Mother of two girls, here, so maybe I'm just being a boy-hater when I say, yes, yes, as long as we're vaccinating girls with Gardasil let's go ahead and do the boys too.
Gardasil is the newish vaccine that guards against four types of HPV.
Two of the HPV viruses are found in 70 percent of all cervical cancer
cases and the other two are found in 90 percent of genital warts cases
for both boys and girls. Because of the possible dramatic reduction in
cervical cancers, some states tried to mandate the expensive three-rounds shot for all girls.
Next year, the vaccine may be approved for boys and disease control experts say they're hoping the immunization will eventually be marketed for both boys and girls. But will parents do it? Especially if genital warts are not a matter of life and death for the boys (and are actually treatable)? Even though doing so could lower the incidence of cervical cancer dramatically (herd immunity and all)?
The vaccine stirred up controversy when it came out, since we're really talking about STDs, an STD that can lead to death in girls, a situation (sex and girls) that is still so fraught for many, many people.
I'm going to speak hypothetically here, but if there were a vaccine that guarded against a virus that was found in a male cancer, let's say prostate, and said hypothetical virus were sexually transmitted, I'd bet there would be a whole lot of interest from conservatives to guard their big boys against slutty dirty girls and calls for vaccines for all.
But again, I'm coming from the girl side of it all. Moms and dads of boys, if you're immunizers, will you get your sons the shot or not?
Photo: NYTimes
