Originally posted by slykiwicervical cancer is not an STD(or STI) and so its an ordinary immunization. if you get any other meaning out
of this thread then your obviously retarded.
Cervical cancer is not an STD. Nor is there in fact a vaccine for cervical cancer. The ads may make it sound that way, but this is not true.
The vaccine being discussed protects (supposedly) against infection with four specific strands of Human Papillomavirus. These four strands are almost
exclusively transmitted through sexual encounters. I don't know what the latest figures are, but far more than half of adult Americans (and I'm sure
it's similar elsewhere) have been exposed to sexually transmitted HPV.
The title of the original article is absurd, but this is a vaccine to protect against a sexually transmitted virus.
Whether it works the way they want it to is very much in question. They don't know for sure yet, for example, if protecting against these 4 strains
of HPV (two of which can lead to cancer and two of which can lead to warts) may increase women's danger of developing cancer from one of the
several other strains of HPV that are floating around.
Really, the point to this is not what the shot was for. The point is that, at least as reported, neither the girl nor her mother had given permission
for her to be vaccinated. That makes vaccinating her illegal. If in fact she had decided she wanted the shot against her mother's will, that's
another question, but that is not how the story reads at all.
This is not a cervical cancer vaccination! This is a vaccine for a common, sexually transmitted virus called Human Papillomavirus that occasionally
(maybe about 2% of the time) leads to cancer or pre-cancerous changes.
[edit on 10/14/08 by americandingbat]