In case you were buried in the depths of Clemons Library last year and missed it, a vaccine for HPV -- Gardasil, manufactured by Merck -- was approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and recommended for girls ages nine to 26 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And so the controversy began.
Soon after the CDC recommended the vaccine, states began considering legislation that would make the vaccine mandatory for girls entering middle school. Michigan was the first state to introduce such legislation. It failed. In February, the governor of Texas issued an executive order mandating that girls entering the sixth grade get the vaccine. The order was overridden by legislators. This meant that in March, when Virginia (yes, Virginia) passed legislation requiring the vaccine for girls entering middle school, it became the only state to have a school requirement for the vaccine. Currently 41 states and the District of Columbia have legislation dealing with the vaccine on the docket, and in every single one of these states -- Virginia included -- parents have the right to exempt their daughter from getting the shot should they so choose.
Now I'm a little confused. School mandated shots serve two purposes: Firstly, to protect the child themselves from said disease, and possible effects of the disease, including permanent health complications or death, secondly to protect other children who would come into contact with the child from said disease. For this reason, parent exceptions are rarely allowed. Denying a child a vaccine could endanger not only them but also the children around them. Yet with the HPV vaccine, exemptions are not only allowed, they are necessary in order for legislation to even have a chance at passing.
HPV is a sexually transmitted disease, certain strains of which can cause cervical cancer. The HPV vaccine guards against strains six, 11, 16 and 18, which are linked to almost 70 percent of cancer cases. The point of mandating the vaccine for middle school girls is to guard them against the disease before there is any chance of them contracting it.
It would be different if there were a concern about the safety of a new vaccine. There isn't. Gardasil is made from the protein coating of HPV, so no actual live virus ever enters girls' bodies. This is about the increasingly antiquated, yet ever-persistent idea that the more protection is offered against sexually transmitted diseases -- even STDs that were until recently unidentified -- the more kids will have casual sex.
Here are some statistics. According to a survey by the Guttmacher Institute as reported by NBC, 95 percent of Americans report having had pre-marital sex. By the time they are 60, more than 80 percent of women will have contracted HPV, and cervical cancer is the second-leading killer of women worldwide.
So, should girls get the vaccine to prevent themselves from HPV and possible complications of HPV, one of which is death? I'm going to go with yes. And should girls get vaccinated against HPV to avoid spreading the disease? Again, yes. And, just because the manner the disease is spread has a social stigma attached, does that make it any less of a danger to women's health, or any less imperative that children get the vaccine when recommended by the CDC? Definitely not. Parents who do not have their children vaccinated are being recklessly irresponsible.
Meanwhile, we are all (for the most part) over 18 and responsible for our own health now. I personally had my third and last Gardasil shot just a month ago. My insurance, BlueCross/BlueShield, now covers the shots, as do Aetna and GHI. The gynecology clinic will provide the shot, and student health also runs HPV shot clinics Monday through Friday, nine to noon, and again from two to four. The vaccine is not a particularly painful one, and I have to say, looking at my arm and realizing that, thanks to a shot I am now 70 percent less likely to get cancer is not something that, at least in this lifetime, I ever thought I'd be able to do.
Margaret Sessa-Hawkins is a Cavalier Daily viewpoint writer. She is a fourth-year English and Spanish major.
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