I was listening to the news this week and heard about a bit of health controversy over a statement by Republican presidential candidate, Michele Bachmann, on NBC's "Today" show. In her statement, she said that she met a mother after the presidential debate in Florida who claimed that her young daughter had been suffering from mental retardation after taking the HPV vaccine. HPV vaccines, specifically Cervarix and Gardasil, protect women from the certain types of human papillomavirus that can cause cervical cancer. Texas Governor and also presidential candidate, Rick Perry, issued an executive order requiring sixth-grade girls to be given the HPV vaccine in 2007 and Bachmann's statement was meant to criticize his decision as an overexertion of power.
Nevertheless, I believe that political figures should check their facts when making such claims, especially when it's about the health of people across the US. The Institute of Medicine has found absolutely no evidence that links HPV vaccines to mental retardation and deemed it "generally safe". Cervical cancer affects about 12,000 women every year in the US and kills about 4,000 of those women. Most people generally have faith in what government representatives do or say, but it only goes to show how important it is for people to be educated in health, especially when it comes to cancer.
Part of Bachmann's response to questioning by another conservative talk show host about her statement was, “I am not a doctor, I am not a scientist, I’m not a physician”.
Here's a link to a NYTimes article about the matter:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/us/politics/republican-candidates-battle-over-hpv-vaccine.html
I think that the HPV vaccine should be an option, not a requirement because HPV is not a contagious disease like many of the required vaccinations for entry into elementary school. Long term effectiveness of Gardasil is still unknown because the vaccine is so new and the suspected cancer-causing types are ever-changing and evolving. Furthermore, such attention and political urgency should be used to impact prevention of other STIs as well, such as HIV. Although HIV does receive a large amount of public healh attention, state and federal mandates on HIV testing for all, are almost impossible to pass.
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