How can people say no?
The latest test results for Cervarix and Gardasil are even better than expected, offering a pretty much guarenteed innoculation against one of the most feared diseases in the world today.
"it would mean 262 deaths each year, compared with the current level of around 1,000.
The number of annual cases of the disease would also drop from 2,841 to 682. "
So a nationwide innoculation jab, delivered through the schools, exactly the same as rubella innoculations were given up to just a few years ago (now part of the 5 in 1 jab for babies) would save over 700 lives and over 2000 people would not have to hear the dreaded "you've got cancer" in the UK each year. In developing countries the numbers are infintely higher. Sounds good to me.
It sounds good to lots of people, but guess what? Not all! In America there is already a growing movement from the "religious right" groups protesting the idea of the jab. Apparently they believe that preventing the majority of cervical cancer cases will promote promiscuity and undermine their abstinance model of sexual health. Because, of course, cervical cancer is the ONLY risk of promiscuity! And "just say NO" has worked so well, for so long, in so many countries!
I was amazed when I first came accross a blog protesting the trials of these drugs. I asked how the blog owner could be so sanguine about allowing people to die unnecessarily. I was answered with the comment that "it is better to live a short but sinless life than a long and sinful one". I have to wonder whether a couple of extra-marital sexual encounters is more sinful than allowing millions of people to die young, and what these people really think God gave us brains for!
I fervently hope that this protest will not reach the UK. I'm fairly certain we're more caring than that, but I see so much Americanisation creeping into our society that I worry where we will be in a few years time.
Unless the USA shatters itself into a civil war/isolationist policy before then. There's a cheerful thought;-)
"it would mean 262 deaths each year, compared with the current level of around 1,000.
The number of annual cases of the disease would also drop from 2,841 to 682. "
So a nationwide innoculation jab, delivered through the schools, exactly the same as rubella innoculations were given up to just a few years ago (now part of the 5 in 1 jab for babies) would save over 700 lives and over 2000 people would not have to hear the dreaded "you've got cancer" in the UK each year. In developing countries the numbers are infintely higher. Sounds good to me.
It sounds good to lots of people, but guess what? Not all! In America there is already a growing movement from the "religious right" groups protesting the idea of the jab. Apparently they believe that preventing the majority of cervical cancer cases will promote promiscuity and undermine their abstinance model of sexual health. Because, of course, cervical cancer is the ONLY risk of promiscuity! And "just say NO" has worked so well, for so long, in so many countries!
I was amazed when I first came accross a blog protesting the trials of these drugs. I asked how the blog owner could be so sanguine about allowing people to die unnecessarily. I was answered with the comment that "it is better to live a short but sinless life than a long and sinful one". I have to wonder whether a couple of extra-marital sexual encounters is more sinful than allowing millions of people to die young, and what these people really think God gave us brains for!
I fervently hope that this protest will not reach the UK. I'm fairly certain we're more caring than that, but I see so much Americanisation creeping into our society that I worry where we will be in a few years time.
Unless the USA shatters itself into a civil war/isolationist policy before then. There's a cheerful thought;-)
posted by Juggling Mother @ 4:12 pm
4 Comments:
At Monday, September 04, 2006 5:56:00 pm,
Jenny said…
This is the kind of conundrum that ties me in knots of dispair, for so many different reasons.
There's the obvious "surely its better to let people live healthy lives if we possibly can" bit, then there's the anti-american bit, and the angle I get from being in immunology. It all adds up to me thinking "how on earth can anyone possibly truly believe that its better to let people suffer from diseases that we can treat and even prevent?"
I really can't fathom it, and I sincerely hope, as you do, that whatever kindness and humanity is left in the world will win this one (and other battles like it).
At Tuesday, September 05, 2006 5:03:00 am,
Tracie Nall said…
I am a Christian, and I believe in abstinance....but I am not stupid. And I know that people are going to have sex, it is just going to happen. It is important to treat and prevent diseases-no matter what causes them. I want to see the shots given....I want to see lives saved.
At Tuesday, September 05, 2006 12:06:00 pm,
CyberKitten said…
Weird isn't it? Saving lives and reducing suffering being seen as anti-Christian....
Me thinks that some people have things turned around a bit...
At Tuesday, September 05, 2006 6:52:00 pm,
JR said…
I've ranted on this topic before. When asking one of these good Christians, what about the good girls who marry as virgins and are infected by their promiscuous husbands? Should they be punished with cancer and death because of no fault of their own? "Better to be a good, obedient wife and die young of cancer, God will take you into heaven." Is the gist of what I've been told. I really hope this next round of elections boots out all the religious extremists in U.S. politics. I personally can't stomach much more!
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