Texas Shoots Down Mandatory HPV Vaccination Order
The Texas House of Representatives passed a bill overturning Republican Governor Rick Perry’s executive order which was the first in the nation to mandate mandatory Gardasil vaccinations for all girls entering the sixth grade. A similar measure is also slated to go before the Texas State Senate which should end any hope of enacting mandatory vaccinations. Religious Christo-Fundies who believe mandatory vaccinations would encourage teenage girls to become promiscuous trollops called it a “victory for Jesus” (I actually made that last part up, but they might as well have)
Several other US States are fighting similar battles to enact mandatory Gardasil vaccinations including California, Colorado (where legislators also managed to quash efforts to make vaccinations mandatory), Michigan, and Virginia which brings the number of states trying to move this thru the legislative process to about twenty.
Here are some HPV facts which you might not be aware of:
Both men and women can have high-risk HPV and low-risk types. But, doctors say, high-risk strains pose more problems for women, potentially leading not only to cervical cancer but also to infertility.
Frequently, men are seen as the silent carriers who can unknowingly spread HPV to their sexual partners. And even when people know they have HPV, they often think condoms offer 100 percent protection, when research has shown that they do not.
I’ve devoted considerable space here in geishaland to push the argument that we must consider mandatory vaccinations as a feasible and reasonable approach to dealing with the threat of cervical cancer. HPV is responsible for about 70% of all cervical cancer cases worldwide, and if we’re able to vaccinate girls before they become sexually active (which is why sixth grade girls are the target group) we have a real chance to eradicate this threat.
It still shocks me that anyone could connect two dots together linking vaccinations to promiscuity, but then again, not much does surprise me these days about the religious right. Some have also used the ‘parents rights’ argument as a basis for rejecting efforts to make vaccinations mandatory. That too seems a little weak to me. I mean, we still vaccinate for measles, mumps, rubella, and polio, which most school districts in the United States require to even be allowed to go to school, so how is this any different? Because it’s an STD? How small minded.
We must continue to spread the word about the benefits of vaccinations and testing for all girls and women. This is well within our control and it’s a moral responsibility to protect every woman we can. I’d personally like to know how the Christians reconcile that, but I suppose they’d have an answer for that one too.
In other women’s health news… the FDA has approved a new breast cancer drug called Tykerb.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer to affect women worldwide and each year, more than one million new cases are diagnosed, according to the World Health Organisation. With a plethora of drugs all competing for a share of the estimated $35bn (€26.5) global cancer market, GSK said it is committed to further clinical trials to investigate the possibility of Tykerb being used to treat early breast cancer and also cancer that has spread to the brain.
The drug is a targeted therapy designed to attack those tumours where a specific protein in found in large quantities. High levels of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) are found in up to 30 per cent of breast cancers and is associated with aggressive disease and a poor prognosis. Consequently, several anticancer drugs target HER2. However, Tykerb is the first drug to target both HER2 and HER1, setting it apart from AstraZenenca’s Iressa (gefitinib) - asmall molecule kinase inhibitor that only targets HER1.
Things which affect our health and our lives are issues which I’m passionate about. I will continue to devote both the time and energy to write about them here in this space, and I will continue to be an advocate for mandatory HPV vaccinations. As always your thoughts, opinions, ideas, or personal stories are always welcome here. It’s important to continue talking about these things and to continue working to raise awareness.
“Religious Christo-Fundies who believe mandatory vaccinations would encourage teenage girls to become promiscuous trollops called it a “victory for Jesus” (I actually made that last part up, but they might as well have)”
It’s always good to remember something about the Christian Mythology and the Christianists. No matter how much they try to make a place for themselves at the table, they will always be considered “the crazy uncle” that needs to be locked away in the basement.
And it’s always good to remember ( . . . History Lesson . . . ) that the Founding Father of the United States understood the dangers of this religion.
The 1797 Treaty of Tripoli was signed by President Adams to proclaims America’s Government Is secular.
And the Founding Fathers themselves were smart enough to realize the dangers this religion posed. Here are some their quotes regarding Christianity.
John Adams
“I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved — the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!”"
In his, “A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” [1787-1788], John Adams wrote:
“The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.
James Madison
Called the father of the Constitution, Madison had no conventional sense of Christianity. In 1785, Madison wrote in his Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments:
“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”
“What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have
they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not.”
Benjamin Franklin
Although Franklin received religious training, his nature forced him to rebel against the irrational tenets of his parents Christianity. His Autobiography revels his skepticism, “My parents had given me betimes religions impressions, and I received from my infancy a pious education in the principles of Calvinism. But scarcely was I arrived at fifteen years of age, when, after having doubted in turn of different tenets, according as I found them combated in the different books that I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself.
“. . . Some books against Deism fell into my hands. . . It happened that they wrought an effect on my quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which
were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a through Deist.”
In an essay on “Toleration,” Franklin wrote:
“If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find
few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive
Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practiced it on one another.
The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. These found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same
practice themselves both here [England] and in New England.”
Dr. Priestley, an intimate friend of Franklin, wrote of him:
“It is much to be lamented that a man of Franklin’s general good character and great influence should have been an unbeliever in Christianity, and also have done as much as he did to make
others unbelievers” (Priestley’s Autobiography)
Thomas Paine
This freethinker and author of several books, influenced more early Americans than any other writer. Although he held
Deist beliefs, he wrote in his famous The Age of Reason:
“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my church.”
“Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. ”
* * * * *
It is and has always been the world’s most dangerous religion.