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March 01, 2006

Vaccination Vexation

If Jesus is actually up in Heaven right now making his list and checking it twice, I'm thinking the Family Research Council "braintrust" might want to get their weenie roasting sticks prepped.

According to David Batstone at Sojourner's, the Tony Perkins Gang is sorely vexed:

A little-known debate is smoldering at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that may burst soon into a major fire. Two pharmaceutical companies - Merck and GlaxoSmithKline - have designed a cervical cancer vaccine. In clinical trials the Merck drug, Gardasil, is proving to be up to 100% effective in fighting the dominant strain of the virus causing cervical cancer. The pharmaceutical companies and a growing movement of public health advocates want all girls to be inoculated with the vaccine as they presently are for other high-risk viruses.

The Family Research Council is leading a charge of Religious Right groups to halt any such national inoculation program. Their resistance is driven by fear more than common sense. The human papilloma virus (HPV) that generates cervical cancer is most typically passed along through genital contact with others. So as long as an individual does not engage in sexual intercourse, he or she should be shielded from the virus. The Religious Right bloc concludes that offering a vaccine for HPV would undercut their promotion of sexual abstinence for adolescents.

All manner of plagues and pestilence must be available to the FRC in order for them to browbeat people into abstinence. Therefore vaccines that keep young women from getting cervical cancer cannot be a part of their regular vaccination routine.

This is like a bad flashback from my churching days as a girl. Our preacher used to tell us about Hell from the pulpit, threatening us with eternal suffering if we didn't tow the Baptist line. Rarely were we to come to God because of His love and goodness. We were to come to God because the alternative was frightful and tortuous.

FRC is using the same tactic.

Don't have sex before marriage or you'll get cervical CANCER and die a painful and wretched death.

The absence of loving guidance for adolescents is revealing. They'd rather threaten their children with death--quicker, easier and a lot less sweat equity involved than really taking the time to build solid, loving relationships.

Posted by Carla at March 1, 2006 06:54 PM