Teenage Sex, Cancer, and the Daily Mail
May 14th, 2007
Combining two of the Daily Mail’s favourite subjects – cancer and nubile young women, Broken Hut has an excellent post discussing the bad science and bad morality surrounding opposition to teenage girls receving a vaccine which protects against the Human Papilloma Virus (responsible for 70% of cervical cancer cases in Britain). The logic goes, HPV is a sexually transmitted infection, therefore vaccinating girls will encourage them to have sex. Of course. Much in the same way tetanus boosters encourage people to stab themselves with rusty nails. Of course, this is different, because stabbing oneself with a rusty nail is perfectly acceptable, but God forbid teenage girls start having sex. That would be the end of the world.
Ithika’s discussion is here, I encourage you all to read it.
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4 Comments
1. Ian | May 14th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
No, you idiot, it’ll encourage them to have unprotected sex, no doubt resulting in yet more miserable 17 year old mums trudging round town centres every day getting in everyones way. And claiming benefits because they can’t work, as they have to look after the kid.
Your rusty nail analogy is rubbish too – sex is enjoyable, stabbing oneself with a rusty nail seldom is. Therefore you can’t really suggest that giving someone a Tetanus jab will make them relax and start rolling round in piles of scrap metal.
2. Frank the SciencePunk | May 14th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Well, Ithika had already used the Rubella analogy so I was left with precious few vaccines to chose from.
I hope you can provide a reference for your assertion that an HPV vaccine will encourage unprotected sex. Here’s what we already know: teenage girls have sex. Shock! There are over 100 different strains of HPV, and 80% of women will have been infected at least once by age 50. Most will show no symptoms. Some will get cancer. According to the CDC, the efficacy of a condom in preventing transmission of HPV in unknown, so your argument is completely misguided.
Finally, even if condoms prevented transmission of HPV, you cannot hold women to ransom with the threat of cancer to justify your own morality. What about those who want to start a family? Should they be forced to risk cervical cancer from a dormant infection carried by their husband?
I recommend in future you do some research and think before you shoot your mouth off.
3. coracle | May 14th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Is Ian’s comment sarcasm? There are plenty of other nasty things to put people off unprotected sex other than a risk of an unpleasant death due to cancer 50 years in the future, an unpleasant death due to HIV much sooner springs immediately to mind for one.
4. Frank the SciencePunk | May 14th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
He now informs me yes it was, but I thought some readers might not only fail to spot that, but agree with it in their own minds.
We already know that sarcasm and genuine arguments are indistinguishable when it comes to Intelligent Design – perhaps the same works with most conservative ideas.
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