This is the title of an article by Michael Specter in the March 13, 2006 issue of The New Yorker, dealing with the Bush administration's attitude toward the research end of science, explicitly as it relates to a vaccine developed for HPV. As a woman who goes to the gynecologist every year and endures the discomfort and humiliation of putting my feet in the stirrups just to make sure that I don't develop cervical cancer, it's very disturbing to me that some blindly zealous right-winger religious types are barring this vaccine in the name of abstinence. Now don't get me wrong, I'm all about telling the the young'uns to keep their knees shut until they're old enough to deal with the consequences, but why punish women and expose them to the leading cause for cervical cancer when it could be prevented? A dear friend of mine became sexually active at a responsible and adult age, and didn't find out until two years later that she had contracted HPV from her ONLY partner. She then had to make a very uncomfortable phone call to this man and tell him that he had some phone calls to make himself. Two words dear friends: cervical biopsy. I can't even contemplate how painful it must have been for her, and even though she didn't get cervical cancer, I'm sure she got plenty of wrinkles fretting over whether or not a monogamous and seemingly protected (that's right, condoms don't protect against HPV) relationship would land her a spot in the oncologist's office. And I understand, it's a touchy subject because HPV is sexually transmitted, are we giving people a blank slate to have unprotected sex, blah blah blah, but if you had the opportunity to keep your daughter from contracting one more life-threatening disease, wouldn't you want to vaccinate her while giving her the speech about safe sex before AND after? At what point in time will we as a society stop punishing people for their mistakes, get off our proverbial high horses, and start helping them?
To the men in my life who read my blogs, don't think that I'm pointing the finger at you. It's a strange thing that men manifest no symptoms when carrying HPV, and also that they have no cervix that it can attack, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles. I've never been one to get real preachy about science, but when Nobel laureates say that we should use this vaccine and the administration drags its feet, it makes you wonder whether or not Bush considers the lives of his own daughters, his wife, and his mother precious, or if he just thinks they're immune because they're supposedly living on the right side of the Bible.
If you'd like to read the article, let me know and I'll photocopy it and send it to you. I don't think it's back up in the New Yorker's online archive just yet, but there is a Q & A with Specter titled "The President and the Scientists" that is also quite interesting.
