So Saslow doesn't care about gay men and boys, is that the deal. Coz that's wha it reads like.

As for vaccinating all girls, if I lived in a sane world, it would have already been done. Along w/ circumcision for men trying to prevent HIV infection.

It's a political football, clean your own house first, ladies. Then come over the hill to blame us for something. Thanks.

Hello, I'm a gay man currently getting the HPV vaccine. My doctor recommended it (I have to pay out of pocket) stating that is has already been approved for men in europe, poses low risk, and will eventually be approved for men here. I chose to go ahead with it. Maybe it won't help, but if nothing else, I have a certain level of peace of mind that I took a step to protect myself. It does seem that the health concerns of gay men are largely left out of this debate. Keep in mind that the MSM (men who have sex with men) population is rather larger than those that simply identify as "gay". The benefit for men may be underestimated.

Thanks.

To the poster above: Mandating circumcision, for whatever reason, is unacceptable. Why is it that male circumcision is something we feel we should mandate, but female circumcision is something to crusade against? How about we don't mandate genital surgery for anyone? Thanks.

As for the vaccine, even if the only benefit to men was that it would immunize them against becoming HPV carriers, it would be worthwhile to vaccinate them. I cannot imagine that the cost to mandatorily vaccinate our society against HPV is greater than the cost of the associated cancers. And even if it were monetarily greater, the social costs don't compare.

So yes, mandate the vaccine. Mandatory genital surgery is not.

When there is no proof it works! If a parent or a grown man wants to pay for it out of pocket and accept the risks attached, that's fine, but I would not expect to pay for a service when there is no proof of it's effectiveness. It's like how angry I got at knowing I was partially paying for abstinence only education, especially when there was proof it doesn't work and can cause harm.

you need to vaccinate everyone, but the question is always do you want to make the investiment now or later given limited resources.

Hey Tracy, get your facts right.

Gardasil has not been proven effective in the case of the young girls that are commonly being targeted either.

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2007/05/01/jama-editor-dont-mandate-cancer-vaccine/

Salon and Broadsheet have written about Gardasil so many times now, and this has been pointed out each time.

Are you ignorant or just shilling?

the editor of JAMA opposes requiring girls to get vaccinated against the virus that causes cervical cancer.

Routine use of a new vaccine, sold by Merck under the brand-name Gardasil, “undoubtedly is beneficial to the public’s health, as it is likely to reduce the incidence of cervical cancers,” Catherine DeAngelis (pictured, left) writes in an editorial in this week’s JAMA. “However, the rush to make HPV vaccination mandatory in school-aged girls presents ethical concerns and is likely to be counterproductive.”

The editorial, co-written with a health-law expert, comes as many states consider making the vaccine, which was approved last year and costs over $300, mandatory for school girls.

DeAngelis, a pediatrician, points out an essential difference between Gardasil and other mandated vaccines. The cervical cancer virus, called HPV, can only be transmitted sexually, while diseases prevented by other vaccines are transmitted through the air. She notes that Gardasil has not been tested in young girls, and says the duration of the immunity it confers is unclear. And in an interview with the Health Blog this afternoon, she criticized Merck for lobbying legislatures to make the vaccine mandatory.

“I am very pro-vaccinations and immunizations when they’re good because they save a lot of lives, and they save a lot of sickness. But you do not make it mandatory for children by approaching politicians to make laws,” she said. “The American Academy of Pediatrics recommended it; they never said to make it mandatory. It’s for the parents to decide, not a politician.”

I am not sure what your sources are.

The vaccine IS effective in the population it has been targeted,

Early teen age girls, to prevent infection with high risk HPV serotypes.

The effectiveness against Cervical cancer is not as strong, because such a study does require following hundred of thousands of subjects over 20 or so years, but anyone with some insight in the molecular biology of HPV knows that the potential benefit of the vaccine is very real.

Now, some people stick their guns and maintain that nobody has convincingly shown that smoking cigarettes causes lung cancer. . . which is technically true, but a flagrant idiocy when you come to think about it

anonymous idiot said:

Mandating circumcision, for whatever reason, is unacceptable. Why is it that male circumcision is something we feel we should mandate, but female circumcision is something to crusade against? How about we don't mandate genital surgery for anyone? Thanks.

As I said yesterday in re The invisible AIDS cure:

I won't attempt to wade into the circumcision morass, except to note that those who would even attempt to equate male (penile) circumcision with female (clitoral or clitoral/labia) "circumcision" (i.e., genital mutilation) should seriously question the value of their elementary and secondary school educations, specifically in the areas of biology, anatomy, critical reasoning, and logic.

Joan Walsh: Please eliminate the "Anonymous" posting option. If readers wish to express an idea, they ought to be required to attached their names or pseudonymous handles to same. Thanks.

She notes that Gardasil has not been tested in young girls, and says the duration of the immunity it confers is unclear.

The information is actually in Gardasil's research. In the targeted age group, efficacy was not tested, it was only inferred based on what was perceived to be similar reactions in women that were protected.

If you think about it, it's pretty darn difficult to directly test HPV protection in young girls targeted because they are not yet sexually active, without waiting the years necessary for a reasonable number of them to become sexually active.

But Gardasil was fast tracked.