HPV, Cervical Cancer and the Vaccine BushCo. won't let us have

[TAPat]

HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) and it's connection to cervical cancer is widely know as some 80% of the population, male and female, are infected. What is not so widely known is that there is, in fact, a cure for HPV - try Googling "hpv cure" and see what you get. Article after article on how there is no cure for HPV.

How could this be?

From the Daily Kos:

The question is which one of us can lead America to appreciate life.
-- George W. Bush, February 15, 2000

Fact: Half of all cervical cancer deaths - approximately 2,300 per year - could be prevented by a newly developed HPV vaccine.


Fact: In the US, for instance, religious groups are gearing up to oppose vaccination, despite a survey showing 80 per cent of parents favour vaccinating their daughters. "Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV," says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a leading Christian lobby group that 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, though it is arguable how many young women have even heard of the virus.


Fact: The jockeying reflects the growing influence social conservatives, who had long felt overlooked by Washington, have gained on a broad spectrum of policy issues under the Bush administration. In this case, a former member of the conservative group Focus on the Family serves on the federal panel that is playing a pivotal role in deciding how the vaccine is used.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/3/4/142156/4414


Evidently sometime during the summer of 2005 Americans United for the Separation of Church and State reported that a spokesman for the FRC said young women should have to deal with the consequences of HPV (cancer), rather than rely on a new vaccine.

And, reported yesterday on Air America Radio News, the idea from the FRC and BuchCo that the money to develop and distribute the vaccine would be better spent on abstinence education!


Now for my opinion:

As a woman who knows about HPV and its potential to develop into cervical cancer from first hand experience, I can now (although I've known for quite some time) unequivocably say that the Religious Right, Neoconservatives and BushCo hate women - period.