My Dear Bunglehorn,

I’m happy to see that your patient is sympathetic with government and media support for Gardasil (often misspelled Guardasil), the HPV vaccine for girls and women. We’ve been working on this for quite some time and we finally had a break when we flipped the conservative Christian Governor Rick Perry. He issued an executive order to the citizens of Texas to vaccinate girls prior to their entering the 6th grade, coincidentally on the same day a county court ruled the governor had no constitutional authority to issue an executive order on an unrelated case. Nonetheless, Gov. Perry’s order instantly elevated the discussion to a national level.

You might wonder, how have we been winning this debate? By deception, of course! As per usual, since the Garden of Eden, we divert attention away from consequences and emphasize the goodness of man’s dominion over himself. Brilliant! Ours is a delicate craft you know. Let’s have a look at our key arguments.

The Economic Argument

Our Deception
Gov. Perry cites the rising health care costs, especially for the states who pick up the tab for the poor.

If there are diseases in our society that are going to cost us large amounts of money, it just makes good economic sense, not to mention the health and well being of these individuals to have those vaccines available. Gov. Rick Perry

The Truth
If they really want to save money, why not get more bang for the buck? Why not mandate the flu vaccine? The flu costs companies and government millions of dollars annually. 36,000 people a year die of the flu – a sharp rise since the 1970s. A Texas teenager just died of the flu. Politicians who are supposed to steward public funds wisely could get a far greater ROI elsewhere, so why the sudden demand for HPV vaccinations?

Well, follow the Money. Merck & Co., the makers of Gardasil, stand to earn billions of dollars from the $360, 3-dose regiment. While we can surely expect the typical “Ask your doctor…” type TV and magazine ads, the company has bankrolled efforts to pass state laws mandating Gardasil since the FDA approved the drug in June 2006. The company doubled its lobby budget channeled through Women in Government, a nonprofit collective of female state legislators across the United States. Merck has an official presence on the Women in Government Business Council and the group’s members have introduced many of the state bills mandating Gardasil.

Gov. Rick Perry has several connections to Merck and Women in Government:

• Perry received $6,000 from Merck’s political action committee during his re-election campaign.
• One of Merck’s three lobbyists in Texas is Mike Toomey, Perry’s former chief of staff.
• Texas Republican state Rep. Dianne White Delisi, the mother-in-law of Perry’s current chief of staff, is a state director for Women in Government.

The Women’s Health Argument

Our Deception
You care about women, don’t you? This issue is about women’s health!

The Truth
This is not an issue about women & health. It is about parent & child relationships, young girls & their upbringing, women & their choices and politicians & greed. Yet we’ve successfully couched this as a women’s health issue because women are truly suffering.

This is the new era of science. We move immediately past peer review and into the public debate. All we need is the media to support our cause. The Austin American-Statesman has run several articles and opt/ed pieces in support of the legislation. Time magazine featured an article on their website home page “Saying Yes to the HPV Vaccine,” about a mother who rushed her daughter to the doctor for a vaccine to “help prevent cancer.” (Note that it’s written in the first person so the reader can more easily connect with the “I” and “me” language.) The best part are the doctor experts normalizing the vaccine, even to the point they believe parents are “in denial” if they elect not to vaccinate their children.

Protecting my child from cancer outweighs any reluctance to ponder her sexual future. “But some parents are totally in denial,” says my longtime pediatrician, Dr. Marc Wager of New Rochelle, N.Y. It’s his practice to discuss the vaccine when parents bring a daughter for a checkup at 11 or 12. Claudia Wallis, Time Magazine

Fantastic. Even if a parent follows this issue, studies the medical criticism and understands the world of promiscuity in which they live, they are “in denial” if they choose not to vaccinate. Since encouraging a life of virtue is an impossible undertaking, they should have a contingency. The government knows better than the parent. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The Gender Equality Argument

Our Deception
When you support Gardasil, you are supporting women’s rights and equal health treatment.

The Truth
Virtually all contraceptive and STD studies are performed on women, often to their detriment. Early studies of female contraceptives resulted in severe permanent side effects, including death. In this tradition of fixing women (pun intended), Gardasil is not without its side effects either, including pelvic and muscle pain, muscle weakness, severe stomach pain, stiff and swelling joints, severe headaches, dizziness, temporary loss of vision, slurred speech, involuntary contraction of limbs, fever, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. The National Vaccine Information Center even issued a warning over Gardasil side effects when some girls lost consciousness during apparent seizures. Gender equality would advocate more research on how to block penile HPV transmission before it becomes an issue for women. As it stands, Gardasil is a defensive posture, not an offensive one (both puns intended).

The New England Journal of Medicine published a study that found male circumcision and a lower number of men’s sexual partners reduced the risk of HPV infection. So ancient common sense follows, if men would get circumcised and keep their zippers zipped, women would have less risk of penile HPV transmission.

The Impact Argument

Our Deception
Gardasil will help prevent cancer.

The Truth
It is true that HPV leads to genetic warts and cervical cancer in some cases. It is also true that Gardasil has been found to help prevent four strands of HPV. Contrary to what Gardasil supporters claim of their opponents, the vaccine is not evil. The primary objection is the sweeping legislation to force the vaccinations as well as the implications of such a law.

The lauded study used to support the vaccine, published in the 2002 New England Journal of Medicine (just a few months after the aforementioned circumcision study, BTW) evaluated only one strand of HPV (type 16) and was conducted on nearly 2400 female subjects aged 16 to 23. There is no information on girls 9-12 years old, the age Merck and it’s partners in government recommend for vaccination. There are no long term studies of the drug’s effectiveness in a large population either. Merck advises girls and women be re-vaccinated every five years. Even then, as the same study shows, Gardasil is not 100% effective of protecting against HPV, let alone the litany of STDs that have skyrocketed following our masterpiece, The Sexual Revolution.

The study raised other questions among peer reviewers:

To better ascertain the comparability of the two study groups, we are interested in knowing the balance of other risk factors for cervical cancer, such as socioeconomic status, seropositivity for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and use of oral contraceptives. In addition, the investigators excluded a substantial high-risk group (those who reported more than five male sex partners).
Letter to the Editor, NEJM

The National Cancer Institute reminds us that 1) abstinence is the best method of avoidance and 2) correlation does not equal causation in Cervical Cancer Prevention

The finding of HPV viral DNA integrated in most cellular genomes of invasive cervical carcinomas supports epidemiologic data linking this agent to cervical cancer; however, direct causation has not been demonstrated.
The National Cancer Institute

Even when the FDA approved Gardasil, it noted the obvious discrepancy between the vaccine being 5 years old versus the 10 to 15 years it takes for abnormal cells to develop. There hasn’t been enough testing to prove Gardasil can prevent cervical cancer, it can only make a prediction based on what is known about cervical cancer and genital HPV.

The study period was not long enough for cervical cancer to develop, the prevention of these cervical precancerous lesions is believed highly likely to result in the prevention of those cancers.Food & Frug Administration

It’s obvious why Merck and some of the politicians in its pocket are rushing to embrace Gardasil, but these studies don’t support sweeping laws requiring such a new and relatively untested vaccine. What’s the rush?

The Good of Society Argument

The Deception
Gardasil Is good for the health and prosperity of the public.

The Truth
Can medicine effectively stem a pandemic rooted in sex outside of marriage? Where is the precedent?

Following the mass distribution of contraception, history has shown a rise in cohabitation, earlier onset of sexual activity, higher incidences of STDs, higher teen pregnancies and a massive upsurge in abortions. Likewise, mandating the HPV vaccine will endow women with a false sense of security, leading them to partake in more risky behavior.

Fortunately, the media is spoon-feeding our propaganda and ignoring those who question the benefits or investigate the intentions of the parties involved. As long as people are willing to engage in abnormal behavior, we will enable drug companies to bring a cure.

With regards to your patient, keep it simple. Convince him that this is about saving women, preventing cancer and helping women’s health for a stronger society. You might even hint that a God is unjust for such hard punishment, especially in the unique cases where people contract HPV outside genital contact. When he hears people declare they’ll raise their daughters with scruples, remind him how even the best intentions can be so naive.

Warmest Regards,
Wigglebrick

3 Comments to “HPV: The Gift of Love”

1. 1

   We’ve got the Enemy’s camp in a tizzy over this one, LOL. Obviously they’d prefer an opt-in program than being forced to opt out. We stopped forcing parents to opt out of prayer in school for religious reasons. Yet we want people to opt out of vaccines for religious reasons! Kudos and a hazah! to the mad genius behind this one.

   Slugbone
   March 15th, 2007 @ 7:48 AM

2. 2

   I love the argument that parents can opt out. Uh, yeah! if they don’t, their kids won’t go to public schools!

   But the real genius is having to cite religion as the reason for opting out. This stigmatizes religious people as unreasonable (i.e. those crazy Christians are against medicine, women’s health, curing cancer, etc. etc. etc.) But more importantly, a parent’s inalienable right to decide for their child supersedes any other person’s right to decide for a child. This is the basis for the Enemy’s theological doctrine, “the domestic church” and a parent’s responsibility as the primary teacher of the faith to their children. Therefore, Christians don’t object to the forced vaccination because their religion says the vaccine is wrong (it doesn’t), they object because they are THE principle guardian of their child. When intrinsic parental rights are threatened, their freedom of religious expression is threatened. This is a lofty goal indeed.

   Grubby
   March 20th, 2007 @ 7:56 AM

3. 3

   @2 – Sure, we want to weaken religious freedom, but not to the point men no longer have a choice. This might be a loophole for the Enemy’s ever-present grace to seep in.

   Another concern – Gardasil holds the promises of mercy, liberty and second chances, both for society and individuals. The Enemy’s religion is truly one of mercy, liberty and second chances. In that sense, these promises are gifts. And as with all gifts, they must be properly given, received and stewarded.

   Therefore, we must see that these gifts are squandered. For those who recognize the vaccine as a gift, be sure to confuse its merits with the need for a government mandate. After all, this is the same government that puts a “woman’s choice” on a pedastal, yet takes that choice away with Gardasil. Both situations serve our objective.

   Wigglebrick
   March 21st, 2007 @ 8:02 AM

The Vault

Browse this site by Topic, by Title or by Date.