


How is cervical cancer normally detected?

So what is this vaccine?



This allegation has popped up a lot on the Internet, particularly at the site for something called the National Vaccine Information Center, a watchdog group. These folks seem to imply that Gardasil causes arthritis and lupus, among other things, because Merck’s trial study documents include those conditions in describing some of its test subjects’ health. But FDA licensing documents for the vaccine indicate that these were primarily preexisting conditions and that the vast majority of side effects involved pain at the site of the injection, nausea, dizziness, and fever—not uncommon reactions to any vaccination.

What about the concern that receiving this sort of immunization will encourage girls to be sexually promiscuous?
STDs have always served as a valuable tool for the abstinence lobby—HPV has been especially handy because it can be contracted even when condoms are used—so this opens all manner of charged debate. Of course, from a scientific perspective, there’s no way to prove that inoculating young girls against an STD will encourage promiscuity. As Markman put it, “This isn’t about sex. This is about preventing cancer.” Perry echoed this recently in The Economist : “If the medical community developed a vaccine for lung cancer, would the same critics oppose it, claiming it would encourage smoking?”

But why does it have to be mandatory?
Ah—by far the most common complaint from social conservatives, parents, and doctors’ groups alike. It’s understandable: Historically, most vaccines—mumps, measles, polio, and so on—have rested their mandates on the policing power that states have over public health (as they do over safety and security), because those infections were easily passed from child to child, especially at school. But the HPV vaccine inoculates against a virus acquired largely through a volitional act—generally, sex. Thus the debate is hardly over: Though Perry included an “opt out” clause in his executive order (any parent who doesn’t want his daughter to receive the vaccine based on religious grounds or other reasons of conscience can submit a written form and be free of the mandate), there are those, like Adams, who claim that the process to reject the vaccine is too onerous (the form must be notarized and resubmitted every two years) and that the state should instead institute an “opt in” procedure for parents who want their daughters vaccinated. Others say that an opt-in measure would just confuse or otherwise discourage poor and undereducated families from participating. So what will Gardasil’s fate be? Stay tuned. Now that the Legislature is involved, this could take some time.