<p>I don’t understand. How does the vaccine interfere with chastity? And how does the manner in which you raise your daughter control her husband’s fidelity thirty years from now?</p>
<p>In this country, we don’t allow parents to be foolish or naive when it comes to their children’s health care. It’s your right to be a Christian scientist, but it is not your right to deny a life-saving appendectomy to your minor child. When she’s 18, she can make that choice for herself, but a parent who tries to make it for her will run into a serious problem with DCFS (and probably lose custody, at least temporarily). For political reasons, this isn’t going to happen with the HPV vaccine, but the principle is no different. Where your child’s life is at stake, the state can overrule your religious objection, and this is true even where the health of others is not at issue the way it is with the mumps vaccine.</p>
<p>I appreciated StickerShock’s post. It is amazes me how people feel free to mock and ridicule certain religious beliefs in a way that they would not do with other religions for fear of being viewed as politically incorrect. People who view themselves as openminded and liberal seem to have no insight into their own bigotry toward this group.</p>
<p>I, for example, would have a problem with this vaccine for my daughter at age 11, or any age up to age 18. At 18, if she wanted to request it of her ob-gyn that would be perfectly fine with me. I suppose that makes me extremely foolish, naive and backward according to the enlightened here.</p>
<p>Can you point out the posts on this thread that mock and ridicule religious beliefs? I compared one religious objection to medical care to another religious objection to medical care, because they both are examples of the same legal principle, but if that isn’t what you’re referring to, I don’t know what is. I see two parents who assert THEMSELVES that others believe they are naive and foolish; I see no accusations.</p>
<p>StickerShock: there is a difference between anti-abortion and pro-life. Yes, they often overlap; however, the ultimate goal of the pro-life movement is to preserve human life, both before and after birth. This, OTOH, to me, is remarkably akin to the idea in Catholicism that married, monogamous couples should not use a condom when one partner is HIV+ and the other is not infected. </p>
<p>I’m not sure if I fully agree with the idea of state-mandated vaccinations (although the public health good is so overwhelming that the practical benefits override my libertarian insticts); however, if we’re going to mandate all sorts of vaccinations, why not this one? IMO, the biggest problem with any debate involving STDs or pregnancy is that we treat it so very differently than any other medical decision. One could easily argue that other vaccinations are not required, so long as the children learn to keep themselves healthy and isolated from other infected little brats; however, we don’t use that rationale to refuse vaccination.</p>
<p>The vaccine doesn’t interfere with chastity. I never said it did. But chaste people will not get HPV and therefore do not need to risk side effects of an unnecessary vaccine. Many parents feel that agreeing to the vaccine sends a message that they approve of teenage sex or just assume that their kids will be unable to resist the pull of their natural sex drive. These parents’ decisions have absolutley no impact on anyone but their own family, so I fail to see why they are criticized.</p>
<p>On the other hand, you can’t argue that the public health is not jeopardized by failure to be vaccinated for MMR/Polio/DPT because of the transmission routes for those diseases. It is impossible to change your behavior in a way that would keep you safe from these diseases.</p>
<p>You can’t logically compare refusal to have an emergency appendectory performed with refusal to vaccinate for a STD. One is a sure death sentence that has only one possible treatment. STDs can be avoided. If a family chooses to teach abstinance, that is their right and it does not harm theri children. In fact, it can surely be argued that abstinance has many benefits for teens, both physical and psychological. Providing birth control and vaccines to remove the normal consequences of sexual activity will certainly increase the likelihood that teens will have sex. If any parent wants to eliminate those risks, that’s fine. But please do not mock those who chose to instill different values in their children. </p>
<p>Someone posted earliuer that a tetanus vaccine didn’t encourage her to seek out rusty nails. Apples and oranges once again. Everyone has a sex drive (teens especially), and every family is entitled to teach their own kids how to respect their sexuality and exercise it within their own moral framework. I have yet to hear of anyone having a rusty nail drive.</p>
<p>Well, this is true…unless I care when awful things happen to other people’s children. And I do. Some, including myself, consider caring about that a religious imperative.</p>
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<p>They can, and do, if their spouses are unfaithful. Unfortunately, there’s no vaccine to prevent that.</p>
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<p>The science says otherwise (and everyone has sex once they get married). But that’s another thread.</p>
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<p>We’re not talking about teaching abstinence. We’re talking about refusing to administer a vaccine. I still don’t see how disabling the air bags in the family car helps ensure that kids won’t drive it.</p>
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<p>You have a moral entitlement, but you don’t necessarily have a <em>legal</em>right_ if your moral entitlement conflicts with the country’s public health goals for children. Which was my point in my first post, and exactly the same principle at work in the appendectomy example.</p>
<p>Hanna: You could try taking a bit of the weight of the world off your own shoulders and try giving people a tiny bit of permission to take care of themselves. :)</p>
<p>To clarify cangel’s post, women over 30 who are at low risk for abnormal cervical cells may be screened annual by paps, or every 3 years by a pap/high risk HPV combo if both are negative. The incidence of high risk HPV (not necessarily with dysplasia/abnormal pap) is high enough under 30 such that screening for it is NOT recommended under 30. Lastly, if a woman had 3 normal paps 3 years in a row, she can have a pap only every 3 years. Most doctors will continue to recommend annual visits for the other things done, as a pap is just one component of the visit. This was from my husband.</p>
<p>Hanna, I know you are wrong about the “science” proving that kids are less likely to have sex if consequences are removed. Here’s just the first google hit from the National Institute of Health:</p>
<p>"Teens-particularly girls-with strong religious views are less likely to have sex than are less religious teens, largely because their religious views lead them to view the consequences of having sex negatively. According to a recent analysis of the NICHD-funded Add Health Survey, religion reduces the likelihood of adolescents engaging in early sex by shaping their attitudes and beliefs about sexual activity.</p>
<p>The study also found that parents’ religious beliefs and attitudes toward sex did not directly influence teens’ decisions to have sex. Rather, parents’ attitudes toward sex seemed to influence their teens’ own attitudes toward sex, and indirectly, their teens’ behavior."</p>
<p>We are talking about a sex drive, not cars. Kids don’t have a natural desire to ram their cars into walls. The airbag analogy doesn’t work. Kids can’t be told “Here is birth control and here is protection against STDs. I know you won’t use them, though.” It’s completely illogical to expect that. A public health goal should be avoiding STDs and teen pregnancy. Parents who chose to teach abstinance are more likely to achieve that goal for their kids and are in no way in conflict with the desired public good. </p>
<p>You also stated the following: “Where your child’s life is at stake, the state can overrule your religious objection, and this is true even where the health of others is not at issue the way it is with the mumps vaccine.” How is a child’s life at stake because she did not get an HPV vaccine??? Apples and oranges. We are not talking about a rapidly progressing illness here. If the child chooses at risk behavior in the future or is not confident in her husband’s fidelity, by all means she should be vaccinated. Post haste. Still not an argument for mandatory childhood immunization.</p>
<p>Raindrop, if you feel the risk of being raped is greater than any personal objection you might have for the vaccine, then get vaccinations for yourself and your loved ones. Nobody will stop you.</p>
<p>Hereshoping: I got a good laugh fom your post. Well put. Isn’t this the crux of the matter? Must the government make each and every choice for us because we are so feeble-minded? Scary.</p>
<p>I completely agree that teens should not be shielded from the risks of sex. I agree even more that chastity is a wonderful thing for teenagers - high school is simply too young to have sex. </p>
<p>One of the issues that I think StickerShock (great screen name for a college board, by the way!) misses is that the vaccine is much more effectual when administered before infection. If a woman gets married, worries that her husband is cheating, and gets the vaccine, it might not work. </p>
<p>Is HPV one of the diseases screened for in blood transfusion?<br>
What about the fact that something like 25% of girls in college are the victims of rape or attempted rape? (Both of which, by the way, would probably transmit this disease.)</p>
<p>I personally think that this issue is very different from giving out birth control in schools. You are still free to teach your children about chastity and to encourage them to be chaste. </p>
<p>Consider that some 40-50% of men cheat on their spouses. Consider also how very few people have not had other sexual partners before marriage.</p>
<p>Would you oppose mandatory vaccination for AIDS?</p>
<p>I guess some of this comes from what I’ve seen from my friends. The Catholic girls are not, ahem, completely Catholic (had sex between ages 17 and 19, in large part), but they don’t go for gynecologist visits. Their parents assume that they are chaste, or, even if they know differently, won’t take them to the doctor because they don’t think it’s appropriate for young ladies. My parents had the opposite approach: they knew that I wasn’t having sex, but allowed me to go so I could develop a rapport with the doctor. They also thought it important that a doctor know me when I’m healthy, so they have a baseline. In short - health and sex are two different things. It shocks me, still, that so many people get all upset about women’s HEALTH (and only women!) because it might, somehow, be involved with sex.</p>
<p>“The Catholic girls are not, ahem, completely Catholic (had sex between ages 17 and 19, in large part), but they didn’t go for gynecologist visits. Their parents assume they are chaste…don’t think gyn visits appropriate for young ladies.”</p>
<p>Please, please, in your arguments, stop making <em>assumptions</em> about Catholics, or Catholic parenting, based on your limited personal experiences.</p>
<p>Please stop with the “ahem.” Hypocrisy is the cry against anyone who TRIES to instill a certain set of values in their children. To me it’s the lowest level of debate, but people are allowed to get away with it all the time. </p>
<p>Regarding how you seem to be blind to the bigotry inherent in your statements: would you dream of saying that “Gay parents don’t take their kids to the doctor” or “Orthodox Jewish kids, ahem, are not completely Jewish”, or “Muslim parents don’t think gyn visits are appropriate.”</p>
<p>Why would you, an educated person, be so willing to make sweeping generalizations about Catholic parenting, including implying that they are somehow totally clueless about health concerns for their own children?</p>
<p>ariesathena: HPV is tranmitted through skin to skin contact during sex. I do not believe it is blood borne, so I don’t think it is of concern in our blood supply. Moms can also pass it onto their babies as they exit the birth canal. </p>
<p>I absolutely oppose mandatory vaccination for AIDS. Incidently, it is much, much more likely that the average person would contract HPV than AIDS. </p>
<p>You stated: “In short - health and sex are two different things. It shocks me, still, that so many people get all upset about women’s HEALTH (and only women!) because it might, somehow, be involved with sex.” I don’t follow this at all. I’m a nurse & I can assure you that sex and all its implications cannot be separated from a discussion of health. That’s like saying “health and respiration are two different things.” Sex, respiration, and all the body systems, are what make up the general field of health. And while men & women have different health concerns in many areas, the greatest variations in ther health care needs center around sex & reproduction issues.</p>
<p>hereshoping, I absolutely agree that Catholics are mocked with impunity. It reallly bugs me that when a Catholic kid makes a poor choice, some are quick to infer that the faith’s standards are unrealistic. Or the parents have their heads in the sand. I live in an 85% Catholic town and know of no parents who would withhold appropriate healthcare for their daughters. It is, by the way, entirely appropriate for girls to receive gynecological services from their pediatricians or family practitioners. (I can’t open any PMs for some reason.)</p>
<p>StickerShock-You might not be able to open PM’s due to your security setting on your computer. Try clicking on Private Messages under your Welcome StickerShock in the upper right hand corner of the page. You should be able to get your PM’s that way.</p>
<p>StickerShock: I am in complete agreement with you. This vaccine is totally different than any other vaccine, per the purely sexual mode of transmission of the virus. The other diseases that are vaccinated against and required for school can be passed by respiratory droplets and/or other bodily fluids. </p>
<p>This is a new vaccine that many teenagers will need by age 11 years old, like it or not. But let the teens and their parents make the choice, esp when it is a new, different vaccine. Education about the vaccine will go a long way per prevention of HPV and acceptance of the vaccine.</p>
<p>Pap smears will not go away entirely. This should not be required for school entry at this time, but I strongly think that the other vaccines that are required have good reasoning behind them.</p>
<p>Anyone who is worried about various risks for their children should be free to get it administered. Not sure if insurance and Medicaid are covering it yet, does anyone know?</p>
<p>Well, now you’ve changed the subject. Here’s the statement you made on the last page that I took issue with:</p>
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<p>That’s a totally different issue from whether religion influences kids’ choices, and your position is inconsistent with the science. You can provide birth control and vaccines to highly religious kids. Exposing kids to medical facts about how to protect themselves from sexual diseases does NOT make them abandon their religion (or have sex any earlier). Here’s one of many studies – this one, a randomized, controlled experiment from the National Institutes of Health, found that comprehensive sex ed actually resulted in delayed sexual activity for girls:</p>
<p>I don’t know what to make of your notion that an anti-cancer vaccine would increase the likelihood that a religious teenager would have sex. When I was a teenager, I didn’t need the threat of cancer to get me to obey the dictates of my religion. I wouldn’t think very highly of my religious training if I did.</p>
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<p>That would be when she experiences rape, an unfaithful husband, or consensual premarital contact, gets HPV, and gets invasive cervical cancer. (!!!) But with the proper moral upbringing, the combined risk of all three is reduced to zero. Or so I gather.</p>
<p>It’s not a totally different issue at all. Teens raised with a strong religious views are NOT given the escape from consequences that birth control and this vaccine provide. If a family is preaching that pre-marital sex is wrong, but then hands out condoms, the family is not presenting a strong religious view. It is a mixed message. But religion-based or not, it is the family’s right to give out condoms & vaccinate, or not, as they see fit.</p>
<p>“Exposing kids to medical facts about how to protect themselves from sexual diseases does NOT make them abandon their religion (or have sex any earlier).” I really hope you are not implying that religious people do not expose their kids to medical facts.</p>
<p>“I didn’t need the threat of cancer to get me to obey the dictates of my religion.” Perhaps you were very devout or had a low sex drive. But it is the consequences we face in life that are essential in keeping most of us on the straight and narrow. That goes for intelligent choices about sex (avoid the consequences of STD & pregnancy,) overeating (avoid the consequences obesity,) and any other vice/virtue situation.</p>
<p>You still fail to get why parents deserve the decision-making power in whether or not to vaccinate a child against a disease that is sexually transmitted. I don’t think you ever will. Maybe you don’t understand the progression of the disease either. Or the field of infectious disease & epidemiology. A child’s life is not at risk if she is not vaccinated against HPV. That’s like saying a child’s life is at risk if she walks to school. Or goes swimming. The odds are evaluated before a massive, mandatory program is implemented. We still let kids walk to school and swim. Even though a car accident or drowning are slim possibilities. The presumption is that parents will teach their kids to look both ways, and teach them to swim.</p>
<p>Quote from Hanna: “That would be when she experiences rape, an unfaithful husband, or consensual premarital contact, gets HPV, and gets invasive cervical cancer. (!!!) But with the proper moral upbringing, the combined risk of all three is reduced to zero. Or so I gather.”</p>
<p>Questions for Hanna: I really don’t see how a "proper moral upbringing’ can prevent rape? Are you implying that women who have been raped and/or murdered at the time of a crime brought it upon themselves? Are you not aware of rapes that occur when women are asleep and someone breaks into their home and rapes and then strangles them to death? There have been serial rapists and murderers for a VERY long time, whose victims are strangers. Does a moral upbringing ward off these crimes? That would be absurd and wrong to blame these women for the crimes perpetrated aginst them. Please apologize to these victims of rape, some of whom may read these boards, or and/or some who may have relatives who were raped and/or murdered.</p>
<p>In addition, an unfaithful husband cannot be prevented by a “proper moral upbringing.” This is too weighty a topic to even go into right now, but I will explain it if necessary. </p>
<p>I hope you are just pushing the limits here. Per your quote above, please say it ain’t so!</p>
<p>Reading Hanna’s full post and her other comments in the thread, I’m pretty sure she’s being sarcastic and that you two are actually in agreement.</p>