Vaccine Doesn’t Cause Sex

Human Papilloma Virus, NIH

A new study indicates that the vaccine against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) does not causes girls to become more promiscuous.

The researchers looked at "markers" of sexual activity after vaccination including records on whether girls had sought birth control advice; tests for sexually transmitted diseases or pregnancy; or had become pregnant. Hardly any of the girls who got the shots at age 11 or 12 had done any of these things over the next three years and the study found no difference in these markers compared with unvaccinated girls.

The study followed almost 1,400 girls enrolled in a Kaiser Permanente health plan in Atlanta.

The study did not examine older girls. However, other research indicates the vaccine does not increase promiscuity among older girls, either, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

HPV Wart, Image by George Chernilevsky

Controversy has surrounded the shot since its inception. Paranoid parents and religious zealots have been arguing that the shots would make little girls go out and start having sex. Their claims should have been seen as absurd and the brouhaha should have dissipated quietly and quickly. For one, there are far more compelling reasons to avoid having sex like unwanted pregnancies or simply not being socially, sexually or physically ready or interested in it. Indeed, the vaccine is recommended for boys and girls at age 11 or 12 because that is well before most of them start having sex.

It is also delusional, hypocritical and irresponsible to pretend that we can keep our children pristine and pure until they have married the parentally-approved spouse of our dreams. Some kids will experiment with sex before then and it is extremely difficult to stop this without doing things that can damage parents’ relationships with them. Parents who remain in denial of their children’s sexuality, or who try to suppress it, run the risk of having children who are ignorant about the risks or reckless and, consequently, get pregnant or an STD.

Here are some of the facts around HPV and the vaccine from the Scienceline blog and the Science Based Medicine blog:

• Human papillomavirus (HPV) can cause cervical, anal, penile, vulvar, vaginal, mouth and throat cancer and can affect both boys and girls. Thus the CDC is now recommending that boys and young men, as well as girls, be vaccinated against HPV.
• HPV is the only known cause of cervical cancer, which kills roughly 300,000 women annually, one of the highest causes of cancer death for women globally.
• HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the world, infecting half of all sexually active men and women in their lifetimes. One estimate suggests that between 75 and 80% of all Americans will be infected at some point in their lives
• The majority of those infected never know it, which means they may unknowingly be transmitting it to their partners, but that it is persisting in their bodies where it could be contributing to the development of tumors
• The vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, are 70% effective at preventing cervical cancer and 90% effective at stopping genital warts
• Clinical trials show that the vaccine has no serious side effects. While there have been claims of vaccine-related deaths, none have been verified and no causal links between the vaccine and fatalities have been proven
• The vaccines are much more effective when administered to young teens than when given to older teens and adults
• It won’t make them mentally retarded, contrary to Michelle Bachman’s claims. In fact, there is no credible evidence that anyone has become retarded because of the vaccine.

Why Get the HPV Vaccine For Your Children?

This Pumpkin's Mommy Refused to Get It Vaccinated (image from Flickr, cjc4454)

The following is from the Scienceline blog and the Science Based Medicine blog:

• Human papillomavirus (HPV) can cause cervical, anal, penile, vulvar, vaginal, mouth and throat cancer and can affect both boys and girls. Thus the CDC is now recommending that boys and young men, as well as girls, be vaccinated against HPV.
• HPV is the only known cause of cervical cancer, which kills roughly 300,000 women annually, one of the highest causes of cancer death for women globally.
• HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the world, infecting half of all sexually active men and women in their lifetimes. One estimate suggests that between 75 and 80% of all Americans will be infected at some point in their lives
• The majority of those infected never know it, which means they may unknowingly be transmitting it to their partners, but that it is persisting in their bodies where it could be contributing to the development of tumors
• The vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, are 70% effective at preventing cervical cancer and 90% effective at stopping genital warts
• Clinical trials show that the vaccine has no serious side effects. While there have been claims of vaccine-related deaths, none have been verified and no causal links between the vaccine and fatalities have been proven
• The vaccines are much more effective when administered to young teens than when given to older teens and adults
• It won’t make them sexually promiscuous (either they will be or they won’t be, depending in part on how their parents talk to them and support them). The only drugs that might promote promiscuity are those that lower their inhibitions, like alcohol
• It won’t make them mentally retarded, contrary to Michelle Bachman’s claims. In fact, there is no credible evidence that anyone has become retarded because of the vaccine.

The Pot Calling the Kettle Dumb—Bachmann, Paul Try to Out-Stupid Perry

As reported earlier this week on Modern School, right wing Christian fundamentalist Rick Perry, supported rampant teen sex in the state of Texas by mandating Guardsil (HPV) vaccinations for teen girls, in opposition to the rhetoric and philosophy of his ilk. Not surprisingly, it turns out that nearly $30,000 was donated to his gubernatorial campaign by drug giant Merck, manufacturer of Guardasil.

Regardless of his motivations, the policy would certainly save lives. Guardasil protects against human papillomavirus, which can cause cervical cancer, a disease that currently has a fatality rate higher than 30% (see Discover Magazine Blogs “Bad Astronomy”).

Despite the benefits in terms of public health, Perry’s GOP presidential nemesis Michele Bachmann used the Guardasil flap as an opportunity to rip him a new orifice to stick his head into (and in the process, wedged her head more deeply into her own orifice). During the recent GOP debate she said that Gardasil "can have very dangerous side effects." She also said that a woman came up to her claiming that her daughter became mentally retarded because of a Guardasil vaccination.

Such high profile criticism of a vaccine will certainly provide strong inspiration to the anti-vax movement, which thrives on pseudoscience, superstition, and unsupported claims. The problem is that there is no evidence whatsoever that the vaccine can cause mental retardation, while other side effects and dangers are relatively minor (see Michele Bachmann needles Perry on vaccinations from Discover Magazine blogs).

Not only has there never been a single confirmed case of Guardasil-induced mental retardation, but a bioethicist has offered Bachmann $10,000 if she can provide some evidence for her claim.

What is most appalling and dangerous is that such a claim could be made by a presidential candidate and left unchallenged by the media. Bachmann’s source was an unnamed woman who may or may not exist, while there was no vetting or confirmation by any doctors or scientists. As far as anyone knows, the claim could have been fabricated by Bachmann or her handlers. However, even if the woman does exist and did make the claim, that does not make it true and Bachmann should not have publicized the claim until she had solid evidence from medical or scientific professionals. By doing so, she fanned the flames of anti-vaccination hysteria and the general anti-science tendency that has been growing in this country.

The anti-vaccination movement is based almost entirely on fear, while fear itself depends more on the perception of a threat than the actuality of a threat. It is like crying “fire” in a crowded theater: people will likely react first to the cry, and not stop and consider whether there is any truth to the claim.

When the government said Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks or that he had weapons of mass destruction, this was sufficient to terrify the American public and convince them to support an unprovoked war and the curtailing of their rights and freedoms at home, despite the fact that neither claim was true and the evidence against both claims was readily available to those willing to look a little more deeply.

When Andrew Wakeman claimed he had evidence that vaccines caused autism, parents were quick to believe him and to deny vaccinations to their children, placing their own children and everyone else at increased risk for measles, pertussis, and other serious and preventable diseases. Yet when Wakeman was completely discredited, his paper retracted, and his license to practice medicine revoked for fraud and misconduct related to his anti-vaccination work, the damage had already been done. Despite the fact that it has been repeatedly demonstrated that vaccines do not cause autism and that there have been no documented and verified cases of vaccines causing autism, the seeds of fear had been so deeply planted that large numbers of people are still convinced that vaccines do in fact cause autism.

GOP contender Ron Paul has also jumped into the fracas. A political action committee supporting his candidacy produced a video calling Gardasil "a STD vaccine," a clever manipulation that implies that the drug allows wild, disease-free sexual activity. This, of course, is exactly the kind of anti-sex, anti-health and anti-teen spin that religious conservatives have been putting on the drug all along.

In actuality, Guardasil is a drug that protects against one deadly but preventable disease. It does not protect against any other STDS or against pregnancy, so it is not even close to a free-ticket to free love. Vaccinating teenagers against this disease does not promote or encourage unprotected or premarital sex any more than sex education programs or access to condoms do. There are still plenty of reasons for children to avoid or delay sexual activity and there are plenty of children will continue to have unprotected sexual encounters despite access to condoms, birth control and Guardasil.

What this debate is really about is America’s Puritanical attitudes toward sex and its hypocritical attitudes toward teenagers (plus some political grandstanding). In reality, teenage pregnancy and STD rates have been steadily declining for the past decade, while STD and unplanned pregnancy rates for their parents’ and grandparents’ generations have been climbing.

Free Speech Victory For Teen Girls

A judge has ruled in favor of two girls who had been punished by their school for posting suggestive pictures on MySpace during the summer (Daily Mail Reporter). U.S District Judge Philip Simon ruled that an Indiana school district violated the girls’ First Amendment rights by punishing them for posting sexually suggestive photos on MySpace. However, he delayed his decision on whether to award damages while awaiting a ruling in a difference case before the 7th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana had filed a lawsuit on behalf of the teens in October 2009, claiming the district improperly banned the girls from extracurricular activities even though their behavior had not involved the school. Furthermore, the school humiliated the girls by forcing them to apologize to an all-male coaches' board and then required them to undergo counseling [for their own good?] after the photographs were circulated at school.

Schools may punish students for activities that occur outside of school if they can prove that the actions were disruptive to the school or posed a danger to its staff or students, according to a Supreme Court ruling. In this case, the girls had reason to believe that their actions would never be discovered by the school as the privacy settings on their MySpace pages had been set so that only their friends could see the photos.

While the girls hopefully learned a valuable lesson about trust (and who not to) as well as the risks of posting anything onto the internet, even with supposed security protections, they certainly should not have been punished for their actions, especially not by their school.

The school’s actions against the girls occurred after a parent, who obtained copies of the photos (from one of the trusted friends?) showed them to school Superintendent Steve Darnell and complained they were disrupting the volleyball team. The principal then suspended the girls from volleyball, choir and cheerleading for the year.

Even if the volleyball team was disrupted by gossip or name-calling stemming from the incident, it is the problem of the entire team and the coach. If the team was “disrupted” by their participation in an unpopular political protest or because they dressed like goths, the school would have been much less likely to punish the girls, because our society has zero tolerance for overt expressions of teenage sexuality.

Indeed, the overreaction by the school and the district reflect the irrational, Puritanical and teen-sex-phobic values that are so common in U.S. culture. The school’s athletic code even states explicitly that students may be punished for behavior on or off campus that disrupts the “moral” environment on campus.

Teens do think about sex. Some of them even have sex and usually without catching STDs or getting pregnant. In fact, unplanned pregnancy rates among teens are at an all-time low and are much lower than the unplanned pregnancy rates for women in the 30s and 40s.

The courts refreshingly brought a level of sanity back to the discourse, with Judge Simon saying that the photographs were not obscene under Indiana law and were intended to be humorous. He also ruled that the district's discipline policy was ‘so vague and overbroad as to violate the Constitution.