Go ahead and vaccinate

From The New York Times:

Reacting to a furor from some parents, advocacy groups and public health experts, Merck said yesterday that it would stop lobbying state legislatures to require the use of its new cervical cancer vaccine.

The company said it made the decision after realizing that its lobbying campaign had fueled objections across the country that could undermine adoption of the vaccine.

At least 20 states are considering making its use mandatory for schoolgirls, and the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, has already done so by executive order. Part of the states’ rush to embrace the vaccine has been instigated by Merck efforts that began before federal regulators approved the product last year.

The vaccine is aimed at a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer. Critics of the vaccine on moral and other grounds have used Merck’s perceived influence as a weapon in fighting the drug’s use. And some public health officials who favor the vaccine say the movement to make it mandatory has come too fast.

Merck acknowledged that opinion yesterday, saying it would stop lobbying specifically for state mandates, many of which would require girls to be vaccinated before they entered sixth grade.

Objections to the mandatory vaccination of school girls are summed up by a caller I heard on the G. Gordon Liddy show a couple of weeks ago. He complained that the government was "assuming that his daughter was promiscuous".

Let me attempt to answer that. In the first place that man's daughter is probably a good girl who has been raised with proper values but, like all other humans, she is a fallen sinner and therefore subject to temptation. At least that's what my Bible says. So it is possible that she might make a mistake one day and it would be nice if a single indiscretion didn't bring with it a permanent price.

Secondly I very much doubt that the gentleman could afford to surround his daughter with the kind of 24/7 security that President Bush's daughters receive. Few of us can. Therefore it remains a possibility that she might one day be raped. I remember a few years ago in the tiny town of Old Fort, NC a seven year old girl was raped in the basement of her church during the Wednesday night service. The sad truth is that no place is truly safe and it would be a great shame if that man's child were not only savagely attacked but left with a disease which could kill her or leave here sterile.

Then there the objections that the vaccine doesn't protect against all strains of the HPV virus. This is true, but it catches the viruses which are responsible for 70% of human infections. Should we stop vaccinating people against Polio because the vaccine doesn't work 100% of the time?

Of course it isn't only on moral grounds that some object to the new vaccine. Some neo-Luddites object to all vaccinations on principal and some hard core leftists are so offended by the idea of a drug company making a profit that they are against the whole thing as well.

However it is mainly parents who are concerned that giving their little girls a shot will somehow turn them into Paris Hilton who are getting in the way. While I share their basic moral outlook I think that this time their outrage is misplaced.