cancer vaccine not everyone's medical marvel

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/30/AR2005103000747.html

A new vaccine that protects against cervical cancer has set up a clash between health advocates who want to use the shots aggressively to prevent thousands of malignancies and social conservatives who say immunizing teenagers could encourage sexual activity.

If that immunization, which has been proven to work, can save untold numbers of lives, I say go for it. Social conservatives seem to think anything new and different will encourage sexual activity in teenagers.

My feeling is I'd feel a lot worse if my daughter contracted cervical cancer than if she were sexually active. We need to choose our battles, I guess.

Hope I haven't offended anyone.

another beauty of this vaccine is that it gives parents the perfect opportunity to segway into "the talk" if they hadn't before...
you don't have to tell a baby why they're getting an mmr shot but a teenager is going to want to know...it's also the perfect time to tell the child what the vaccine doesn't protect against like bad lovers, pregnancy, gonorrhea, or heartbreak when your first "love" finds someone else...
there's more to sex than the mechanics and i hope this vaccine will wake people up to more than the reality of cancer and the miracle of this vaccine, but also to what kinds of behaviors and thinking can lead to undesirable consequences and what better roads to take...