There's great news for women: Merck's new HPV vaccine, Gardasil, has been shown to be 100% effective in preventing the two most common strains of HPV, the human papilloma virus, which is known to cause cervical cancer. These two strains are thought to be responsible for about 70% of cervical cancer cases. Cervical cancer kills an estimated 300,000 women per year, 4,000 of those in the United States. Merck hopes to improve the vaccine to make it effective against up to 87% of cervical cancer cases.

To be fully effective, the vaccine must be given to girls and women before they become sexually active (or at least before they are ever exposed to HPV).

To all reasonable people, this is fantastic news. Reducing cervical cancer rates by 87% ( or even just 70%) is phenomenal. We live in a world full of unreasonable people, however, and some actually oppose this breakthrough preventative measure.

For example, Abstinence & Marriage Education Partnership executive director Scott Phelps complains [bugmenot], "Sexually transmitted diseases in the United States will not be contained by injecting vaccines into pre-adolescents in anticipation of promiscuous behavior." It doesn't take a microbiologist to spot the problems in Phelps's statement. First, it's certainly possible to contract HPV without promiscuous behaviour. Many people carry HPV without even knowing it. Infants can be born carrying HPV. Secondly, this statement is provably false. Maybe Phelps doesn't understand what "100% effective vaccine" means, but it will, by definition, necessarily contain at least these two strains of HPV if it is administered. Such is the nature of a vaccine.

The Family Research Council is concerned that vaccinating against HPV might encourage kids to have sex. This is probably a legitimate concern-- I know that when I got a tetanus vaccine, the first thing I wanted to do was to run out and play on rusty manure-spreading farm equipment in an effort to get as many puncture wounds as possible. The FRC position presumes that sex is dirty and wrong; after all, you didn't see them complaining about the relatively new chicken pox or flu vaccines.

Physicians Consortium director Dr. Hal Wallis says he has mixed feelings about the vaccine, saying "This has the potential to be a wonderful medication that is going to prevent a lot of heartbreak, but I do have a concern about the message we send." Allow me to help clarify things: the message we send is "there is a disease you could contract some day that we'd like to protect you from." That's it. That's what a vaccine does. That's the message it sends.

Abstinence Clearinghouse founder and president Leslee J. Unruh asks, "If you tell a 13-year-old, You are protected against this STD, will she suddenly start thinking she is protected against all STDs, and therefore does not worry about having premarital sex and becomes sexually active?" Maybe if your 13-year-old is no smarter than Ms. Unruh. Yet, when I was 13 and vaccinated against tetanus, I strangely didn't start thinking I was also vaccinated against HIV and syphilis. Why not? Because I had no reason to believe such a ridiculous thing. Unruh is simply trying to plant fears in parents' minds instead of approaching this subject honestly and factually.

Prevailing in many of these right-wing fundamentalist attitudes about the new cervical cancer vaccine is a presumption that all sex is bad and that cancer is divine retribution for having sexual intercourse. Further, HPV has long been a part of the religious extremist anti-sex agenda; the American Family Association's " Agape Press" propaganda outlet, the American "Family" Association itself, the "Family" Research Council, Focus on the "Family", the Concerned "Women" for America and their Culture and "Family" Institute all make heavy use of HPV as their sexual boogeyman in the closet to spread fear, guilt, shame and misconceptions about sex.

These radical religious right-wing organizations seem to love cancer almost as much as they love attention in the mainstream media. If this vaccine had been for any other type of cancer that couldn't be acquired through sexual means, they'd have nothing to say about it. If we were talking about a vaccine for human t-cell leukemia, would anyone oppose it? The opposition to a vaccine for HPV comes simply because HPV can be transmitted through sexual contact, and there's this presumption that sex is filthy, evil and worthy of divine retribution. There is no rational basis for this belief, nor even any rational basis to believe that protecting someone from possible future contact with a sexually-transmittable disease would necessarily be interpreted by those protected as an endorsement for any particular sexual behaviour.

To rational people, this is an open-and-shut case. The vaccine as it stands right now cuts cancer risk by 70% in those exposed in the future to all strains of HPV, and by 100% in those exposed to the main two strains. The only way you could oppose such a revolutionary preventative measure is if you honestly want some percentage of people to get cancer to serve your political agenda. Without HPV causing cervical cancer, the extremists lose one more boogeyman from their arsenal. That's all they're really concerned about.

---Nick

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