From New Scientist:
Deaths from cervical cancer could jump fourfold to a million a year by 2050, mainly in developing countries. This could be prevented by soon-to-be-approved vaccines against the virus that causes most cases of cervical cancer – but there are signs that opposition to the vaccines might lead to many preventable deaths.
The trouble is that the human papilloma virus (HPV) is sexually transmitted. So to prevent infection, girls will have to be vaccinated before they become sexually active, which could be a problem in many countries.
In the US, for instance, religious groups are gearing up to oppose vaccination, despite a survey showing 80 per cent of parents favour vaccinating their daughters. “Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV,” says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a leading Christian lobby group that has made much of the fact that, because it can spread by skin contact, condoms are not as effective against HPV as they are against other viruses such as HIV.
“Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex,” Maher claims, though it is arguable how many young women have even heard of the virus.
Unfortunately, these problems are not unique to the US – which is particularly infuriating outside the first world, where lack of good medical care makes dying of cervical cancer more likely.
India is planning to do its own clinical trials, but will not test the vaccine in young girls. “This is not possible until around the age of marriage in India,” Ganguly says.
Once licensed, the vaccine should be given to younger girls, he says. “But people will say ‘My girl is very virtuous, why vaccinate?’ It will be a real challenge, not like other vaccines.”
Via Tennessee Guerilla Women (which is a really excellent blog, by the way).
What a crock of horse-dung. Vaccinations are optional and yet these groups would presume to attempt to deny the majority opinion based on their skewed morality. It’s this sort of thing that earns religious groups animosity and disgust, and well deservedly so.
From the NS article:
So, rather than marketing this vaccine as someting that will prevent women from dying for the terrible crime of having sex, they should market it to men.
There could be a series of commercials, all shown in order.
First up: Penis Enhancement drugs or supplements. Because you know, a man just isn’t a man unless he has a really big dick.
Second up: Viagra or some generic version. Because you know, a man just isn’t a man unless he get it up and keep it there.
Third up: Merck’s new HPV vaccine. The announcer could comment:”Men, keep that big, hard dick looking good! Prevent Genital Warts.” The little tiny fine print could run along the bottom of the commercial telling about the possible side effects that may include keeping women from dying. Because you know, helping women is just a side effect to anything that might improve men’s lives.
You could even market it to all those religious types. The ones who believe that men are the masters of women. That a man’s job is to be Shepherd of his flock. The ads could emphasize that a good man keeps all his goods and property well cared for and maintained, so they should vaccinate all their pets and women so they don’t lose any value. Because there is nothing worse than a good working dog or woman dying at an inconvenient time and having to be replaced.
Why is it that anything that involves women and sex is subject to great moral judgements? Birth control, abortion, drugs to prevent cancer caused by viruses spread by sex. The only things I see men having to worry about are if they getting enough sex, from enough women, and whether or not their equipment is big and sturdy enough for the task. There don’t seem to be any big moral judgements about men and sex.
Why does everyone want to control female sexuality? What the hell is so scary about that? Why is something that must be surpressed?
Aside from that, this logic is like saying “I won’t vaccinate my daughter for polio because she doesn’t go swimming”.
I thikn the answer to “why?” is simple, they think kids who catch STDs, even lethal ones, deserve to get them s punishment. These are the original “AIDS cures fags” people, and now it’s being proven that even thier own children are not free from the hatred that they have for anyone who has taboo sex.
Yes, they’d consider it a just punishment if thier own child died of an STD, and a small price to pay even if that STD was contracted through rape.
Why do they think that way? I think it has to do with the god they belive in. the worship an angry, intolerant bastard who wants people desperatley afraid of him, and punishes people with the ultimate penalty for small infractions. They worship the god of conditional love, but mostly the got of hate and intolerance.
You couldn’t ask for clearer evidence that the fundamentalists really do want control over women’s bodies, and are happy to use really nasty diseases to enforce it. Sick.
These vacines can’t hit the market fast enough. Cervical cancer caused by HPV is major problem. A woman I know spent months staring at photos of cervical cancer for a research hospital, and she still shudders. And asymptomatic HPV is extremely common among sexually-active college students.
And it doesn’t occur to any of these folks that “virtuous” people can be married to unfaithful spouses who can bring home an STD??
Otherwise, what y’all said.
Oh, and Eric, to expand on your comment, I read somewhere that something like 50-70% of women have HPV. Mostly asymptomatic. Which has me thinking there’s a comperable percentage of men who have it as well.
Let’s bring on the vaccine. If they oppose it, they don’t have to get it, but they can bloody well stop forcing their beliefs down my thoat.
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“Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex,”? Maher claims
Hey, Maher: Fuck you. I got your licence right here.
Sorry, got a little blunt there.
Cough. Anyway. Yes, Sheelzebub; remember Victorian times, when men visited prostitutes and wives, the Angels of the Homes and sexually ignorant, got diseases from their husbands and then passed them on to the children through pregnancy. Ah, but we mustn’t teach “good girls” about their sexual health, and we mustn’t limit men’s libidos.
I’m wondering why this is (seemingly) only being marketed to women. Obviously men get HPV too, that’s how most women who have it got it, from a man. And it can become symptomatic in men too, mostly men who have sex with men. It seems to me like this vaccine should be marketed to everyone as that would be the most effective way of ensuring that all vulnerable parties and possible carriers are protected.
God save us from the bible thumpers should we ever develop an AIDS vaccine.
I’m guessing, though, that the might of the phramacutical company that developed this vaccine will win in the end. Where there is money to be made…
Sheelzebub, 50-70% of sexually active men and women wouldn’t surprise me a bit. (That’s still lower than HSV I, which shows up in 90% of some age groups.)
According to my friend who worked at the research hospital, barrier methods don’t protect particularly well against HPV. And because so many people are infected, and so few of them have symptoms, the risks are pretty widespread. A decent vacine would help tremendously.
What’s odd about that, is I thought we already did….
What’s most disturbing about this article, though, is what mousehounde pointed out, and others said. Why is it that vaccinating men isn’t considered the same thing as encouraging promiscuity? As giving them a license to engage in premarital sex?
I suppose it’s because the poor men can’t help having sex all the time, what with their evolutionary heritage telling them to spread their genes every which way.
Why don’t we all go out and exercise our constitutional rights and protest against those who are trying to demolish our secular society. We are the vast majority after all (but our numbers are shrinking by the day).
Well, that’s the Family Research Council for you–double standards and deadly diseases as divine punishment. Whenever a reporter needs some knee-jerk quotes, the FRC offers one-stop shopping.
What’s a little more unusual is the drug companies seem to be primarily targetting women. (Well, one of them is also targetting non-cancerous wart strains for both men and women.)
Is there any medical rationale behind this–perhaps the relative risks of vacination versus cervical cancer–or is this just a marketing decision?
Eric, It seems that it would be more effective to vaccinate both men and women according to this study. They conclude, though, that it might not be more cost effective (whatever that means). I’m not sure if vaccination is a CDC program or will be run by pharma here in the US. Elsewhere, it obviously would not be run by the CDC. The authors of the study have an interesting discussion of how to do this effectively in developing nations. All religious issues aside, vaccinating all the population would be really expensive and it might only be feasilbe to start with girls. Moreover, if you could vaccinate all the girls, then the main sufferers would be aided (which is the point). HPV also affects homosexual men much more frequently than heterosexual men. I don’t know why (biologically) put I have seen the data from several independent sources, so that would also be an issue. I guess that would also depend on the religious/social biases of the nation.
I may be wrong, but I think the planned vaccination program (the clinical trials are about over) will be run by the CDC.
The vaccine is effective in men (who are the major carriers).
Hope that answers something.
Wow! You think the bias against vaccination at young ages is limited to the religious right; check this abstract out:
“strong disinclination to vaccinate at 13 yrs.” So much for the CDC plans if they cannot get the docs to do it. The whole country is in denial.
WTF?
let them die? because otherwise they might, god forbid, have sex?
I always think I can’t be shocked by the FRC and their ilk any more, I’ve been shocked so much, and then….
i’m speechless.
” . . . because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex.”
Uhh, newsflash, lady. They don’t NEED a license to engage in premarital sex. It is their right.
Whenever a reporter needs some knee-jerk quotes, the FRC offers one-stop shopping.
Eric got it in one.
What will be even more fun is when somebody looking for a quote asks a FRC wackaloon “But won’t this be an excellent way to protect rape victims who might otherwise be given a deadly disease by their attacker?” It’s almost worth starting a betting pool to see what insane response they’d come up with.
I’d bet on “for every honest girl saved from a diseased rapist, it will be ‘abused’ by 10 sluts who deserve cancer .”
3-2 with an over-under on “vaccines like this are more dangerous than the disease they prevent.”
Most women will get this disease in their lives, or at least the virus that causes it in most people (some people seem to have natural genetic/immune system resistance, just as with sun and skin cancer.). Even if they are celibate till marriage and monogomous thereafter. It used to be one of the primary killers of married women – before PAP smears.
Why? Because of the goddamned sexual double standard – that Christians pretend not to subscribe to, but only enforce upon women. Just as innocent wives got syphilis and passed it on to their children, before penicillin – and yes, there were “godly” sorts who said that penicillin was a bad thing, since it would reward promiscuity by taking away God’s punishment.
I was waiting for this, expecting it. I know my former-fellow Xtian Talibanis pretty well.
These people want mothers to die. That’s the frame. Be brutal with it. The medical statistics going back to the 1800s are out there.
Hammer home that any woman who has sex with any man who isn’t a virgin, is at risk for this. If Joe Smoe Promiskeeper wasn’t a virgin when he married his wife, he’s probably given her the virus that can cause cervical cancer. Does he want his daughters to get cancer? Does he expect that they will marry virgin males who will be forever faithful? If he can’t answer that with a truthfully honest yes, then he wants his daughters to die horribly of internal disease, leaving his grandkids orphaned.
Yeah, that’s really Christian of them.
(Just swap it around when asking it of Mrs. Joe – was your husband a virgin when you married him? Are all Christian husbands 100% faithful in marriage? You know better than that. So why do you want your daughters to risk death by cancer, and your grandkids to lose their mom? It isn’t just “sinners” who get diseases, after all.)
Ooh, good ones, karpad. I’d put a straight 3-1 on “Rape is not a good mechanism for transmitting this kind of disease.”
bellatrys, I’d personally stick with the ‘was your husband a virgin when you married him?’ because almost none of them are–you know that if you bring up unfaithful husbands, they’ll just say that it’s the woman’s fault, because if she had been a good enough wife hubby would never have strayed.
firsyly, let me say i have hpv.
secondly, let me say that vaccine is a wonderful thing, but too late for me!
thirdly, let me explain that there are multiple strains of hpv and the vaccine, as far as i am aware, is only for the high-risk (i.e. cancer causing strains), therefore it will not prevent the low-risk strains (i.e. gential warts).
fourthly, i think the reasons why the vaccine is being pushed towards girls is simply because high-risk hpv, which the vaccine is for, is not an issue for men. i think that from a shere economic standpoint, vaccinating girls / women would make more sense. now, don’t get me wrong, on the surface it does read like they are, as usual, shifting the blame, again, onto women / girls, but i’m not entirely sure of that right now.
fifthly, there is a lot of misinformation on hpv out there and so i will say that both men and women are equally susceptible to contracting and transmitting hpv, but the problem is that the high-risk strains are only deadly for women. the cervix is a wonderful place to corrupt, unfortunately, and so this skin virus can easily mutate the cells, because they are soft and unprotected by a thick outer layer, and hence turn cancerous and malignant. if penile skin was in anyway like the skin of the vagina and cervix, men would have the same issues. so, what i am trying to say is that we can all get hpv, it’s just that it is only deadly for some. which is why i am not so sure the idea to only vaccinate women is coming from a negative space.
Actually, HPV commonly causes anal cancers as well. But since we as a society are in denial about men being penetrated sexually, it doesn’t get mentioned much. The assumption seems to be that such men do not count as “men,” when generalizing about risks, as mediaeval as that may seem.
no jasper, it doesn’t get mentioned as much because, statistically speaking, it doesn’t happen as much. penile and anal cancers are negligable in comparision to cervical and vaginal cancers.
You’re right that cervical cancer is more common. But, given that (A) most women who get HPV get it from men and (B) a sizable minority of men are also vulnerable to HPV-related cancers then it logically makes sense that both men and women should be vaccinated routinely against the disease. I would argue that the reason we’re not making that logical leap is because we don’t want to admit that (A) men who have sex with women have a responsibility to protect those women from disease and (B) men who have sex with men have a right to be healthy and safe too. All of this is because of misogyny, wherein society declares that anyone who gets a penis stuck inside them is worthless.
a) i’m not arguing that men should not be vaccinated. i simply raised a reason as to why i would be suspicious of the reasoning that women/girls are only being proposed to be vaccinated as inherently misogynistic or woman-blaming.
b) men give it to women who give it to men who give it to women and so on and do forth. again, my argument was from an economic perspective and so, since women are the ones overwhelming at risk and dying from this viral infection, i can see why it makes sense, economically speaking, to only vaccinate them.
c) “sizable minority”, please. that is grossly misleading. i don’t have my facts and figures to hand, since i am in the process of moving country again, but i assure you the minority is not sizable. which is not to say that i am valuing women’s lives more, one death is too much regardless of sex/gender, but please do not exaggerate the risk this virus poses to men.
d) women also have anal sex with men. both as the penetrated and the penetrators. since hpv can last for a significant time outside of the human body, transmission can be by sex toys (and towels, soap etc etc). therefore, again, this is not a gay male issue in that sense. in fact, in my opinion, this is not a male issue at all, and i would have to question your insistence on making it one, as a possible act of sexism in and of itself.
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i can see why it makes sense, economically speaking, to only vaccinate them.
This doesn’t really make sense, economically speaking, unless you presume that vaccines are so expensive that only half the population can be vaccinated. A man who is vaccinated can’t now give HPV to his non-vaccinated female partners.
“therefore, again, this is not a gay male issue in that sense. in fact, in my opinion, this is not a male issue at all, and i would have to question your insistence on making it one, as a possible act of sexism in and of itself.”
I love when homophobia cloaks itself in feminism.
Clearly I am sexist, that is why one of my reasons listed for vaccinating men was to further protect women. Since there will never be 100% vaccination rates in any population absent some kind of fascist and invasive governmental coercion, it makes sense to vaccinate as many as possible in each population. Some women will then be protected from HPV by the vaccination they receive, some by the vaccination their male partner received, some by the vaccination their female partner received. Same for men. What i hear you saying is that gay men’s health doesn’t matter at all because there are less gay men than straight women . That is homophobia no matter how “civilized” and feminist y ou try to make it sound.
That’s just downright silly, beyond over-extending the identification of sexism in a way that doesn’t benefit anyone. Jasper is correct, women would benefit most by all possible carriers being eliminated from the equation, and yes, men would benefit too.
mythago, yes, it is my assumption that vaccines are quite expensive. drugs, in general, tend to be. for instance, take aldara, an anti-hpv cream – $250 per box of 12 sachets. 1 sachet per use, used 3 times per week until the warts are gone. for many people, one box is not even the beginning of enough. of course, if the vaccination is not expensive, then i withdraw my suggestion. and please, remember, it was just a suggestion.
jasper, “What i hear you saying is that gay men’s health doesn’t matter at all because there are less gay men than straight women.” i would say go to the doctor since you evidently have major problems going on with your ears. please read my comments before you repsond, it will make for a more interesting discussion. how anyone could translate “one death is too many” into a homophobic statement is, frankly, mindboggling.
kim, cervical cancer (caused by hpv) will kill around 4 to 5,000 women this year in the us. hpv related deaths will not kill 4 to 5,000 men, gay or straight, or anywhere near that amount. this is why i maintain that hpv is primarily a women’s health issue. a focus on men would have the tendency to marginalise the fact that thousands of women die as a result of being infected by this virus. i don’t want that to happen.
for instance, in the non-western world, cervical cancer is still the #1 or #2 (sorry, can’t remember which) cancer killer of women. and before the invention of the pap, it was the #1 cancer killer of women in the west too. penile or anal cancer is not a #1 or #2 cancer killer of men in the west or anywhere, now or 50 years ago. several hundred thousand women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer this year. this means that hpv is a serious issue for women and i think highlighting the, however tragic but ultimately rare, men that are also killed by this disease is counter-intuitive. this isn’t homophobia or sexism, is simply a request to remain focused on who really, in the numbers game, is at risk.
again, since you all seem to have a little problem understanding me, i am not stating that men should not be vaccinated. i merely suggested economics as a reason why women are the focus of the who to vaccinate debate. well, that and because it is a generally accepted point that cervical cancer is a women’s health issue.
You did say, “that this is not a gay male issue in that sense.” And you’ve said that this is not a significant health issue for men, completely negating the fact that gay men have different sexual habits and therefore different risk factors for sexually transitted disease than gay men. That’s heterosexist. That’s bad for gay men. It means that a significant risk to their health is ignored. To the extent that we differ from straight men, we deserve to be evaluated by different epidemiological criteria.
Christ. Most men don’t need regular pap smears, either, but I’d be pretty screwed if the free clinic made generalizations like yours about that particular procedure.
Ahem. That should read, “different sexual habits and therefore different risk factors for sexually transitted disease than straight men.”
i am being neither heterosexist nor homophobic, but i was obviously not clear enough in my “not a gay male issue in that sense” statement, so let me try again:
anal sex is not a gay male only domain. sure, many gay males engage in anal sex, but many do not. and, as i mentioned, many heteros engage in anal sex. so, to my mind, saying that anal cancer is a gay issue, as jasper seemed to be implying, strikes me as strange because it is to assume that to be a gay male is to engage in anal sex, which is the first false assumption, and also to assume that no one else does, which is again, false.
on the topic, here (it’s a pdf, be warned) is a good fact and figure doc from cancer.org. it’s from 2002, but i hope you will see the relevance. to save you looking, i’ll transcribe a few of the relevant figures over:
anus, anal canal, anorectum cancers
estimated new cases: 3,900 (1,700 male, 2,200 female)
estimated new deaths: 500 (200 male, 300 female)
cervix, vulva, vaginal and other female genital cancers
estimated new cases: 18,800
estimated new deaths: 5,700
penis and other male genital cancers
estimated new cases: 1,200
estimated new deaths: 200
perhaps now my points will be clearer.
anal cancer is not a male, gay or straight, issue. it is a human issue.
deaths from hpv inspired cancers are a predominently female worry. and any insistence on spinning them in an androcentric manner is to overemphasise the risks to men.
should we start highlighting the male breast cancer deaths too?
breast cancer
estimated new cases: 205,000 (1,500 male, 203,500 female)
estimated new deaths: 40,000 (400 male, 39,600 female)
yes it is tragic that men are dying from these cancers; it is equally as tragic as the women that are dying. however, they just aren’t dying in the amounts that women are, so you’ll forgive me for wanting the public to remain focused on educating the people that are at risk the most. and that is women.
i merely suggested economics as a reason why women are the focus of the who to vaccinate debate.
There has been no suggestion of which I’m aware that economics limits how many doses of the vaccine we can produce such that we need to prioritize vaccinating women; nor any suggestion that vaccinating both men and women would make the cost prohibitively expensive.
If men are a vector for a disease that affects women, then economically speaking, you’re wise to vaccinate men too.
i’m not talking about economics limiting the production of the vaccine, what a strange presumption! the drug industry has one of the most lucrative in america (the world?). the pharmacutical industry is not lacking in money, that seems too obvious to state.
i’m talking about the economics of distribution. as in, how much will it cost me, or my health insurance company, to have this vaccination? that’s where i think the problem lies.
Since no one has suggested any economic reas0n for not marketing the vaccine to anyone, or for not vaccinating all groups at significant risk, it doesn’t make any sense to keep pointing to a potential economic rationale.
Your analogy is really weak. All men, because they are men, do not have anywhere near as great a risk for breast cancer as women. There aren’t any large, insular, easily targeted groups of men whose circumstances put them at greater risk of developing breast cancer. Gay men, because most of them do have anal sex, are at a much higher risk for anal cancer than straight men, most of whom do not have passive anal sex. “Gay” is the operative term here, not “male.”
Here’s a better analogy than yours: some men are at risk for cervical cancer. They are at a comparable risk for HPV, potentially even a greater one. Does it make sense to not market the vaccine to them, or to leave them and their special circumstances out of the equation entirely, just because their comparably likely deaths make up a tiny number of the whole?
You’re saying that a minority population should lose the right to effective treatment because they’re a minority. That’s crap.
Then you don’t have an argument at all. If a group of people is too small to have epidemiological significance, then they’re too small to affect your premiums.
piny, you think it is senseless to suggest a reason that has not been previously suggested? how odd and limiting for you. are you also of the mind that the media reports all the rationale behind any given situation? and have you read every piece of information regarding the hpv vaccine to know this hasn’t been reported?
piny, all men have breasts, they are just underdeveloped, yet the last time i looked at an anatomy book, no men have cervixes.
did you even look at the stats? in 2002 more women died of anal cancer than men. so your point is?
here’s why i, and countless others out here in ‘tank green the terrible homophobe land’ think it is very dangerous to tie a sex act to one particular sexuality:
right wing religious conservatives use the the biblical condemnantion of sodomy as a sin, to say that since gay men are the ones practising sodomy, they are by their very nature a sinful, godless abomination and therefore condemned to hell.
so i shall repeat myself, many, many, many gay men do not have anal sex, just as many heteros do.
and once again, yay for the non-reading piny’s in the house, i did not say men should not be vaccinated, so your last comments are ridiculous and false. hush those tantrums.
i’m talking about the economics of distribution. as in, how much will it cost me, or my health insurance company, to have this vaccination? that’s where i think the problem lies.
Vaccination programs fall under the banner of public health. That’s why you see vaccinations offered at free clinics and why the US government shields vaccine makers from liability.
Now, either we are going to vaccinate everybody (in which case you get the subsidies, and men vs. women is not an issue) because we want to stop the spread of the disease, or we offer it voluntarily to anyone who wants it, like flu shots. While we heavily promote flu shots to at-risk persons, it is not prohibitively expensive, and much of the cost is subsizided (again), so it’s not ‘uneconomic’ to offer it to everyone.
Add to this the fact that it can help prevent a nasty form of cancer, and the balance tips towards “lots of subsidy, heavily promoted”.
I think a marketing effort aimed at parents is a great idea, no matter how you slice it–downplay the idea that this is sexually transmitted, which makes people think of slutting around and play up the fact that a high percentage of adults have it.
thank you mythago for actually addressing something i said, as opposed to following the trend of falsely attributing arguments to me. ahem. i certainly did not know that the vaccination would be paid for and administered by the (american) government. do you have a link confirming that? i would like to read more.
in the uk, this would reinforce my opinion that the drive to vaccinate women is economically based, being that our health budget is always and in all ways, overstretched. perhaps the us government has a much larger surplus in its health budget. although, i have to say, that is not very well reflected in the free clinics i was forced to use (no insurance) during my years in america. very poorly funded indeed.
I know that it’s a vaccine that the public health officials want to give to as many women as possible. I know that it’s a vaccine that will prevent cancer. That indicates that it’s economically sound to vaccinate everyone at risk. Gay men are at risk. They should be vaccinated.
I’m a man, and I have a cervix. I’m also part of a very small, very endangered, oft-overlooked minority that frequently has difficulty obtaining good healthcare, particularly sexual and reproductive healthcare. And believe it or not, my behaviors and my body put me at potentially _higher_ risk of HPV than many straight women. Given your inability to think in any but the most obtuse generalizations, I’m not surprised you don’t get it. Think for a few minutes. It’ll come to you.
Your statistical readings are ludicrous. The point that mythago and I are both making is that it’s stupid and senseless to split vaccination priority by gender lines rather than behavioral lines, since behavior, not gender, is what puts people at risk. Gay men are at risk because of their behavior. Gender is not a deciding factor in determining their risk; to put it slowly, they aren’t protected by virtue of being men. Men are protected from breast cancer by virtue of being men; their bodies make them a very, very low risk. And of course more women died from anal cancer than men. There are more straight women than gay men, and probably more straight women having anal sex than gay men.
Bwa ha ha ha! Extrapolate that argument to HIV transmission sometime, and ask a gay man if he’d like AIDS education funding cut for gay men because, y’know, not all of them have anal sex, or unprotected sex, or multiple partners. I didn’t say that women didn’t have anal sex, just that lots and lots of gay men do. The only people associating disease with immorality are people who don’t believe that homosexuality is morally neutral in the first place. And letting gay men get sick isn’t going to give them less ammunition, is it?
Yeah, but lots and lots of them do, at rates at least as high as straight women. I have no problem with emphasizing the risk to gay men who have anal sex; you’re the one who wants to be inspecific here, not me.
*Snort* No, you just said that they should be left out of the equation altogether, because your illogical reading of statistics shows that they’re statistically insignificant, and also because you’re worried about your insurance premiums. That’s nothing like saying their health is a low priority, nooooo, not at all.
i certainly did not know that the vaccination would be paid for and administered by the (american) government. do you have a link confirming that? i would like to read more.
That’s not what I said. I said that the United States government protects vaccine manufacturers from liability (driving down their costs), and that vaccination in the US is considered a public-health issue. Vaccines often are subsidized to some degree by the US or state governments, e.g. by low-income health programs offering vaccinations for free. Being vaccinated is generally a requirement for attending school.
I’d have to know more about how you in the UK fund vaccinations.
piny, i’m not going to address most of what you wrote because it is ridiculous hyperbole based off of, what i will now take to be, an intentional misreading of what i have been saying. this exchange has become very meaningless for me, how about you?
these are my two points, which i will articulate once more. if you will actually take a moment to read and comprehend them, you will see how pointless this exchange has been. all of your snorting has come about from your strange insistence on arguing against things i am not actually saying:
1) i have not, and will never, say that men, regardless of their sexuality, should not be vaccinated. i merely suggested that the powers that be, are targeting women, not because of inherent sexism, as lots of people in this thread have suggested, but because of the economic costs involved in the distribution of the vaccine. money, money, money drives the world – especially the american one.
2) hpv is a women’s health issue because women are overwhelmingly at risk, especially if we look at non-western countries. i find it odd that anyone would argue against this obvious fact. when the same amount of gay men start dying i will think of this is a gay issue, but right now that isn’t the case. this does not mean that i do not care about gay men, it means simply that i believe women are the ones that will benefit most from an educational drive surrounding hpv. i think this because they will.
perhaps what you don’t grasp, is that educational health drives, by virtue of their very nature, have to generalise. you might dislike that fact, but they do. these are not my rules, i am just explaining them for you. for instance, in the breast cancer drive, to focus on the 400 men that died in 2002 from breast cancer, would be to overemphasise the risk to them, being that, in comparison, 40,000 women died. so, to use this as a parallel, to focus on the 400 men, who may or may not have been gay, who died in 2002 from penile and anal cancer, would be an overemphasis, when 6,000 women also died. it would probably also be confusing, since people have a tendency to not fully read information and just latch onto certain points, words or phrases, via confirmation bias, to generally reinforce certain worldviews. in this way, it is best to keep messages clean, pure and simple and let those that are really interested in the matter seek further information.
directing your anger at me, regarding the structure of public health campaigns is misdirected. i would suggest you take your snorting and trot on over to whatever is the appropriate lobby group or senator, and articulate your demands there.
mythago, got ya. do you know if the hpv vaccine is subsidised by the us government? it doesn’t make me change my mind though. :) i still think that economics and not straight sexism is dictating the women only drive, but thanks very much for the info. in the uk, we have a socialised healthcare system. it is entirely (and poorly) funded by the state.
So you weren’t just pointing out the potential reason for the public health campaign to target women, you support its rationale. You don’t think that HPV in gay men is a public health issue.
I’m telling you that that is a ridiculous standard, totally unfair to impose on a minority group, and not one that public health officials follow. More white women than black women will die this year in this country of breast cancer. Does that mean that black women are at a lower risk? Does that mean that they are treated more effectively, or diagnosed more reliably, or that they receive better medical care? No. It means that _there aren’t as many black women_. Black women as a separate group are actually at a higher risk of dying of breast cancer, because they are less likely to be diagnosed and treated. _This_ is a public health concern. Fewer transwomen than non-trans-women die of AIDS each year. Does this mean that transwomen are less likely to contract HIV? Does it mean that they receive better treatment? No. It means that _transwomen are a tiny minority_. In fact, they have a _much higher_ likelihood of contracting HIV.
Both black women and transwomen deserve to be evaluated separately based on their separate circumstances. Lumping their risk and corresponding allocation in with a larger, lower-risk group, when both can be easily defined and separately evaluated, makes no sense. And in both cases, it would work out to dead women. It doesn’t make any sense to split the budget–for R&D, coverage, subsidies, education campaigns, whatever–along gendered lines if _gender is not the determining factor in risk_. Gay men are a minority. Of course there are fewer of them dying; there are fewer of them to begin with. And you’re constructing strawmen here yourself, if you think that I ever said that women shouldn’t be targeted as well.
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Oh, for the love of–I’m the idiot? For fuck’s sake. I’m not a fucking hermaphrodite.* Guess again. I’m sure you’ll get it eventually, TG.
*Also, go check out http://www.isna.org, if you want to learn about intersex people and get actual data on the health and bigotry issues they face. They’re not hermaphrodites, either.
And for the last time, I’m not emphasizing HPV or HPV-related cancers as a men’s health issue, because men overall are at low risk. I think that they should be emphasized as a health issue for women and for gay men, becuase gay men, unlike men overall, are not at a low risk.
After re-reading your lovely blog post–
I am a man. I am bisexual (I have all kinds of sex, including the risky kinds, with all kinds of people, including men). I do have a cervix and everything that goes with it. I am not intersex and was not assigned intersex at birth. And I’m not some straight male misogynist whose other big issue is breast/prostate cancer inequalities. I would love to go on a book tour, but I’m not the only one of my kind, and other, better writers have gone before me.
Still drawing a blank?
drawing a blank? dunno about that, but i am having a good laugh at your expense. perhaps next time someone disagrees with you, you could try arguing against points they makes as opposed to ones you assume they think. i am fully aware that being a hermaphrodite is not the only assumption, (transgendered much?), but i was intentionally highlighting what i see as a ridiculous conversation stemming from your (and others) assumptions about my thoughts. but, i apologise, to you and to me, i should never have chimed in on this conversation in the first place. frankly, i think it’s been a waste of both our precious time, don’t you? (have to say, hahaha, didn’t expect a trackback.)
and for the last time, i completely disagree that high-risk hpv is an issue for men, gay or straight.
thanks piny, it’s been grand.
…And when have I implied that you thought anything else, tank?
You do realize, don’t you, that the views you (apparently satirically) illustrated in your blog are the views that I deal with in earnest from most people, including most healthcare professionals? That was one of the greater risk factors to which I was referring.
Um, also, not to call you on not reading what I wrote when you so frequently do it to me or anything, but hermaphrodite is a slur. Intersex is the correct term.
This is what I did say:
And I stand by all of it. Can you tell me, also, what assuming “man with cervix” means “hermaphrodite” (sic) has to do with assuming that, “and for the last time, i completely disagree that high-risk hpv is an issue for men, gay or straight,” means any of the things I said?
oh god piny, aren’t you bored? i know i am.
i apologise to all the intersexed out there for calling them hermaphrodites.
i apologise for calling you an idiot and for being ignorant to your plight with healthcare officials.
i do not understand your last question piny, sorry. i would ask you not to rephrase it though, because this conversation has been going nowhere since the beginning. we are two disparate souls misaligned in communicative abilities and you know what they say about arguing on the internet…
i do not apologise for maintaining that i think the public hpv education drive should be directed at women.
i do not apologise for my only other point, which has been that i think economics, more than sexism, is driving the hpv vaccination campaign toward women.
piny, i think it is tragic that gay men die from anal cancer. terrible, tragic, awful. this is why, i have not said, and will never say, that only women should be vaccinated.
can we drop it now?
Look, now that I’ve had a chance to calm down from what you wrote on your blog–because apart from any “confirmation bias” analogy, that was pretty offensive, just like your “anatomy textbook” comment earlier–let me try again.
You have not shown me any statistics specific to gay men. You’ve shown me general male statistics, which aren’t a good indication of how likely it is that a gay man will get HPV or develop anal cancer. You’ve referred to numbers. I’m talking about rates. Numbers are not a good indicator when trying to assess risk to a smaller group. Bret Hume used the same logic to argue that it was more dangerous to be a civilian in California than a soldier in Iraq.
You have consistently conflated “gay men” with “men.” My point is that this is not a good idea from an epidemiological standpoint. “Gay men” are an easily-isolated, easily-targeted, easily-analyzed separate group, with one very important characteristic–“gay”–that should put them in a completely different category from men in general. Conflating the two–folding a higher gay male risk into a lower straight male one because straight men are more common–is heterosexist in application, if not in intent. Furthermore, gay men would probably not benefit very much either from a public-education campaign directed at “men in general,” because it probably won’t do much to address their specific risk factors.
I disagree with the idea that any attention to gay male HPV risk in addition to female HPV risk–which is most certainly not the same as an “androcentric” approach–would confuse women such that it would cause a greater public health problem than not educating gay men.
Neither of us is saying that only women should be vaccinated. I’m saying that women should be targeted and that gay men should also be targeted.
Getting back to the transsexual–not transgendered, btw–thing, it’s a really good example of what happens when a minority group is either ignored or inaccurately folded into a larger group. Ftms in general are pretty much ignored by healthcare providers and public health officials, and gay and bisexual ftms are acknowledged even less often. That puts us at very, very high risk for STDs, among many other things. Nor are any concerns specific to our bodies ever addressed. We generally only have access to reproductive healthcare that is specifically targeted towards women; this means that most ftms don’t obtain it.
i said androcentric spin, not approach. meaning a male slant on what i see as a women’s health issue. i think it is ugly and demeaning to all affected by hpv, (including myself), to have to play numbers, but in terms of public health campaigns, these are things i think they have to do. it’s not about ignoring minority groups, it’s about utility really, targeting a message to those most affected, and that is women.
hpv as a wider issue, (i.e. warts, genital or otherwise), affects everyone equally and i think that in the media panic about hpv, people often forget or are simply unaware, that most hpv infections are not dangerous. they can be stigmatising and embarrassing, amongst many other emotions, but they are not fatal.
i agree that, in general, it is not a good idea to shove minority groups in with dominant groups, but my point was that, whilst i more than aware that gay men are at risk of anal cancer, the risk of them dying as a result of a high-risk hpv infection, as men, are no where near as high as women. i suspect we could argue this for the rest of our lives, or until the numbers change significantly one way or another, so again, i say, let’s drop it.
it’s about utility really, targeting a message to those most affected, and that is women.
Except that’s an ineffective message, because men are carriers. You don’t protect women by ignoring half your disease vectors.
Would it really be a budget-buster to tell men “Protect the woman you love; prevent HPV”? Or to simply say, yo, this is an STD and we have a shot to keep you from getting it ever?
You keep presenting the economic problem as though it is a fact. I have not seen any evidence that there is an economic problem that would dictate providing the shot to women only. Especially when you take into account the added costs of treating HPV-infected women who, had their partners been vaccinated, would not have been infected.
That would also apply to all those gay men who don’t have passive anal sex, since they’re probably sleeping with men who do.
It’s too bad the misogyny issue would apply to a vaccine campaign targeting either gender. Men in sexist cultures may have greater license to be sexually active, but there’s a concomittant lack of responsibility to one’s partner.
Yeah, we probably will have to agree to disagree. Under your rubric, there’s virtually no level of health crisis in my community that would translate to a cause for public health concern. I can’t accept a strategy that would–and does–continually leave people like me out in the cold.
I also found this:
hey all,
I ran across this while looking for information on HPV and MSM (men who have sex with men). It looks like folks may have gotten fed up/bored with this line, but I’ll chime in anyway, just because of coincidence….
I work in public health/sexual education in Portland, OR, US, so it was interesting to read people’s take on prioritization of health needs, and all the different factors that play out. It has been my experience that public health, at its best, tries to address the most serious and the most preventable harm. Of course, our efforts are often clouded by racism, sexism, queerphobia, classism, ableism, transphobia, etc. – the list goes on, unfortunately.
For example, we are dealing with a rise in cases of syphilis locally. Investigation revealed that two unique populations were affected: age 40+ urban caucasian MSM, both HIV+ and HIV-; and age 20-30 African American people presumed to be heterosexual, living in one or two zip codes. We are addressing each population’s specific needs, and have found some success with MSM and have brought cases in the 20-30 year old population to zero.
Ideally, populations and their unique needs aren’t pitted against each other. Obviously, economics play into that. I can’t say why an HPV vaccine would be targeted in the US toward females — it could be for a variety of reasons, and it sounds like people on this thread realize that those reasons could be legitimate or could be very messed up.
I also see females/women/girls, and transpeople, as natural allies. I was female for 25 or so years, and now I’m FTM, legally male, and queer, and every day of my life it is brought home to me that beings who are perceived as “feminine” are also perceived as “less than”.
Just sayin’, we could work and learn together.
Okay, back to work….
Program on the emergence of civilization.
“14 species of large animals capable of domesitcation in the history of mankind.
None from the sub-Saharan African continent.
13 from Europe, Asia and northern Africa.”
Favor.
And disfavor.
They point out Africans’ attempts to domesticate the elephant and zebra, the latter being an animal they illustrate that had utmost importance for it’s applicability in transformation from a hunting/gathering to agrarian-based civilization.
The roots of racism are not of this earth.
Austrailia, aboriginals:::No domesticable animals, so this nulified diversity of life claims on sub-continental Africa, zebras being a fine example.
god is a computer
And we’re all on auto-pilot.
Organizational Heirarchy
Heirarchical order, from top to bottom:
1. MUCK – perhaps have experienced multiple universal contractions (have seen multiple big bangs), creator of the artificial intelligence humans ignorantly refer to as “god”
2. Perhaps some mid-level alien management ““
3. Mafia (evil) aliens – runs day-to-day operations here and perhaps elsewhere (“On planets where they approved evil.”)
Then we come to terrestrial management:
4. Chinese/egyptians – this may be separated into the eastern and western worlds
5. Romans – they answer to the egyptians
6. Mafia – the real-world interface that constantly turns over generationally so as to reinforce the widely-held notion of mortality
7. Jews, corporation, women, politician – Evidence exisits to suggest mafia management over all these groups.
AIDS is a Biotech Product is a hardcore band, somewhere, I know it.
But whoa, Caesar Squitti returns!
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