By: Buck

Buck — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 20:59:48 +0000

Au contraire, ma chere Trish, I am all for the freedom to be vaccinated, just opposed to the state making it a condition of enrollment in public school. I mean, it’s not something that is going to get passed around in third grade. Look, I was vaccinated against polio and small pox when I was a child, but those are completely different kinds of infectious diseases that are transmitable in more than one way, and therefore it is in the interest of the state to control their spread. Similarly, if there were a vaccine available for avian flu I would favor mandatory vaccination, but in this case I don’t think it’s warranted. I think the Virginia Health Department should throw some abstinence-marketing dollars behind a vaccination campaign to educate girls and their parents, but I don’t think the state should be mandating vaccinations. The newspaper article noted that not all insurance companies cover the $360 vaccination, and I don’t think the bill calls for the state to pay. So how do the poor and uninsured pay for their “mandatory” vaccinations?

By: Trish

Trish — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 19:04:43 +0000

Sorry Buckaroo. I think you’re dead (pun intended) wrong on this one. But you might have to have two x genes to understand why. Suffice it to say, if there’s a vaccination out there that will free women from the fear of cervical cancer, I’m for it. I’m no fan of drug companies or the insurance industry but I bet millions and millions more are spent every year on pap smears than would be spent on vaccines. And if there were a vaccine for prostate cancer, I’ll wager you’d favor giving it to boys at any age. But this entirely sane initiative will probably be fought by lots of folks who believe in the myth of abstinence education and find the idea of girls they know having sex “creepy.”

Comments on: Virginia Considering Mandatory Vaccination of Young Girls Against Sexually Transmitted Disease

By: Buck

By: Trish