Supporting Rick Perry’s Decision to Mandate the HPV Vaccine
A child with smallpox suffers from painful blisters that cover his body. A person with tetanus endures involuntary body spasms that threaten to break bones. A woman with HPV clinches her eyes shut as she receives chemotherapy to treat the cancer that was caused by the virus. If you could prevent these scenarios from happening, would you? Governor Rick Perry sought to do just that, when he made Texas the first state to mandate that young girls receive the Gardasil vaccine, the leading vaccine that prevents against certain strains of HPV. Governor Perry’s new mandate will protect people from a painful, and sometimes fatal, disease. While the decision has gone under fire from people
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However, Jenner’s invention became a common practice only a few years after he released it to the public, and according to The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia, “By 1890 smallpox had virtually been eradicated from Britain.” (“Jenner, Edward (1749-1823)”) From the information about the first vaccination, we can see that vaccinations have been proven to eliminate deadly diseases, whether they receive opposition or not. Without immunizations, we would be overcome with diseases, such as smallpox, polio, and measles.
Unfortunately, there is not a vaccination to protect against every type of cancer. However, the Gardasil vaccine guards against certain strands of HPV that cause 70% of cervical cancers in women. When caught early, the Human papillomavirus is treatable, but after the virus has developed into cancer, there is no cure. Therefore, the person affected begins a painful, uncertain journey to try to save her life. The Encyclopedia of Women’s Health states, “Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection may be the most common viral sexually transmitted disease (STD) in this country. As many as 30 million Americans are infected with HPV, and each year, an additional 1 million people become infected.” (“Human Papillomavirus”). When this many people are affected by a disease that can become cancer, it would be doltish not to use available resources to prevent it. “Nationally and internationally, the HPV vaccine will significantly
Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a killer. It is an awful disease that is the culprit of many deaths each year. We have the means for its prevention, yet HPV vaccination for girls is a controversial topic to some. This controversy carries over to the current question on whether or not males should also be vaccinated. The issue is starting to play a huge role in the media; Fox news recently broadcasted a story on male HPV vaccinations. This story makes clear the benefits that would come from vaccinating males, including a statement from the Center for Disease Control that, “The HPV vaccine will afford protection against certain HPV-related conditions and cancers in males, and vaccination of males with HPV may also provide indirect protection
While practitioners can use their best judgement to identify other factors that may put a child at risk for an adverse reaction, there will inevitably be some cases that fall through the cracks simply due to a lack of knowledge. Some people with rare, little understood metabolic conditions—for example—might react unfavorably to an HPV vaccine, resulting in severe side effects (Menni, Chiarelli, Sabatini, Principi, & Esposito, 2012). Merck’s Gardasil 9 prescription manual reported a 1.0% incidence of “vaccine-related adverse experiences”; adverse symptoms included “pyrexia, allergy to vaccine, asthmatic crisis, headache, and tonsillitis” (Gardasil 9, 2014). This raises a difficult ethical dilemma: Is it justifiable to force a typically healthy behavior on a significant portion of a state’s residents, knowing that a small minority can become severely ill as a result? In addition, many would agree that the vaccine has not been tested sufficiently in minority populations in the US. Clinical trials for Gardasil and Gardasil 9, for example, consisted of primarily white participants (Gardasil 9, 2014). Clinical trials for Gardasil included .1% and .3% American Indians in the 9-26 y.o. male and female clinical trial treatment groups respectively. These percentages correspond to about 10 and 30 participants respectively (Gardasil 9,
A very significant portion of a well-functioning democratic society is obtaining individuals who will be obligated by moral decision making regarding political and personal policies. This paper is going to discuss Rick Perry’s decision to mandate that all girls eleven years and older receive the HPV vaccine before entering the six grade which has caused some controversy among the people of Texas. Positive and negative features of the decision will be discussed from four different articles that help provide clarity on the matter.
To require a vaccine for HPV to be taken to prevent cervical cancer is unnecessary. Ninety-five percent of people diagnosed with HPV never accumulate cervical cancer. Not enough people accumulate cervical cancer to make the vaccine a requirement. If more people obtained cervical cancer from HPV the requirement of the vaccine would be more appropriate. Due to the lack of cancer receivers the vaccine should be optional.
The recent news of a vaccine that could prevent a large percent of cancer deaths in the United States alone would generally be considered a reason to celebrate. However, the current attempts of many states, including the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, to pass an ordinance making it mandatory for preteen girls to have the Gardasil vaccine to protect them from some of the forms of cervical cancer caused by HPV has met a great deal of opposition. The objections to this legislation getting passed are primarily voiced by concerned parents who believe that the vaccination is too new to the market and that the long term effects are still too unknown.. This essay will
Vaccinations were first introduced in the late 18th century by Edward Jenner. He injected a small amount of cowpox in a thirteen year-old boy to demonstrate the effectiveness it had against smallpox, resulting in the development of the first smallpox vaccine in 1798. Because of his discovery, Jenner contributed to the overall annihilation of the disease in 1979 after the vaccine was implemented in different medicines throughout the world (source). Following Jenner, many others produced vaccines to help reduce the fatalities of common diseases such as measles, polio, and rubella, which were once responsible for millions of deaths every year. Now, there is almost no risk of catching these fatal illnesses.
Gardasil has been tested in thousands of women and found to be nearly 100% effective in protecting against diseases caused by the four HPV types. Side effects are very uncommon and the occurrence is about 1%. Not only are HPV vaccinations safe, and effective but in today’s society it seems that they have become necessary. “An estimated 493,000 cervical cancer cases occur each year with 274,000 deaths. More than 80% of cervical cancer deaths worldwide occur in developing countries. Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women”. If there is a cure of this kind of epidemic, it is evident that it is necessary.
When the Smallpox disease made an overpopulated England its territory, it thrived and wiped out thousands of people (“Smallpox Vaccine: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”). Smallpox was a major threat to many countries and civilizations for thousands of years; however, the permanent cure for the disease began in England. During the eighteenth century, a physician by the name of Edward Jenner was credited with the invention of the most important piece of medical technology, the vaccine, and became known as the “Father of Immunology”. Although Edward Jenner encountered errors in his research, and people questioned the ethics of the vaccine trials, he used his knowledge, determination, and medical experience to explore a more efficient and advanced
Adams prefers to use the phrase “medical tyranny” for mandating this vaccine. In many opinions it is. Since it requires a price people, especially the poor, are going to have a rough time accepting this order. As of now the order “ bypassed the will of the people and the entire Texas legislature” (Adams). So without the consent of the people it is by no means right to do so. Just like people who oppose it, other people support it.
Although both writers agree on the dismissal of the mandated HPV vaccines each provides their own logic behind their beliefs. Using a different approach, Allen’s tone and diction in his piece differs of that of Adam’s article. Allen begins with an unbiased opinion on the case and opens his article with a previous case regarding mandated vaccinations, the Hepatitis B vaccine. The case is very similar to that of the HPV Vaccine and Allen uses this as a starting point to build up his reason in his work. Unlike Adams, Allen does not in any way relay to the reader his bias on the government in terms of the vaccines; he remains neutral and refrains from using loaded dialogue to attempt to inform the reader of his point. “It stands to reason that, without a mandatory vaccination, many of the girls who don’t get vaccinated will belong to the same groups that fall through the cracks of the patchy U.S
The main reason why the Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommends vaccination is that it can help prevent HPV (human papillomavirus), a sexually transmitted virus in the United States and many countries around the world ("HPV (Human Papillomavirus) Gardasil® VIS."). According to the CDC, "about 20 million Americans are currently infected, and 6 million more get infected each year."
Women have an annual exam for the Pap smear to detect cancer cells. To learn that cervical cancer was caused due to a sexually transmitted disease was shock. When the doctor said that it was like a bomb exploded. The thought about my friends and family that had been diagnosed with it and thinking how scare they must have been. They had both a mental and physical fight that was in front of them. Many have lost friends to cervical cancers and it is still unbelievable and devastating to know that it was a sexually transmitted disease. Most remember seeing people who had acquired immune deficiency, known as AIDS, in the 80s. When that came upon the population it was swift acting. Those infected with it were here one minute and gone the next. When this disease came into the population there was
Gardasil, the first human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in June 2006. Within a year, 41 states would make legislation relating to the HPV vaccine, and 24 states mandated the vaccine for 6th-grade girls. The “remarkable burst” of legislation led researchers to ask what role manufacturers played in school mandates, and what level of manufacturer involvement in vaccine policy was appropriate. In their paper “Pharmaceutical Companies’ Role in State Vaccination Policymaking: The Case of Human Papillomavirus Vaccination,” Michelle M. Mello et al. argue that pharmaceutical company Merck & Co Inc. promoted school-entry legislation of their HPV vaccine Gardasil in an aggressive and nontransparent manner. They argue that manufacturer involvement in uptake legislation “risks undermining the prospects for legislation to foster uptake of new vaccines.”
Today most children in the United States live a much healthier life and parents live with much less anxiety due to vaccinations. More than 200 years ago, Edward Jenner conducted an experiment that would be one of the most astounding breakthroughs in medical history. Jenner noticed that milkmaids didn’t catch the smallpox, a disease rampant across the English countryside. He reasoned that the blisters on the milkmaid’s hand must contain something that was protective. He tested his theory by taking fluid from a blister on the wrist of a milkmaid and inoculating it into the arm of a local laborer’s son (Offit and
Edward Jenner, born on May 17, 1749, was an Egyptian physician and scientist who discovered the immunizations system and vaccine. He was one the first to record the first vaccination for the deadly smallpox disease. In the article ¨Who invented Vaccinations?¨, it explains how many were discovering the vaccines, but only one had recorded the process (para1). Although hundreds of scientists had been looking for a cure, they all had ideas on how to find it, but were all proven after Jenners. All sicknesses can be prevented by the various vaccinations that exist now and for that reason there has been lower death