Monday, August 4, 2008

Gardasil and paralysis

So I've been reading about gardasil and how it has been causing some paralysis amongst girls who have gotten it.

It pisses me off. Here is this big pharmaceutical company who is looking to make a TON of money off of this, and they pushed it through the FDA quickly because it prevents cancer oh my.

I've got several problems with this. First, can we PLEASE teach our children the realities of sex. I think that with sexual freedom, especially the sexual freedom of the past few years, girls are ignoring safety in sex. And I'm in favor of abstinence teaching, but we also have to face the reality that we live in a sexual culture and people are going to have sex. Can we please focus on abstinence being the safest bet, but if you aren't going to be abstinent here is how to be safe. And can we PLEASE tell young people that it can be DANGEROUS to have sex with multiple partners. We should be encouraging monogamy and limiting your sexual desires! But I think we live in this era of McDonalds instant gratification and it has taken away the use of your brain when it comes to sex.

So because of this unsafe attitude toward sex, we have lots of girls getting HPV. Well drug companies see a chance to make money, and they get this on the market with very few test cases. But they can use the scare tactic that you'll get cancer without this vaccine. Well maybe. But once again if we were teaching our kids about safe sex and LIMITING YOUR PARTNERS, then we wouldn't be facing such a big crisis either.

I wouldn't get my child this vaccine, though I would make her aware of a HPV vaccine and if she would choose to get it, fine. But what I want to encourage in my children is healthy choices. And that includes limiting your sexual desires, a choice it seems fewer and fewer teens are making these days.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Until a couple days ago, I agreed with you 100%. Well, I still agree with you 100% when it comes to young girls. There's NO reason that young girls should need to get this vaccine! A friend of mine recently found out she has HPV. She is faithful to her boyfriend, he was not. He gave her an STD and now she has pre-cancerous cells. That is the only reason I see a need for this vaccine. It was not her fault that the scum-bag cheated.

Anonymous said...

I love you, Erin. :-)