Immunize All Girls Against Cervical Cancer...Now!

marjorie says...

The fact that Merck & Co. is funding a massive lobbying effort to make immunization against cervical cancer mandatory for young girls is in no way an argument against making that a law. The fact that Merck & Co. stands to make billions of dollars from the sale of Gardasil, a drug that prevents cervical cancer is, well, kind of gross. But if their lobbying effort seems crass to you, even makes you angry, then do something about changing how medical research is conducted and how medical care is delivered.

What is really gross to me, actually, is how this Cathie Adams, president of the rightwing Texas Eagle Forum, is using the lobbying of Merck to push her organization's own agenda to prevent the immunizations from becoming mandatory. Why? Because to make them mandatory takes "...precedence over the authorities of parents."

Then there's this lady Linda Klepacki, of "Colorado-based evangelical organization" Focus on the Family. She says that even if opt-out provisions are put into bills, such laws interfere with the rights of parents to make medical decisions for their children. Her group says that "...the vaccine should be available for parents who want it, but not forced on those who don't."

Then here come the Republicans, these being from Kansas (go figure):

Rep. Jeff Colyer, a physician who leads the House Health Task Force, and says his kids will get the vaccine, says “...we do need to respect parents’ rights to make that decision.”

Rep. Brenda Landwehr says “there is the concern it (the vaccine) could lead to promiscuity.”


Shall I continue? I am pretty confident I could find more of this drivel. That a vaccine with such promise for eliminating a cancer that kills 100's upon 1000's of women could be trivialized in terms of sexual promiscuity and parental rights by these people really exposes their ideological rigidity and lack of any sense whatsoever.

Immunizing young girls with this drug should absolutely not be left up to parents.

It should be considered a human right of girls now that we have it (drug company billions notwithstanding) and any adult that tries to stand in the way of its delivery should be put in jail.