People are always surprised to hear that I support initiatives to make Gardasil, the vaccine that prevents cervical cancer, mandatory. For me, it's a healthcare access issue; making Gardasil mandatory will enable more women to get it. Currently, the entire series runs about $400, and since it is so new, most health insurance companies won't cover it. Many women (myself included) cannot afford to pay $400 out-of-pocket for it, even though it's a necessary medical expense. If Gardasil were made mandatory, it would become more readily available because most states require that insurance companies (including the state-run programs for low-income families) provide coverage for mandatory vaccines. Generally, I don't support Big Pharmacy, but I honestly see this as a good situation: more women are able to get the vaccine, and Merck makes boatloads of money. Everyone wins.
Unfortunately, though, nothing is ever that simple, and it's looking like Merck is going to stop lobbying state and federal legislators to make the vaccine mandatory (NYTimes). They're drawing fire from groups that are complaining that they're hurting "parental choice" (even though virtually every state has an opt-out clause for ALL vaccines, even the "mandatory" ones). I maintain that people who oppose the vaccine for evil reasons are deliberately disinforming the general population about this because it serves their agenda. What are evil reasons? This, which never fails to make my blood boil:
[O]thers contend that protection from a sexually transmitted virus would encourage promiscuity.
As flatly ridiculous as this assertion is (I don't think anyone's going to say, "Hey, I don't have to worry about HPV anymore; I'm going to run out and have lots of casual, unprotected sex!" There are still tons of other STDs to worry about), it still never fails to irritate me. Not only because people are actually stupid enough to buy into the logic that people will become promiscuous overnight as a result of getting a vaccine to prevent cancer, but that they are vicious enough to think that the threat of STDs should be used as a deterrent for sexual activity. That is evil (so much for us liberals being moral relativists).
I'd really, really like to know why some individuals seem to think that fatal forms of cancer are an appropriate punishment for promiscuity. Seriously, folks, who actually thinks, "Oh, we shouldn't have that HPV vaccine because cervical cancer is god's just punishment for women who have pre/extra-marital sex"? Isn't dying an extraordinarily long, painful death a wee bit excessive as far as divine retribution for sex goes? Granted, these are the same people who advised Reagan to ignore the AIDS epidemic because those abominable homosexuals were getting their Biblical desserts, but I still can't wrap my head around such blatantly mean-spirited sanctimony.
I guess, in the end, this is something Merck needs to do in order to ensure that the backlash doesn't worsen. Sometimes this kind of damage control is necessary. I still think it's unfortunate. God forbid parents not have autocratic control over their daughters' sex lives, even if it means putting them at risk for cervical cancer. Heaven help us all if they receive honest, medically accurate information on how their bodies work and how to ensure that nothing bad happens to them, that they are able to make reasonable, informed decisions about their own bodies and lives. Who can look at this situation, see parents who honestly think that they should be able to deprive their daughters of a vaccine that could prevent them from dying of cancer on the grounds that the vaccine might make them become sexually active, and say that we're living in a post-sexist, post-feminist era? Ugh. I feel completely sick about this, and I hope I'm not the only one.
Or maybe I'm unreasonable. Maybe I believe too strongly that children have a right to self-determination, a right to know about their bodies and make healthy decisions about them that supersedes their parents' right to dictate educational and medical decisions that are ultimately detrimental to their health. Or maybe I grew up in the Bible Belt and saw the real results of sexual ignorance abstinence-only "education"- sky-high rates of teen pregnancy and STDs and would rather not see them inflicted on yet another generation of Americans.
I guess we'll see.
