Ok, Ladies, Here's a Follow up Question to Conisider...

Everyone is touting the benefits of this new vaccine, but it is a relatively new vaccine. The vaccine hasn't been around long enough to determine the long term effects on women.

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2006/NEW01385.html - June/2006

"The manufacturer has agreed to conduct several studies following licensure, including additional studies to further evaluate general safety and long-term effectiveness. The manufacturer will also monitor the pregnancy outcomes of women who receive Gardasil while unknowingly pregnant. Also, the manufacturer has an ongoing study to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of Gardasil in males."

There have been too many products in the past that have seemed like a miracle cure for one thing or another and actually had bad outcomes of death, infertility, or birth defects. The female reproductive system is not something to be messed with.

This product seems like a god-send for women who have never had sex and I think the information should be given to parents. I do not believe that our government has the right to make the determination that a child MUST have a drug that cost $120/injection of which you must take 3 over a six month period to take care of a virus that

"For most women, the body's own defense system will clear the virus and infected women do not develop related health problems."

There may or may not have been good intentions behind this, but it is still the parent's right to choose what is best for their child. Heaven forbid there be anything wrong with this drug that will cause problems later in these women's lives.

Protect your children, get all the facts, weigh it out, and do what you feel is best for your child. To the government, your child is a number.. to you, they are your heart.

Jodi

I agree...this is totally 2 different subjects. Apples and Oranges. We, as a society, have the responsibility to develop medicine in order to erradicate diseases in order to allow our species survive. As for the birth control shot, no one in this country has the right to determine your own personal reproductive methods. That would be Big Brother. If we started doing that, then we would have to force mothers on welfare who have 7 children they can't afford to get their tubes tied. I have my own personal opinions about that, but thank God we don't live in a country like that.

Thank God we have that choice. Thank God we live in a country that does semi care about their people in order to develop a vaccine like that. I wish it had been available when I was younger. Maybe with these technological advances a vaccine for breast cancer or herpes or other STD's will become available.

As a parent, I will be protecting my child in ANY way possible whether it will be thru a vaccine or a good lecture. I will probably also buy a medical textbook with all the nasty pictures of the STD's and tell my son that this is what can happen if you don't protect yourself and especially wait to have sex. That's my goal as a parent: PROTECT & GUIDE...give them all the facts. Then you have to let go & hope that they make the right decisions.

I think it's very much a different scenario (HPV shot vs. Depo). The reason they're doing this is to help prevent cervical cancer. They are finally finding ways to help PREVENT cancer, which is one of the biggest killers we have. Isn't this what we've been wanting and working for all these years? These girls will not be moms one day who have cervical cancer and die leaving their children behind. Think of all of the children who didn't know their moms because she died when they were young, or the children who grew up with their moms and lost them later on in their life. Or think about the women who never got to have kids because of their cancer. This is a HUGE breakthrough!

I think a lot of people are taking this out of context and worry so much about sex at an early age, which doesn't make sense. It's the same parents teaching the same kids the same values as before, so the SAME thing will happen regardless.

I don't understand how so many mothers can be against something so beneficial for their children (both male and female). I will say that it is incorrect to say that it is only affecting an STD. Cervical cancer does not only come from STDs. There are so many ways to look at this. You have to understand that YOU are ultimately the one who teaches your child his or her values, so a vaccine will not affect what they decide to do with their bodies. Also, you have no control over what their future spouses do with their own bodies before meeting your child. What if he/she has somehow contracted the HPV virus? With this vaccine, YOU don't have to worry about YOUR OWN CHILD being infected. Surely you all are taking that into consideration.

I personally am a very strong Christian, and I feel that my faith, my political beliefs, background, etc have nothing to do with how I feel about this vaccine. It's my husband, my child (and future children) and future grandchildren that make me feel the way I do about this. I want my son to have a healthy wife who can have healthy children. I want my future daughter (God willing) to have a healthy life so she can have children and watch them grow up. Nothing else is affecting my reaction to this regulation. YOU MUST TAKE EVERYTHING INTO CONSIDERATION BEFORE RULING YOUR DAUGHTER OUT OF GETTING THIS VACCINE.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007...

Want to push the envelope, huh? I'd really like to play and push the envelope, but then it would be forever in my file and not really reflective of what I stand for. I might proffer a thought that maybe the government or governor might be overlording natural selection or something crazy sounding like that. I better stop there.
C. S.

But this morning I want to add something more.
It seems to me that critical thinking is very uncomfortable to a large faction of our free society. Those who need to think they were born into the best of all possible worlds and trust others to tell them what is right and what is wrong. Those people forfeit their rights to choose much more willingly than those who have taken up critical thinking. Thing is, freedom is the power to choose. Freedom is precious and it hurts critical thinkers every time we as a society loose another freedom. I'm sure the Church of England believed it was heracy to let the people have freedom of religion. This issue is not about shots, or if they are right for our children or wrong for our children, it's about our freedom to choose whether by vote or voice.
Too many lives have been laid down for us to enjoy the freedom for which this country stands to start acting like herded sheep now.
C. S.

D.,
You need to start an issues blog. You are great at bringing out the hot topics.

I'm all for the HPV vaccine, but not for the government mandating it. We are supposed to be the land of the free.... yet our individual choices do effect the collective, so there is a balance that must be struck and I think this is too far.

A vaccine for HPV is good, and I'll get it for my girls. Not because Perry said so, but because I was going to anyway.

I would not allow my daughter to get a birth control shot! In my opinion, this is making the statement that sex is OK and this shot will protect her instead of her own decision to say 'no' protecting her. If we as parents do our job in spending time with our kids and teaching morals, then when the temptation comes, they will say 'no'. Each child has their own 'love language' and if we find out what that is and meet that need in them, then they will not search for love elsewhere. K. S

I also do not think you are comparing apples with apples. These are two totally different items. I am all for teaching morals and choices, consequences etc., but at the same time these two issues are different. We are a Christian family and have had my daughter in Christian school since birth. I feel her morals are strong and in place, but no one can guarantee given ther right circumstance that teens with raging hormones would be able to say NO even if they really wanted to and intended to wait until they were married to have sex.

The HPV shot is to prevent cervical cancer and the Depo-Provera to prevent pregnancy. I took depo provera many, many years ago, as a child, not to prevent pregnancy as it was not used for that at that time period, but would have no qualms giving to my daughter should I have the hint of needing it.

I truthfully would not be opposed to a mandate for it either. I have seen too many teen mothers and too many children born to them, living on the system and using the system and having more babies to stay on the system. Raising a generation to learn how to use the system. I do not advocate abortion at all, but prevention yes. I do not feel that is putting a free label on having sex, it is called prevention with teens with raging hormones that in a heated moment may not make the most correct decision.

I do feel ultimately the decision should be left to the parents, but again if we as a nation choose not to protect our children then the government has to step in. This is the very reason we have laws for car seats. We should not have to be told to put your child in a car seat, but every day I see people with kids bouncing around the car unrestrained. Is that parent making a good decision for their child?

Just my opinion on the subject at 1 a.m. in the morning.

Completely different issue ~ like comparing "apples to oranges" in my opinion.