because… it doesn’t #@$@#$@#$ solve the problem, it puts a damn bandaid over it, and in this specific case, maybe does just enough of something even less desirable that *for some people* the trade off isn’t acceptable (if anyone bothers to even give them a choice to start with).
Or subway tracks. Don’t forget the subway-tracks.
Does not follow. It is a virus, and apparently it doesn’t get into the bloodstream.
Is this becoming yet another circumcision thread? In that case, please remember: only Jews, Muslims, and Americans are circumcised (and IIRC members of a few small religions in Africa).
OhgodpleasenonopleasenoifthereisagodpleaseIpromisetoeatallmyspinach.
1) evolution does not work that way and 2) how many lives are you willing to destroy in pursuit of this rather infantile incarnation of the naturalistic fallacy?
I see only discussion of children being immunized (and I understand that it’s better to immunize early). But given that this is a new vaccine, would there be no benefit in adults also receiving it?
I am sure this was said before, but I will say it again:
I can’t see fundagelical idiots eatin’ poon. But, when I was one (was I really?) I ate poon and did it doggy-style.
Nemo at # 36
here in Australia its part of the vaccination programme for childhood (boys and girls)at about age 12 but they have also extended the free vaccine service to women up to the age of 26 so yes, they do value it to adults as well.Over the age of 26 women, and of course all men from puberty on, can get it by paying a nominal fee ( its about $24).
OhgodpleasenonopleasenoifthereisagodpleaseIpromisetoeatallmyspinach.
LOL
I’m saving that one for future reference.
Re: #100,#102
“US law [doesn’t] pertain globally..”
Heck, under Bush and Cheyney, it doesn’t even pertain locally!
I don’t miss my foreskin any more than I miss the personalities of the souls I didn’t get born into [bad philosophy intended].
My appendix; now that I miss. We had good times together in millennia gone by. But then Mr. Vestigial decided business was ballooning and went and hired himself a staph.
#109 Aegis: The viewpoint you have expressed is absurd, but not unusual. It is the consequence of an uncritical attitude toward prior assumptions about what constitutes language and properness or correctness of language use. We can provisionally agree that those who regularly use these non-standard dialects are very likely under-educated, but this has very much to do with the socio-economic conditions of regions where these non-standard dialects are prevalent, and how such dialects are stigmatized (and therefore abandoned in discourse) by the educated and professional classes.
Apart from the fact that almost any anthropological linguist would emphatically disagree with your position (which one might call the populist position, as distinct from the educated position of linguistic expertise), your argument by analogy is ludicrous. Intelligent design is a non-standard scientific viewpoint because it does not possess any scientific merit. The string of characters “rite” could as easily have been the spelling of “right”; the fact that standard spelling is one way does not mean that it ought to be. This is the so-called naturalistic fallacy.
To make it clear: non-standard dialects of English have the linguistic properties every other language has. If *you* want to continue to argue against the scientific consensus, be my guest. But you’ll only make a fool of yourself.
Finally, your point misses the mark. There was no reason to slander people like that, except maybe for some cheap laughs at the expense of those “yokels” over there…you know, “the people who are white, but suspect.” In point of fact, I know speakers of non-standard English who also happen to be educated /and/ atheist.
#54, Jacob: “How nice. Could you have made your point without stigmatizing the speakers of non-standard dialects?”
Much as ID isn’t a “non-standard scientific viewpoint”, and “rite” is not a “non-standard spelling of right the language that passes for English amongst many people – especially in the southern US – isn’t a “non-standard dialect”. It is an incorrect and ignorant manner of speaking English.
Aegis,
Graduate of the Henry Higgins School of Diction
I just had an idea for a new page on the Xian Sex site:
The Second Coming: Christian Women and Multiple Orgasms
How come medicine isn’t considered interfering with god’s will? If it’s not, how can you tell which diseases god is ‘okay’ with humans preventing or curing? Why is it okay to try and minimise deaths caused by the cancer he allowed someone to get and not do the same for HPV.
I once saw a study which looked at HPV causing rectal cancer in gay men. If this is the case, we can’t let the fundies know about that because they would be all for that happening. Jerks.
Just for you Kseniya, I’m not going to share way too much information.
But under W and Darth Cheney, U.S. whim does pertain globally… at least as long as we’ve got aircraft carriers. [sigh]
here you go
Wow. *Totally* sorry I asked now. ;-)
I just figured “wetsuit ritual” was some sort of regional slang for donning a condom.
Couple of things on the HPV vaccine, before this thread devolves entirely into a circumcision flamewar:
1. Gardasil isn’t the only HPV vaccine out there; Cervarix is a competitor. Gardasil vaccinates against (IIRC) four variants of HPV, including the one that’s responsible for genital warts. Cervarix protects against either two or three.
2. There are very many different strains of HPV – one strain is responsible for ~70% of cervical cancers (and, as we’ve seen, oral cancers in men); it’s different from the one that causes genital warts. (There’s research going on into vaccines against more variants, to be incorporated into future HPV vaccines).
3. The reasons that the vaccine was recommended for girls only are (a) most efficient use of funds, since only women had been shown to experience significant disease; (b) the vaccine had not actually been shown to be effective in men. (Because male genitalia are, err, different, especially in terms of types of cells, it’s not a given that the vaccine would protect them).
4. There are ongoing studies into vaccine safety (and should be results due out very soon on effectiveness in males). There have been no reportings of serious side effects. There have been some anecdotal reports of fainting, rash etc. but my own opinion on seeing these data was that it was just as likely to be teenage-girl mass hysteria as genuine vaccine side-effect.
5. The vaccine is not mandatory anywhere, AFAIK. It is being offered as an opt-out scheme in some places, which is not the same thing.
6. Being infected with HPV doesn’t imply ‘promiscuity’ (whatever that means these days). It can be contacted from sexual activity other than intercourse (including oral sex), and some studies have shown very large infection rates in populations who have been sexually active for at least two years. (Off the top of my head, in some populations it’s over 75%). This is why it’s necessary to vaccinate girls before they become sexually active.
thanks Jennie; looks like some good info.
and should be results due out very soon on effectiveness in males
do you know who’s doing the work?
NIH?
By the way eric@110:
Vaccination does present interesting collective action issues (some anti-vaxer groups actually recommend free-riding on others’ vaccinating their kids). It’s actually not a proper Prisoner’s Dilemma, though: to be a PD, it has to be better for you to defect no matter what everyone else does. In theory it might be better not to vaccinate when everyone else is vaccinated, but if everyone else isn’t vaccinated, you’re much better off vaccinating.
Another interesting aspect of this is that exemptions (parents who refuse to vaccinate on conscientious grounds) tend to cluster in certain geographic areas. This means that although an unvaccinated person might generally be pretty safe from vaccine-preventable disease if, say, only 20% of people weren’t vaccinated, the fact that they’re all in the same place means that you’re really at quite high risk. In Australia, clusters of anti-vaxer parents in northern New South Wales has led to a re-establishing of cycles of whooping cough epidemics.
Hi Ichthyic,
I’m in Australia; I recall seeing that studies were being done on efficacy in males from a symposium on the HPV vaccine I participated in last October. Unfortunately I don’t have anything more specific off the top of my head, but I’ll try some digging around when I’ve got some spare time.
(There is some preliminary data from 2006: Comparison of the Immunogenicity and Reactogenicity of a Prophylactic Quadrivalent Human Papillomavirus (Types 6, 11, 16, and 18) L1 Virus-Like Particle Vaccine in Male and Female Adolescents and Young Adult Women, Pediatrics Vol. 118 No. 5 November 2006, pp. 2135-2145. But that’s not conclusive.)
Even before this news, I thought boys as well as girls should get this vaccination. Even if only females suffered the effect, males could be carriers and thus endanger every unvaccinated female with whom they would ever be intimate — surely not a good thing, and (one hopes) not a thing they themselves would want. Far better to break the chain of transmission, bolster “herd immunity”, and eventually let this virus go the way of smallpox.
“I don’t miss my foreskin any more than I miss the personalities of the souls I didn’t get born into”
Of course, you WERE born with a foreskin, it was just excised before you had the opportunity to conceptualize the experience of it.
Actually, HPV appears to cause anorectal cancers in both men and women. I’ve been chatting with friends to vaccinate their teenage sons as well since the durned vax came out.
(Just imagine how THAT got THERE.)
Chew on that one, religious right.
There is good evidence of clustering of anti-vaccers here in the UK too. After the invented furore over MMR there have been measles clusters in, surprise, surprise West London and commuter towns in the Home Counties around London where there are higher income families. Children have died, others have become disabled, it is very sad.
If it was the parents who were suffering it would be fun to laugh, but they are inflicting this on their children. I expect someone will end up suing their parents for not vaccinating them.
I imagine what’s happening is that as men quit smoking, HPV appears as a larger factor in oral cancers.
All this discussion of men, viruses, and oral sex reminds me of the throwaway line in an article I read once that wives of men who smoke are twice as likely to get cervical cancer. But there didn’t seem to be any clamour for more research. It might be interesting to know if that’s because there’s simply more coal-tar in the atmosphere of those households or if it’s spread by intimate contact. That would, for instance, tell you if children are at risk, too, in general, or only when there’s incest. But in practical terms, it’s irrelevant: the solution is still to stop smoking.
Sf atheist [#48], yes. Mark Twain had a couple of excellent essays about diseases on Noah’s Ark.
Someone should point out to people who advocate abstinence-only sex education that it increases oral sex, so their young men and women will be more at risk for HP virus getting where it shouldn’t.
There are no vaccines for malaria (it’s a parasitic disease, not a virus: drugs that are available only reduce the risk of infection).
Guy I know, a geophysicist, went from working on one project in Indonesia to another contract in the Yukon. Gets sick shortly after he arrives, and the medical staff in the hospital are confused by his symptoms, having never seen it before. They only make the connection when they find out where he’d come from, and order in the medicine required to treat malaria.
The genus that transmits the parasite, Anopheles is widespread and A. quadrimaculatus is found across the eastern and midwest US (including Minnesota) and Eastern Canada (two other species are found in the southwest and West Coast). Had his next job been in Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland, British Columbia or the US, it would have been entirely possible he could have been responsible for a malarial outbreak.
If malaria was viral, than you’re damn right people in Northern Canada or Minnesota should be vaccinated even if there were no current outbreaks. When you can get infected in Malaysia and be on the other side of the planet in about 12 hours, it doesn’t take much.
The ignorance of the people in this forum is beyond belief. Look back in history and read the arguments in favor of slavery and you could swap all references to Christians with the word nigger and have a carbon copy of the pro slavery arguments.
WTF???
Christians have a choice
Christians have political power
Christians are not property
Niggers were none of these. NO CHOICE! NO POWER! WERE PROPERTY!
so why don’t you fuck off back to whatever rock you crawled out from under…
Tony
Really? The pro-slavery factions argued that black people were wasting their lives working for a master who didn’t exist, and trying to boss others around for fear of everyone being whipped? I don’t believe I’ve ever heard this argument.
@Jenni:
I’ll try some digging around when I’ve got some spare time.
thanks. I’m genuinely interested.
I downloaded the article you referenced.
What timing. Today I begin my regime of radiation therapy to ensure we’ve gotten as much of the cancer as possible. I’m one of these men who’ve contracted cancer of the tonsil with zero normal risk factors and about 20 years too early even if I had been a heavy smoker, which I was not. (the zero risk factors and the early onset is what my doctors say are the primary indicators that this is virus related)
The oncologists are pretty convinced, even without doing a DNA test, that my cancer is HPV related. I had no idea until just over a month ago that this was possible. But I’m living proof that it is.
Fortunately, I can write that I’m “living” proof. I was a lucky one. The cancer was caught fairly early, it was isolated to the left side and hadn’t crossed the median line, it was of the tonsil and not the back of the tongue, and the prognosis looks very good. I still had to go through two throat surgeries, I’ve lost some function in my left arm and neck, which is also permanently numb, and now I have to go through 30 treatments where they strap my head down and point a linear accelerator at it. And I’m a lucky one.
I may lose my sense of taste, and a salivary gland, but it may only be temporary, and at least I’ve kept most of the muscles in my neck, my tongue and probably don’t have to go through chemo. My second surgery was merely a modified version of the “Radical Neck Dissection” surgery common for this type of cancer. (how’s that for a combination of words you never want applied to yourself?) It wasn’t the full-blown surgery where they do everything but take out your jugular.
If I had had cancer of the tongue, I probably would not have noticed it until it was much more advanced. I was lucky that I developed an asymmetrical tonsillitis that alerted my doctor to something being wrong.
So, for all of you coldly calculating whether it’s worth it or not to provide this vaccination, you may want to think a little bit more. At this point I don’t give a damn if it’s 65% effective. I’m going to make sure my son gets it when he’s old enough. I dodged a bullet with relatively minor consequences. There’s no reason to give him the same opportunity.
It’s easy to be theoretical until it becomes personal.
Andrew
Hmmm. Probably this won’t be seen anymore.
But anyway, Ichthyic, I’ve been looking around for trials or trial results for effectiveness of the HPV vaccine in males. Weirdly, there are plenty of references to “studies currently under way,” but no details.
Looking around clinical trials registries (US, Australia/New Zealand) got me one study, being done by GlaxoSmithKline for its HPV vaccine (not Gardasil). It’s enrolling both adolescent girls and boys; the girls are for a Phase IV trial while the boys are to be considered part of a Phase III trial since GSK’s vaccine isn’t licensed for use in males.
It seems that Ian Frazer’s team at the University of Queensland may also be undertaking trials, although their webpage is quite out of date, and as recently as March this year Frazer was saying that effectiveness in males hadn’t yet been demonstrated.
Sorry not to have found anything more useful.
Sorry not to have found anything more useful.
no worries.
I was just wondering as I hadn’t seen ANYTHING on the issue of male trials until you mentioned it.
thanks.
I’m also thinking of going the route of checking the major grant agencies for who has gotten funding for the studies; that would probably help point the way as well as the clinical trials registries.
@andrew:
It’s easy to be theoretical until it becomes personal.
a lesson I learned long ago, which is why I was interested in what the status of the research on males was: why wait for it to become a personal issue.
glad to hear you made it, even if it was at a severe cost.