#46428: — 11/01  at  10:22 AM

Humor me for a minute

Sorry, I don't have the time. If you don't see catastrophe in STDs and unplanned births, then it would take a lot more than a minute to explain.

#46430: Tim O'Keefe — 11/01  at  10:33 AM

I agree that the whole idea of using the threat of cancer in order to discourage sexual activity is deeply twisted.

Yeah, and it's worked so well with lung cancer discouraging kids from smoking, hasn't it?

Oh wait, this is fundamentalist republicans we're talking about. They are objectively pro-cancer. Never mind.

Not quite sure what the point of the last comment is. But just to make my own position clear (and I thought the context would do it):

There is nothing wrong with informing kids of the various risks associated with sex, including cervical cancer. In fact, we ought to do so. What's deeply twisted is to discourage the universal use of a vaccine that would prevent cancer, because one wants to keep alive the fear of that cancer in order to discourage teenage sex.

#46431: — 11/01  at  10:35 AM
STD's are a disease, not unlike any other disease. I don't see a catastrophe in the flu or the common cold either. But I do see your point.

Does it work--no. I wouldn't call STD's a catastrophe, but a public health issue that needs to be addressed.

I also hesitate to call any human being born, no matter the reason a catastrophe. The births may be unplanned but the humans are not catastrophes.

But again these are matters of disease. Not sex in and of itself. The vast majority of people never contact an STD desptite, currently having quite a few sexual partners.

#46432: — 11/01  at  10:37 AM
chlamydia and gonorrhea historically could be devastating to a culture if spread unchecked. They eventually render you infertile. Infertile = no kids = end of that culture.

And, in regards to the question about the vaccine and warts. No, it only protects against the strains that cause about 80% of cervical cancers. It does nothing for the strains that cause genital warts.

Which brings up a particularly fucked up thing about HPV- the strains that cause cervical cancer are basically undetectable in a male,but he can still pass them to his partner, while the ones that are detectable (i.e. cause warts) don't generally lead to cancer.

#46433: — 11/01  at  10:43 AM
Gh - you seem to dempnstrate an ignorance of history re: diseases. They historically have not been the minor inconveniences that you seem to think of them as. Smallpox, scarlet fever, typhoid, plague, etc, and yes, even the flu, have killed many, many people.

Regarding lots of unplanned children - leads to famine in times of limited resources (crop failure, drought, etc.) exacerbates poverty. Many parts of the world are suffering from having too many children beyond their ability to support them. OTOH, you can always sell them, I suppose.

#46435: — 11/01  at  10:48 AM
GH: Would you call AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa a catastrophe? Or are you disputing that sex is the primary means of transmission? Would you call the historical scourge of syphilis catastrophic? Syphilis is now under control, and we can hope that AIDS will one day be. But the consequences of these diseases in the absence of mitigation are clearly catastrophic.

Would you call it a catastrophe--albeit smaller--when a young woman bound for college drops everything to care for a child she wasn't ready for, resents this otherwise promising young life, and perpetuates the cycle of "quiet desperation"--lives that just never have any chance at fulfillment and are frittered away in just making do.

I honestly don't get what position you're advocating. We can get into some kind of semantic pissing war over the meaning of "catastrophe" (though in the case of the African AIDS epidemic, I don't see another word for it). Do you think that we ought to be doing our best to mitigate the harmful consequences of sex? Or should we just deny that these exist?

#46436: — 11/01  at  10:52 AM
I'm not ignorant of it, there is simply little evididence for what the other fellow said. I think I am being misunderstood.

STD's are harmful, no one said they are not. They need to be controlled. But by viewing sex as the problem instead of the disease you can actually work against yourself. Sex is not catastrophic, but disease is.

As to unplanned children, as mentioned, they are not a catastrophy but again I agree and said as such, overpopulation is a problem. Hence the need for BC.

Asking people not to have sex is in some manner equivalent to no asking them to breathe. It's a basic, necessary human function and should not be viewed as dirty or unnecessary. Blaming sex for disease is like blaming pneumonia on breathing.

#46437: Raven — 11/01  at  10:52 AM

Regarding lots of unplanned children - leads to famine in times of limited resources (crop failure, drought, etc.) exacerbates poverty.

Not to mention the acute risks of dying in childbirth or afterwards from infections (anyone remember puerpural fever?), strokes, other comorbidities of pregnancy. As well as the chronic ones of being a 30-year-old woman in a 60-year-old's body, after the stresses of bearing enough children. Perineal tearing, fistulae, etc.--Paul's right that the acute and chronic risks of pregnancy would take a lot more than a minute to explain.

#46438: Rahel — 11/01  at  11:00 AM
I know this is going to be unpopular, but I think there is a huge difference between opposing vaccines because you want the disease to live on (as in this case) and opposing vaccines because you think they will harm your child. And truthfully, I think most parents considering not vaccinating their children are open to logical persuasion, but because of the political climate they get branded as "anti-science" and get flamed. Add this to an unfortunatly very reasonable distrust of the medical establishment, and you get most of the current anti-vaccination crowd. It's about time scientists and doctors talked to them instead of shouting. And maybe even admitted that not everything is black-and-white (e.g., it's stupid to vaccinate day-old babies if you get almost the same effect and less side effects vaccinating them a month later).

#46439: — 11/01  at  11:08 AM
About the smoking reference.

I didn't make that post, but I think the point was that knowledge of the risk of getting cancer from cigarettesw has not done much to stop teenagers from smoking. See here:

http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/research_data/youth/hssdata.htm

This pretty much invalidates any point the fundies might be trying to make about a risk of cancer causing teens to not have sex when they otherwise would.

#46440: — 11/01  at  11:13 AM
BH: "Sex is not catastrophic"

I don't recall saying it was.

Owning stocks is not catastrophic, but having all your assets in one stock exposes you to catastrophic risk. This risk is mitigated (in part) by diversifying over statistically uncorrelated investments. Owning a home is not catastrophic, but homes are almost always flammable and cannot easily be moved, so home ownership also involves exposure to catastrophic risk from fire and natural disasters. This risk is generally mitigated by purchasing insurance.

Sex also has catastrophic risks that can be mitigated. The only difference is a sizeable contingent of people who apparently think it's better to leave their children fully exposed.

What I mean by catastrophic risk is simply a set of harmful circumstances that fall far outside the range of your normal contingency plans and require you to make major changes in response. You can argue with my use of the term, but I think if you talked to someone who had just lost all their money or lost their house, had an incurable disease, or had to give up a lot of future plans to care for a child, they might feel as if they had been hit by catastrophe.

#46441: — 11/01  at  11:14 AM
"I don't see anyone quoted in the news article cited saying they oppose the vaccine, only that they oppose making it legally mandatory. There is a difference.

Not really. The whole point of vaccines for things like this is to vaccinate everyone, so that you can essentially eradicate the virus. There's a small crisis going on in the UK at the moment because some parents are refusing to give their children the MMR vaccine, giving the separate viruses a far larger population to prey on and thus greatly increasing the risk of an outbreak."

I am not sure that will work in this case, though clearly it will be of major benefit to young women to have it. Do we do any mandatory vaccinations? How do Christian Scientists react? I can certainly see an argument for mandatory vaccintion, but forcing people does cost them some liberty even if it saves their lives.

But the point of encouraging sex is totally ludicrous - if aids hasn't discouraged it, this certainly will not.

#46442: — 11/01  at  11:14 AM
'GH: Would you call AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa a catastrophe? Or are you disputing that sex is the primary means of transmission?'

Yes, sex is the primary means of transmission. But controlling sex is not even an option. It has never been simply because it doesn't work. Thats why vaccines and such are so important. It's the disease not the sex itself that matters.

'Would you call it a catastrophe--albeit smaller--when a young woman bound for college drops everything to care for a child she wasn't ready for, resents this otherwise promising young life, and perpetuates the cycle of "quiet desperation"'

No I would not. If she does an admirable job of raising said child into a productive adult I would not call that a catastrophe at all. Again, with proper BC that scenario doesn't occur. BTW, this same scenario plays out for wman in many other ways. The woman who doesn't have sex until she is married only to give up a prmising career to raise her kids.

Your woman/college argument is rather lame just for the fact that by percentage of the population only a minority graduate college and of those that attend birth rates are much lower. It's not like childbirth is preventing women from graduating college. And frankly graduating college doesn't make everyone 'fulfilled'.


'Do you think that we ought to be doing our best to mitigate the harmful consequences of sex? Or should we just deny that these exist?'

It is semantics to some degree. I just see it as a matter of disease. Sex is a normal function through which disease can be spread.

#46443: Scott — 11/01  at  11:19 AM
The Family Research Council is on record as opposing the use of the vaccine and has yet continued to use HPV as a reason that condoms are bad in their emails. Expecting these guys to be rational about sex is like expecting the ID folks to admit that ID is just a front to get religion into the science classroom.

FOF, FRC and the other patriarchical groups always try to hide their overt sexism with attempts to show that they are not trying to install a thecracy or return society to the 16th century, but these group should not be trusted as not once has anyone of these groups ever admitted that their approach to something was wrong or bad. They continue to advocate their sexist, anti-science, anti-rationality by plying the victim and discrimination card. The last time I checked not one of the churches in our areas had people outside protesting people entering them.

Let's also remember that any honest study about sex education has shown that giving people the full information about sexuality, including information about the proper use of contraception, has shown that that it delays sex and when they do get active they are using proper protection.

The sexaphobes are always around, but they never want to admit their hypocrasy. Kinsey found that out back in the 40's.

#46444: — 11/01  at  11:23 AM
GH - referring to your post at 46436 - thanks for the clarification of your views.

#46445: — 11/01  at  11:25 AM
PaulC:

I think we are talking around each other a little.

If I have sex with a GF, I am not taking a risk. Or if I am it is likely minuscule. If I have sex with a prostitute without protection my risk is greater. Protection reduces the risk.

In any event sex itself is natural, like breathing. What we are controlling is the disease and it's spread. When people foucs on sex it seems to me they miss the larger point that this issue is about disease.

Focusing on sex lends people to the type of thinking prevelant among some that 'if he would have kept it in his pant he wouldn't have got herpes' or 'if she wouldn't have slept around she wouldn't have HPV' or 'gays deserve AIDS'. It takes the argument from where it should be, eliminating disease, and places it on a subjective view of a natural human behaviour like sex.

It's akin to saying 'If he would have kept his mouth closed he wouldn't have gotten influenza' or 'if she just hadn't breathed that contamiated air she wouldn't have pneumonia'.

It's about disease. Sex isn't going away, and who would want it to.

#46446: Rahel — 11/01  at  11:30 AM
"Do we do any mandatory vaccinations? How do Christian Scientists react? I can certainly see an argument for mandatory vaccintion, but forcing people does cost them some liberty even if it saves their lives."

I think the point is not that it protects the people who recieve the vaccine, but rather that it protects other people by eradicating the virus. Same reason you have to turn on your lights at night. However, making you turn on your lights doesn't effect your bodily autonamy, and that's very dangerous territory these days.

#46447: Raven — 11/01  at  11:32 AM

Again, with proper BC that scenario doesn't occur.

No, with proper BC, that scenario occurs less often. You can never totally detach sex from risk, so you can never totally eliminate the risks of pregnancy and STD.

That's not an anti-sex argument, by the way; it's a pro-sex, pro-education, pro-contraception, pro-treatment argument.

I too appreciate your clarification; your original phrasing: "What catastrophic consequences has sex had? To many children?" sounded just a little too facile in light of public health history.

#46448: — 11/01  at  11:32 AM

But controlling sex is not even an option. It has never been simply because it doesn't work.

Yes, but risk mitigation through condom use is an option, as is the attempt to develop vaccines against AIDS, and improve treatments for it. And these are precisely the mitigation options I am advocating.

So can you explain again what it is that you're advocating, because you appear to have picked a fight with me and I'm still trying to comprehend what the fight is about. OK, you hate the word "catastrophe." Please feel free to substitute "catastrophic" with "deleterious" and "catastrophe" with "significantly worse than optimal outcome." It will not substantively change my point.

Your woman/college argument is rather lame just for the fact that by percentage

By percentage of the population, the number of houses that burn down is quite small. And yet, rather than just dismissing this tiny percentage of homeowners as irrevelant, we actually require everybody to buy fire insurance. How "lame" is that?

#46452: — 11/01  at  11:47 AM
No, you don't understand.

The fundies learned their lesson, that it was considered gauche to say that AIDS was God's punishment for sexual sin. They are trying very hard to avoid saying that now that cervical cancer is the disease at issue. So they bleat that it's for the CHILDREN.

It's not that they want to see their kids safe and clean and happy. It's that they don't want to thwart the will of God in horribly punishing their children should the children step out of line.

I used to be a fundamentalist and I assure you that this is true, even if the nicer sort prefer not to think of it in terms as blunt.

#46453: — 11/01  at  11:52 AM
GH: "I think we are talking around each other a little."

This has been obvious from the beginning.

"If I have sex with a GF, I am not taking a risk. Or if I am it is likely minuscule. If I have sex with a prostitute without protection my risk is greater."

I could probably find a spot to build a house that had neglible risk from earthquakes, hurricanes, and flooding. With some care, I might even reduce the risk of fire substantially.

None of this contradicts the statement: Home ownership has historically exposed the homeowner to risk of devastating, irrecoverable loss. (Which is why we have, among other things, insurance.)

Note that I am not saying home ownership is icky, or bad, or suggesting that every homeowner is exposed to the same risk. I am not advocating that we teach our children to steer clear of home ownership. I am not denying that having a place to live is a natural human need and that home ownership has been one of the most popular ways to go about it.

I am merely saying that as a general category, home ownership entails substantial risk.

"Protection reduces the risk."

Yes, that was my point. What was yours again?

#46454: Phila — 11/01  at  11:54 AM
If the fundies want to try and stop Americans from getting cancer vaccines, and prevent drug companies from making money, they're more than welcome to try. My guess is, there won't be enough of 'em left to bury.

This sanguine remark aside, every member of the Pro-Cancer Right should be put in cryogenic suspension until a cure for sociopathy is found.

#46457: — 11/01  at  12:05 PM
From the "umbrellas cause rain" school of numb voodoo hackitude.

If Dobson's for it, I'm against. Yes, it is that knee-jerk. I don't care if it's puppy kisses and Granny Smith cobbler ala mode, if Dobson likes it, I pee on it. From now on. Period.

#46460: — 11/01  at  12:13 PM

I really hope this vaccine doesn't have thimerosal in it as a preservative, or we might see the whole mercury-autism crowd joining the fray.

Orac, I am currently reading Michael Fitzpatrick's MMR and Autism - What parents need to know, which makes it clear that Wakefield never was into thimerosal, but instead he was targeting the MMR vaccinations. This hasn't kept the thimerosal-autism groups from refering to him all the time.

#46461: — 11/01  at  12:15 PM

And truthfully, I think most parents considering not vaccinating their children are open to logical persuasion, but because of the political climate they get branded as "anti-science" and get flamed. Add this to an unfortunatly very reasonable distrust of the medical establishment, and you get most of the current anti-vaccination crowd. It's about time scientists and doctors talked to them instead of shouting. And maybe even admitted that not everything is black-and-white (e.g., it's stupid to vaccinate day-old babies if you get almost the same effect and less side effects vaccinating them a month later).

But Rahel, it is black or white, or more literately life or death. There are no evidence of adverse effects of normal childhood vaccinations like MMR, but there are certainly much evidence of the harmful effect of people not giving those vaccinations to their children.
Doctors, scientists and profesionel health care people have tried to make this clear, and have spent many resources looking for the existence of a link between childhood vaccinations and a number of diseases and ailments. They have tried to be in dialogue with the anti-vaccination people, and while it might have convinced some, a large group seems beyond reach. As Fitzpatrick wrote in his book (debating the active resisters to vaccinations):

First, parents were concerned about the risks of adverse consequences of immunisation, which they felt had been played down in the official information. These fears drew attention to the paradox that, as the risk of the disease that immunisation protected against became more remote (and folk memories if these diseases faded), the risk to any individual child of adverse effects tended relatively to increase and certainly came to loom larger in parental concerns.

Second, these parents expressed sceptical views towards "biomedicine" and an openess to alternatives, particularly homeopathy. Holistic and homeopathic concepts were a significant influence on their resistance to immunisation, which was regarded as potentially damaging to the immune system and to babies' naturally acquired immunity.

Third, they were suspicious of the apparent convergence of interests among the medical profession, the government and the vaccine manufacturer in the promotion of the MCI programme.

While the first issue they raise can be addressed, it's very hard for doctors, scientists etc. to address the other issues. Yes, there is an overlap between the people who make the vacine and the people who decide it should be used. This has something to do with the fact that vaccine is not a very profitable issue, but it's very important for the general health, hence it's often governmental agencies that makes vaccines. However, while this might be explained, it won't calm the people who believe that there is some kind of cover-up/conspiracy.
One good example is the Danish state owned agency, Statens Serum Institut which makes childhood vaccines in Denmark. People connected to this institute have made a lot of studies showing that there are no detectable connections between thimerosal and autism. This led people to claim that there were a conflict of interest, since the institute would be liable in case that there were a connection. A quick study of Danish law shows that not only is Statens Serum Institut required to carry out such studies, but there is no way that they would be liable for anything in case of a thimerosal-autims link (I've explained this much more fully at a guest post at Orac's place).