The HPV Vaccine

To me, this is not as much a moral issue as it is a scientific one. This one is a no-brainer: If you have a daughter, wouldn’t you do everything in your power as a parent to keep her safe?

If one needle can prevent a sexually transmitted virus that could eventually cultivate cancer, wouldn’t it be wise to try and protect your daughter, especially if it is offered for free at your child’s school?

The one thing I agree with in the article is the fear of the scientific side effects. This program was implemented very quickly and we don’t know all the side effects. However, how many drugs can we say that we know all the negative side effects? Not many.

In the article, there is a mother saying that the vaccine has not been around long enough. She continues by saying that “people should do their own research” and “we can’t just trust the medical community to know what’s best for our children”. Are you kidding me? So this mother is basically saying that people should hop onto the internet, look up information on Wikipedia and form their own opinion on the drug’s safety? If you can’t trust our doctors and the medical community, who have spent years gaining knowledge and experience about how to treat our medical problems…. Who can you trust!?

The people saying it is a moral issue and that the vaccine promotes sexual promiscuity: that is just ridiculous! As a responsible parent, you must educate your children to be safe. You can’t control when or who they choose to have sex, but it is important for them to be educated about the repercussions.

That being said, sexual activity is not the only way a person can contract HPV. You can be infected simply through environmental or casual skin-to-skin contact. If it is that easy to contract HPV, why is there such a huge hype about sexual promiscuity?

Throughout our society, mass communication (through TV, the internet, etc.) has made it quite easy to spread ideas. This has both negative and positive connotations. For example, we see a lot of openness about sex in the media; however, we also see a lot of advertising for positive health functions.

However, if mass communication keeps showing clips like THIS. Then we’re all in a lot of trouble. Role models should not look like that.

And yes, this article is being written by a guy, and I’m not the one at risk for cervical cancer. However, I would like to be a father someday. If I were to have a daughter, and this vaccine was available, but I chose not to give my consent as a parent because it may “promote promiscuity”, and she contracted HPV, can you imagine how guilty I would feel?

I discovered this video on YouTube. I found this pretty entertaining.