Comments on: I said the words “human papillomavirus” to a ten-year-old and his eyes just glazed over

by: Phoenician in a time of Romans

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 17:45:33 +0100

Personally, I know that every time I get my tetanus booster, I take it as complete license to go out and play with rusty barbed wire and step on filthy nails. Otherwise, you know, it’s a total waste of money.

Oh, yeah, like the moral hazards of health care. I know that I’m far, far more likely to go surfboarding at breakneck speeds down snow fields because I live in a country which will set my hideously broken arm in plaster for free.

by: D. Sidhe

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 16:32:44 +0100

Personally, I know that every time I get my tetanus booster, I take it as complete license to go out and play with rusty barbed wire and step on filthy nails.
Otherwise, you know, it’s a total waste of money.

by: R. Mildred

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 12:49:40 +0100

Also, regarding what Naomi said, fundamentalist religious societies tend to percieve being raped as itself a kind of crime, a punishment for not following proper values. The same is true of marrying a cad; he must have cheated on you because you weren’t serving him well enough.

The existence of a rapist is a failing on the part of the community as a whole, so it’s easier to just blame the woman and give her total responsibility instead of shouldering the burden of collective blame.
Similarly, If men cheat in marriages it must be wife’s fault because the idea that how marriage is pushed on to people (and the very concept of pre-marital celibacy) cannot, literally cannot, enter into their minds, without their heads exploding.

And like forcing a child to give birth, not allowing a child this vaccine IS child abuse.

by: flyinfur

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 10:51:02 +0100

I’ve assisted with LEEP procedures and PAP smears, and I was privy to some of the early research on the vaccine…and I thought it was so exciting that something was finally being done…and now IDIOTS don’t want the vaccine given to their daughters because somehow this might cause them to have sex?

I wish those nuts could spend one, JUST ONE, hour with a lovely lady I had as a patient, who’d gone too long without a Pap (her husband was her only lover and she thought she was his only lover…so why bother?) and she developed cervical cancer, which spread…except that they can’t, because she’s dead.

by: Mark

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 10:33:23 +0100

Wow, according to a comment on that site, the only reason I come here is because I am a “horny man.” I did not know that LOL.

Surely there is another reason I come here, oh yea THE GREAT EDITORIALS! Oye, I doubt those people could buy a clue…

by: anotherlynne

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 09:55:42 +0100

Ok folks - I am one of the few who’s HPV did not clear up on it’s own. As a result I had 3 LEEP procedures. This is where the part of your cervix that has pre-cancerous cells is first numbed, then frozen, then shaved off. I suffered through the “acceptable” side effects of the numbing agent used, and in fact, on the third one the numbing agent didn’t take, and the procedure was done without it. After each one I still had pre-cancerous cells and wound up needing a partial hysterectomy. At the time I was married, and not fooling around. Let me add that I was abso-fucking-lutely terrified that I was going to die from cervical cancer. I don’t even have to words for what it was like to know that I would never be able to have another child. And these people don’t want their children vaccinated? In my (very much not so) humble opinion, that borders on child abuse. If I wasn’t a compassionate person, I would wish that every one of these wingnut moms would get it and suffer through what I did.

by: Binky Rasmussen

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 09:45:00 +0100

having their parents give them the green light for sex might be the most effective sort of abstinence education
This happened to me when I was 16. My boyfriend’s mom gave us a talk about “if you’re going to having the sex you better be on the pill and I’ll take you.” We were like, ew, uh, thanks but no thanks.

by: might

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 07:29:23 +0100

I just keep thinking that, for a lot of teenagers, having their parents give them the green light for sex might be the most effective sort of abstinence education.

by: Christopher

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 05:39:36 +0100

“You wouldn’t think of breaking down your grown child’s door and throwing away his condoms…”

You know, I’m not sure that that’s actually true, when it comes to the people who are protesting this vaccine.

What you’re saying is that even if somebody follows all the rules, things might still go bad for them. While certainly true, this viewpoint is alien and even sinful to religious fundamentalists.

by: Jeff Fecke

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 04:22:38 +0100

The thing that boggles my mind about the right-wing opposition to this vaccine: even if I convince myself that my daughters will take the Purity Pledge and will actually stick to it, they could still get raped. They could marry a man who was less committed to chastity during his teenaged years than they were. They could marry a fellow virgin who then goes on to commit adultery. Even if someone believes that all the dirty sluts deserve to get cancer, what about the innocent women who are victims of rape and adultery?

Well, that’s what they get for not loving Jesus enough.

Seriously, someone that would put their daughter in harm’s way so that she not be “encouraged to have sex” is sick to the point of child neglect. I’d prefer my daughter not have sex until at least college, and then, I hope never to know about it until and unless she has a kid–and even then, I’ll sort of think of it as a miraculous conception. But given that every human I know is fallible…well, I’m not going to keep my daughter from getting a shot to protect her from disease just because the disease could be contracted “immorally.”