HPV - Cervical CancerFollow

Sure. But lets be honest here. You're going to have a hard time finding senior medical professionals capable of making the kinds of decisions the CDC has to make who *aren't* financially tied in some way to the medical profession itself. In order to make intelligent decisions about new drug use and testing, you have to have people who have experience with testing out new drugs. Those are going to be people who worked at large companies that researched and developed new drugs (where else do you think they'd come from?). I'm frankly surprised that it was just "some" of the board members who had such ties.

Did the Congressional inquiry determine that the decisions/actions of those with the financial ties were different from those who didn't? Was the decision to use those specific rotoviruses directly influenced by those few members alone? Or would it have happened even if the board consisted of not a single person with any connection with the companies involved?


As amusing as this debate has been, I really think it's just kinda missing the point. I don't doubt at all that on the whole vaccinations do more good then harm. And I don't even have a problem with requiring them when it makes sense to do so. The issue here for me isn't about vaccines in general, but this one in particular. Just because someting is a good idea does not mean that the government should mandate it. And yes, I'm aware that parents can opt out, but what I haven't seen yet is what's involved in opting out? Can you still attend public school? Is the opt out option clearly presented? Is that just for Florida's law? Or are there other states without opt-out? Should we really be making something so "optional" an opt-out instead of an opt-in?

I'm not sure of the accuracy of the statement as made here, but this bit struck me:



I'm not sure exactly what meaning for "noncontagious" they're using here. Since the virus it protects against can certainly be spread from person to person (the usual definition of "contagious"). But I think the basic issue is that the other vaccines required for admission to public school are all tied into something Joph said earlier. They're required not so much to protect just your child, but because your child and a couple dozen others will be crammed into a small area where diseases can quickly and easily spread. Vaccinations are a good idea, but those mandated for school attendance aren't mandated because the state gets to decide what parents must do for their children, but because the state run school system has a responsibility to *not* be a massive transfer point for disease.


Which is true for all other required vaccines. Except this one. I'm pretty sure that sexual contact is not on the curriculum at the average middle school. There is no school mandated or required activity that would put any student at risk for contracting this virus, thus there is really no reason to require that every student be vaccinated against it in order to attend school. If parents want to vaccinate their children with this, by all means make it available. But make it an optional thing that they *can* do, not something they're required to do unless they fill out a zillion forms or jump through some hoops to avoid it.


I'm generally opposed to "for your own good" laws. And this is just another one of them.