Letters to the Editor
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This has little to do with your call to vaccinate girls against their parents wishes with an untested, unproven, quite possibly dangerous vaccine that they will not need for 20-30 years.
Apart from that, the two cases are identical.
Nevertheless, some of us that have actually read about how gardasil was (not) tested, and some of us that have confidence in our medical community, and some of us that respect parent's and understand why the government should keep its hands off our bodies will be against gardasil, the most expensive vaccine ever.
But, hey, if you want to inject your kids with an unproven, untested chemical that's linked to paralysis and death, you just go grrl!
The rest of you should google evil slutopia's myths of gardasil. Yeah, with a name like evilslutopia you know she's a conservative anti-feminist.
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OK you win.
I agree, say no & let it be a self correcting problem, eventually.
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Vaccines and antibiotics are different
You have to administer vaccines before people get sick, to people who are well. Giving vaccines to sick people will make them worse.
You have to administer antibiotics after people get sick, to people who are ill. Giving antibiotics to well people will make them worse.
That isn't to say that this plan is necessarily a bad idea (at some level of infection it definitely makes sense to give everyone antibiotics; I'm just not sure what that level is.) This plan doesn't provide quite as much insight into the HPV vaccine as it seems at first glance.
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Not a Good Title
I enjoyed your article, and the fact that different types of populations require different kinds of intervention is a tricky public health problem. The more people know about it the better.
I do have a problem with your title. "Aboriginals with STDs" would have been better, because your title plays into the stereotype that sexually transmitted diseases originated with indigenous peoples. Scientifically, the jury is still out on the subject, but throughout history and up to the present indigenous peoples have been marginalized by being called disease-ridden and promiscuous, and associating the origin of STDs with them counts as both.
This was not your intention and I'm probably nitpicking and being too PC here, but please keep this in mind for the future.
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the prevelance of STDs within the Aboriginal community
There are numerous reasons why i found this 'article' offensive. the author purports to have an understanding of a far more complex situation then they are prepared to disclose in the three or so paragraphs allocated. the grave issues affecting Indigenous Australians and the prevelance of STD's has little if nothing to do with preventative medication and more to do with the Howard Government's disregard for the welfare of Indigenous youths. Surely the issue at hand is the lack of child welfare, education and medical assitance available in Indigenous communities as a result of the Federal government's (the Howard Governments) disregard for the basic human rights of a portion of its citizens?
To suggest that STD tests are not carried out in isolated communities because they are nomadic is not only eroneous but highly offensive. STD tests are not being carried out because there are neither the rescources nor the facilities to do so.
the final nail in the coffin was the correlation the author developed between preventative medication and vaccination. Given the Australian Government offers free cervical cancer vaccines to all women under 27 (including Indigenous women) i find this example rather odd. (not to mention the medical differences between a vaccine and antibiotics. if government's had chosen to wait until the polio vaccine was proven effective for a lifetime, perhaps that would still be prevelant)
STD outbreaks in Indigenous communities are a result of government neglect and to treat people - children in many cases - with such sever antibiotics as a 'preventative measure' merely increases the level of that neglect.
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preventing blindness vs. STDs
Didn't most states once require silver nitrate drops to be put in all newborns' eyes to prevent blindness? I think the reason was that a lot of G.I.s unknowingly came back with chlamidya from WWII, gave it unwittingly to their wives, and the wives passed it on to their babies' eyes during childbirth. Then the babies went blind.
The vast majority of baby boomers got these, but yet most were never at risk for blindness because their mothers didn't have chlamidya.
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If it's truly voluntary, then it's very little like forcibly vaccinating 9-year-old girls
'[A]ll individuals within a particular age range would be offered antibiotic treatment without recourse to an individual risk assessment and without waiting for the results of diagnostic testing."'
Actually I think all the difference in the world lies in the word "offered," as opposed to "required." If this is truly an offer of preemptive treatment, and not coercion or force, then ethically, at least, I'm for it.
What I have little idea of is the efficacy and risks of treating an entire, and migratory, human population this way. One possibility that comes to mind is that resistant strains of the bacteria would migrate all the more quickly with their carriers. But given the lifelong risks and quality of life issues posed by untreated STD's, it just might be worth a try.
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I'm going to work through this point by point
1. Please capitalise the word Aboriginal when referring to Australian Aboriginal or Indigenous communities or people. It is a mark of respect, and anyone purporting to have any knowledge of issues pertaining to Indigenous Australia should be aware of this convention.
2.Please read the original article rather than relying on the NYT. It's not hard to find, and only a few pages long. You'll see that mobility in Indigenous communities is NOT the primary issue -- access to quality health services is.
3. Please change the title of this article. It is offensive in the extreme.
On the whole this is a shoddily put together piece. I hope that Ms Price takes more care in the future.
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The real issue
It has nothing to do with being Aboriginal, it has to do with being a highly stressed, poverty stricken, discriminated against, and displaced marginal population. Such populations everywhere have higher rates of all diseases, not just STDs, family breakups and violence, addictions, crime, and all the rest of the ills humans are subject to. Better than medical technology interventions would be dealing with some of the stressors and social issues. But that would be a lot more expensive that handing out more pills and shots.