Monday, March 20, 2006
VACCINATE OR PROMOTE ABSTINENCE ?
An editorial in The Capital Times website written by Dave Zweifel accuses President Bush of promoting religious zealotry by in the Food and Drug Administration. He argues that a vaccine has been developed and tested, but has not been released by the FDA...a vaccinine that will prevent sexually transmitted cervical cancer. The vaccine must be administered to girls at the average age of 17, prior to their becoming sexually active. He writes:
Two of the country's bigger pharmaceutical companies Merck and GlaxoSmithKline have developed and proven the safety of a vaccine that prevents a common sexually transmitted disease called human papillomavirus (HPV). Strains of HPV are known to cause cervical cancer in early adulthood. The vaccine needs to be administered to girls before they become sexually active, which is an average age of 17.
And therein lies the rub for the religious base of the Republican Party that George Bush and company have installed in crucial posts in the health department. That base and George W. Bush himself steadfastly adheres to the proposition that kids need to practice abstinence. In their eyes, anything from promoting the use of condoms to giving young girls vaccinations against sexually transmitted diseases only encourages promiscuity among young people.
The editorial closes with the question: "Can we really survive nearly three more years of this destruction?"
