FDA Approves Vaccine That Should Prevent Most Cervical Cancers

[MountainLaurel]

It's been approved, but will fundie doctors prevent women from getting it?

In what officials called a major public health breakthrough, the Food and Drug Administration yesterday approved the first vaccine developed to protect women against cervical cancer.

The vaccine, which works by building immunity against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, was found to be effective in preventing almost three-quarters of all cervical cancers.

"This vaccine is a significant advance in the protection of women's health in that it strikes at the infections that are the root cause of many cervical cancers," said FDA Acting Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach.

He predicted that the vaccine -- the first ever designed specifically to prevent a cancer -- will have a "dramatic effect" on the health of women worldwide.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/08/AR2006060800865.html

[progdonkey]

1. in a way...

I hope the fundie doctors go particularly apeshit over this, to the point that they do everything they can to get it banned or so difficult to purchase that it's de facto banned, etc. (though only as long as they're unsuccessful, of course!)

Here we have what is basically a cure for cancer--not all cancers, of course, but a real bonafide way to lower the chance of cervical cancer to a fraction of a percentage of the current level of incidence. If the fundies stand in the way of this and really try to keep it off the market, how easy would it be to spread around the message "Doctors have discovered the cure for cervical cancer, and Christian Fundamentalists don't want you to have it, because they think you'll start having orgies"?

In the words of the Dear Leader, Bring 'em on! :popcorn:

[badgerpup]

2. If somebody could bring THIS little infobyte to their attention...

http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/cancer/

...American Cancer Society. The American Cancer Society issued a five part advisory statement on penile cancer in June 1999. Circumcision is not considered to be beneficial in preventing or reducing the risk of penile cancer. The ACS indentifies HPV, smoking, and phimosis as risk factors. Sexually active adult males with a non-retractable foreskin should have the phimotic condition treated. (See phimosis for conservative treatment options. Circumcision is outmoded as a treatment for phimosis.)
(snip)
Vaccine. A newly developed human papillomavirus (HPV) bi-valent vaccine is expected to offer protection against all forms of ano-genital cancer, including penile cancer, when it becomes available.

Seems there is some cognitive disconnect going on.
Lemme see if I have this right. "Women can get cervical cancer by having sex, so they shouldn't have the vaccine because it would encourage sexual activity by removing the threat of cervical cancer as a deterrant." Weird, convoluted, sick...but consider the source.
:eyes:
I hear mostly crickets chirping on the subject of MEN practicing abstinence in this scenario however...and from all my biology and health and sex ed classes, most STDs require at LEAST two people for transmission...they don't just appear out of nowhere.
Indeed, this is the argument in favor of the 'abstinence only' method of birth control and STD avoidance.

Anatomical and physiological design would indicate that it would be easier for men to pass on an STD, either M/F or M/M than would F/F...which means that the man also is exposed to the STD.
Last I heard, most men aren't immune to STDs.
Am I missing something here?

I intend no offense to the responsible GENTLEMEN on this site.
I am using the term "men" only in a general and biological sense.