The only way to eliminate something is by complete and utter vaccination, no exceptions.
I can't see any reason why it should not be as required as any other vaccine. It's capable of spreading to anyone and it can potentially have both horribly unpleasant and lethal consequences.
The argument that it makes more kids likely to practice unsafe sex is ridiculous, since when has any teen ever sat down and thought, when he didn't have any condoms: "Gee, the danger of knocking up my girlfriend/catching some STD is present! I had better go take a cold shower instead of getting my sex on!"?
What about children who are molested? Shouldn't they be immune if the molester happens to be infected? It'd just be one more thing to pile on top of all the other crap they'd be going through.
This is also not a cervical cancer vaccine, it's an HPV vaccine.
Quote:
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About a dozen HPV types (including types 16, 18, 31 and 45) are called "high-risk" types because they can cause cervical cancer, as well as anal cancer, vulvar cancer, head and neck cancers, and penile cancer
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That's just a tad more than cervical cancer.
Whatever Merck's motives(Current bets are on: Making fat loads of cash.), complete and utter immunization of all children would be ideal.
EDIT: Additionally, there'd never be a large enough number of early life vaccinations unless it's mandatory. Most parents would like to believe that their little girls are going to be sweet and virtuous and never have sex until they're, say, about 31 or so, married, and out of the house. But fact is most of them are likely to have sex when they're around half that age, nothing to do for it, it's been that way ever since the dawn of human history. No age has been more or less "moral" than another, so it's not something that can be educated out of people. I honestly think that most parents are going to delude themselves into thinking their daughters will not have a sex life and therefore will not need the vaccine, and I find it unlikely that a 16-year-old girl will report to her parents that she's going to lose her virginity in the back of a Camaro this weekend so she'd like her HPV vaccine now, thank you very much.
[ 02-21-2007, 09:38 AM: Message edited by: PurpleXVI ]