by the Way . . .

The trouble with science is that it just keeps discovering things that are harmful. They have now developed a vaccine that is 100% effective against human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted disease that is the primary cause of cervical cancer. They say it should be given to all girls at the age of 12. While cervical cancer kills 3,700 women a year in the U.S. alone, what about all the teenage sex the fear of it prevents?

Fortunately the Family Research Council is leading opposition to the vaccine. "Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV," says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a leading Christian lobby group.... Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex." . Tony Perkins, president of FRC, says it is not anti-vaccine, but that Hillary Clinton is against condom labels that truthfully point out that they are not effective against HPV. This is relevant because "only the practice of abstinence...can prevent ALL those 'serious ramifications'....

While we need to stay vigilent to protect our 12 year olds from sex, we should not be too concerned, as this vaccine is not approved by the FDA yet. This is just the situation with Plan B, the morning after pill, all over again. There the FDA refused to approve the pill because, while the company studies showed that while teens 14 and up said the pill wouldn't encourage them to have sex, there were no 12 year olds in the study. As this blog pointed out in the November 17 post, that was probably impractical. "How much would they have to pay you to hang around playgrounds asking 12 or 13 year old girls whether they would be more likely to engage in sex if the pill was available?"