Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Should This Be a Government Function?

I've been wrestling in my mind with how to approach the story about Texas Governor Rick Perry issuing an executive order mandating that all girls receive the human papillomavirus, or HPV, vaccine. HPV is a sexually transmitted disease that causes cervical cancer.

I am of two minds on the issue. The first is that requiring vaccines for public health reasons is a normal government responsibility. My children have received many vaccines in their lives for everything from measles to chickenpox without ill effects. And I've never understood the anti-vaccine people, although I do understand there is some concern among them about increased rates of autism (which I'm not convinced is related).

The second mind is this: why is the governor getting involved in what amounts to a parenting decision? One doesn't get HPV, which can also cause genital warts, by casual contact but through intercourse. In other words, HPV isn't like getting measles or chickenpox. A person has to engage in certain specific behavior to get this. Is it really up to the government to protect young girls from behavior they shouldn't be engaging in in the first place? And if we are going to protect them from this disease, what about other sexually transmitted diseases? Should we require all girls to have protection against them as well? Does pregnancy fall into this category?

According to Pandagon (where I originally read about the vaccine), parents who don't want their daughters getting this vaccine would rather they die of cancer than admit they will have sex one day. Read that sentence again. Parents who don't want their daughters to get the HPV vaccine would rather they die of cancer than admit their daughters will have sex one day. This is just another example of the Amanda Marcotte way of discussing a topic. I wonder if the Edwards campaign is going to ask her to clarify this one. Here's more:

Under the opt-out policy, however, if you want to keep your daughter in danger of getting cervical cancer, you have to get an opt-out form, fill it out, sign it, and make your daughter take it back to school and then the school officials will know that you’re the kind of creep that would rather have your daughter be dead from cancer than to face up to the fact that she is going to grow up and have sex one day. On top of that, you run the risk of having your daughter get cancer or even just genital warts one day and remembering that you took action to deny her treatment that would spare her this pain. I don’t know about you, but if I found out my parents had a chance to spare me from a disease but they went out of their way to make sure that I wasn’t spared, I’d be furious. I may even refuse to speak to them again. I’d blame them for my cancer. And I’d be right to do so.

Amanda has no children, of course, and as Patterico said, doesn't plan on any any time soon.

That is her right, naturally, but if people who haven't served in the military don't have a right to comment on the war in Iraq, shouldn't people without kids not be allowed to say stupid things about parenthood?

After reading Amanda's screed, here's what I was wondering: is there any reason women can't get the vaccine once they reach adulthood? There's no indication that only teenagers are eligible for the vaccine. Worse yet for the pro-vaccine people, the vaccines available only work on some HPVs, not all that cause cervical cancer. So women would still need to get regular Pap smears (one Pandagonista said parents who didn't want this vaccine must want their daughters getting a Pap smear every year because otherwise they wouldn't need one).

In other words, while the vaccine would have some beneficial effects, it isn't a cure-all against cervical cancer and the vast majority of teens aren't having sex anyway.

I guess Amanda doesn't understand that just because one's daughters might have sex one day doesn't mean they will be teenagers when they do so. If my adult daughter chooses to engage in sexual activity, that's her business. If she does it as a teenager, that's my business.

I don't think the people who object to this vaccine think that giving girls the vaccine will make them go out and have sex (the strawman argument Amanda constructs). But rather, they think it is a gross intrusion on their right to determine health care for their children. We're not talking about easily communicable diseases here. That's when it should be a government concern. It appears to me Governor Perry is stepping over the line.

Cross-posted at Common Sense Political Thought.

UPDATE: There are charges that Gov. Perry has a conflict of interest in making this vaccine mandatory for sixth grade girls.
Texas Eagle Forum president Cathie Adams believes "corruption" is at play. Adams explains that Governor Perry's former chief of staff, Mike Toomey, is now a lobbyist for Merck, the manufacturer of the vaccine.

"Not only that," continues the family acvocate, "his current chief of staff is the daughter-in-law of the chairman of the health committee in the State House of Texas -- and she's also a member of Women in Government." Adams describes that group as a "Merck-supported, -funded, and -organized group of legislators."