HPV Vaccine Poll

[LSSBB]

Do you know that the lemming approach of dealing with unbridled authority is the chickens way out?


Yes. Every girl and boy should be vaccinated. 14 93.33%
Yes. Every girl should be vaccinated. 0 0%
Yes, even though I have some reservations. 0 0%
No. I'm worried about possible side effects. 1 6.67%
No. I have moral objections to it. 0 0%
No, but for reasons other than those provided. 0 0%

In The World Out there, what % of Boys are currently receiving vaccinations?

Lemmings per legend jump of cliffs to their deaths. We are talking of saving lives.

 

[cjnewson88]

I can't speak for the world, but in NZ all girls between the ages of 13 and 25 can received them at no charge. Most girls get them through high school vaccinations around the 15/16 age if they so choose to do it. If boys wish to get it, they have to pay themselves (which I think should also be funded). What that % is I am unsure, but I would think it very very small.

 

[Reactor drone]

The vaccination is about to be extended to include males in Australia as part of the vaccination schedule but at the moment it's user pays for males.

http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/Content/mr-yr12-tp-tp059.htm

 

[timhau]

Do you know that the lemming approach of dealing with unbridled authority is the chickens way out?


Yes. Every girl and boy should be vaccinated. 14 93.33%
Yes. Every girl should be vaccinated. 0 0%
Yes, even though I have some reservations. 0 0%
No. I'm worried about possible side effects. 1 6.67%
No. I have moral objections to it. 0 0%
No, but for reasons other than those provided. 0 0%

The only person who agrees with you is... you. I'm sure that makes you proud.

 

[timhau]

When they find a vaccination for HIV/AIDS, there will be people out there who will resist it for the same reasons.

And if teh interweb was in place to connect all the kooks in the 1950s, we'd still have polio epidemics.

 

[mercatormac]

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/19/140543977/hpv-vaccine-the-science-behind-the-controversy

Harper changed her mind when the vaccine makers started lobbying state legislatures to require schoolkids to get vaccinated.

"Ninety-five percent of women who are infected with HPV never, ever get cervical cancer," she says. "It seemed very odd to be mandating something for which 95 percent of infections never amount to anything."

By Harper's calculations, the tried-and-true method of regular Pap smears is a more effective way to prevent cervical cancer than the vaccines. "Pap smear screening is far and away the biggest thing a woman can do to protect herself, to prevent cervical cancer," she says.

 

[Garrison]

A smart person who was anti-vax looking at those poll results would conclude that their current strategy is convincing no one and they need to be more persuasive. CM just calls everyone who doesn't agree with him lemmings and chickens, yeah that'll rally everyone to the cause...

 

[Tatyana]

Cervical smear screens are great, if women get them.

Something like 11% of American women do not get regular testing.

This vaccine really needs to be distributed to a number of developing countries where the number one cause of death in women is cervical cancer.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1492158/

The Frequency of Pap Smear Screening in the United States

Cervical screening tests are not as effective as the researcher may suggest in the OP:

http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/types/cervix/screening/cervical-screening-in-the-uk

Cervical screening can prevent around 45% of cervical cancer cases in women in their 30s, rising with age to 75% in women in their 50s and 60s, who attend regularly.

One way of examining the effectiveness of the screening programme is to look at the coverage* rate.

In England the proportion of eligible women attending cervical smear tests has improved from just above 40% in 1989 to 82% in 1995. In 2007-08 the coverage rate was 78.6%.

 

[trebor]

I voted "Yes. Every girl should be vaccinated." but after reading the thread and looking at the sources I have changed my opinion... by the looks of it everyone would benefit from it.

 

[Giordano]

A smart person who was anti-vax looking at those poll results would conclude that their current strategy is convincing no one and they need to be more persuasive. CM just calls everyone who doesn't agree with him lemmings and chickens, yeah that'll rally everyone to the cause...

Almost all of Clayton's posts are filled with outrage and untouched by introspection. As a result he continuously undermines his own position: citing links that actually say the opposite of what he thought, refusing to learn more about (in this thread) immunology and basic biology, failing to reply to reasonable questions (such as if there are any vaccines he views as safe), ignoring pages of responses to his own questions, and often resorting to completely unsupported proclamations (or laughing dogs) when asked for evidence. I suspect Clayton really believed this poll would support him when he began it- now he is even more outraged.

 

[jdc324]

Diane Harper

There was an article in the Sunday Express about HPV vaccination that misrepresented Diane Harper's views on vaccination. It seems this is not uncommon. This blog post from Ben Goldacre on the now-deleted article: http://www.badscience.net/2009/10/jabs-as-bad-as-the-cancer/ has some interesting comments from Harper.

Professor Harper has complained to the PCC. “I fully support the HPV vaccines,” she says. “I believe that in general they are safe in most women. I told the Express all of this.”

She fully supports the HPV vaccines. Fully. Supports. She isn't happy with the way that one of them is being marketed, that's all.

 

[jdc324]

The "moral" question

Even if this poll comes out strongly pro-vaccination, which I support and am confident will happen, I must remind Clayton that scientific facts, such as safety, are not determined by polls. The "moral" question is a bit more interesting. I could never understand how anyone would think to use fear of a deadly disease, such as cervical cancer, to keep their children from having sex.

This might be of interest: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22176845

HPV vaccination was not associated with being sexually active or number of sex partners at either age. Among sexually active adolescents aged 15-19 years, those who received HPV vaccine were more likely to always wear a condom (AOR=3.0). [...] No association was found between HPV vaccination and risky sexual behavior.

 

[jdc324]

Is the HPV vaccine safe?

There's a nice graphical summary of the evidence here: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2011/is-the-hpv-vaccine-safe-v-2-0/

 

[dafydd]

1. Mixed metaphor! Lemmings don't chicken out. As it turns out, they don' t even commit mass suicide as once believed.

Blame Walt Disney. The myth of lemmings committing mass suicide started with the film ''White Wilderness''.

 

[swright777]

Any poll that CM starts that has an option to disagree with him, well, that's always the right choice to make.

1. Agree with what CM thinks.
2. Disagree with what CM thinks.

It could be labelled this way and you are guaranteed to make the sane choice by picking #2 without even knowing what it's about.

 

[Robrob]

Do you know that the lemming approach of dealing with unbridled authority is the chickens way out?


Yes. Every girl and boy should be vaccinated. 14 93.33%
Yes. Every girl should be vaccinated. 0 0%
Yes, even though I have some reservations. 0 0%
No. I'm worried about possible side effects. 1 6.67%
No. I have moral objections to it. 0 0%
No, but for reasons other than those provided. 0 0%

So because no one agrees with your paranoia, that's a problem?

 

[Arisia]

Yes, for both.

MissArisia has had her HPV vaccinations already... and everything else the state requires or recommends. And if some weren't covered by MrArisia's employer we would have paid out of pocket for them. They are all that valuable.

 

[CurtC]

In The World Out there, what % of Boys are currently receiving vaccinations?

I don't know the stats, but my two boys (12 and 15) have both been vaccinated for HPV.

 

[LSSBB]

I don't know the stats, but my two boys (12 and 15) have both been vaccinated for HPV.

As well they should.

 

[dafydd]

And if teh interweb was in place to connect all the kooks in the 1950s, we'd still have polio epidemics.

I saw the aftermath of polio when I was a kid. I was lucky enough to get the vaccine. Why do you want to back to the bad old days, Clayton? What have you got against children?