Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Family Research Council Opposing Vaccination:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_05_01-2005_05_07.shtml#1115245986
[1]New Scientist reports:
Deaths from cervical cancer could jump fourfold to a million a year
by 2050, mainly in developing countries. This could be prevented by
soon-to-be-approved vaccines against the [sexually transmitted HPV]
virus that causes most cases of cervical cancer . . . . [T]o
prevent infection, girls will have to be vaccinated before they
become sexually active, which could be a problem in many countries.
In the US, [however,] religious groups are gearing up to oppose
vaccination . . . . "Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV,"
says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, . . . [which]
has made much of the fact that, because it can spread by skin
contact, condoms are not as effective against HPV as they are
against other viruses such as HIV.
"Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially
harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in
premarital sex," Maher claims . . . .
(Thanks to [2]InstaPundit for the pointer.)
This strikes me as a pretty wrongheaded attitude on the Family
Research Council's part. I highly doubt that many women are now
avoiding premarital sex because of the risk of HPV; I doubt therefore
that more than a few women will start having premarital sex simply
because they learn that they've been vaccinated. Moreover, premarital
abstinence isn't a perfect way to prevent HPV: Mother Nature doesn't
distinguish husbands from casual lovers for purposes of deciding
whether a virus is communicated, and many an abstinent woman marries a
man whose past isn't as chaste as hers. (The vaccine, at least at this
stage, doesn't seem perfect, either, but the vaccine can still be of
help even to women who don't have sex before they marry.) Finally, to
the best of my knowledge babies can get HPV from their mothers as they
pass through the birth canal -- hardly a family-friendly result.
Naturally, there are empirical questions involved here: If HPV
vaccination does lead to much more premarital or extramarital sex,
people may ultimately conclude -- even on purely public health
grounds, and especially on moral grounds, if they think such sex is
immoral -- that the vaccination would be counterproductive. But I
suspect that the pro-promiscuity effect of the vaccination would be
extremely slight, and vastly outweighed by the decrease in suffering
that a successful immunization program may yield.
Finally, I wonder how far the Family Research Council would take this.
The availability of antibiotic treatment for syphilis, gonorrhea, and
other bacterial sexually transmitted diseases similarly decreases the
cost of sex, and may thus increase people's tendency to engage in sex.
The effect is probably greater, since those diseases are better known,
I think, than HPV. The prospect that treatment will be available seems
as likely (or as unlikely) to be seen "as a licence to engage in
premarital sex" as vaccination against HPV would be. (One generally
vaccinates against viruses and uses antibiotics against bacteria, but
I'd think that the attitude-altering effect of the two would be
similar, even if not completely identical.) Would the FRC urge that
people not be offered treatment for these diseases?
References
1. http://www.newscientist.com/channel/sex/mg18624954.500
2. http://instapundit.com/
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