Shots, Sex, and Safety
There was supposed to be a battle. "The coming storm over a cancer vaccine," trumpeted Fortune magazine last fall. "Injected into a controversy," headlined USA Today. But the conservative groups expected to dislike the new human papilloma virus vaccine because it might encourage sexual activity never put up their dukes. "From what I saw from my desk, this fight never existed. We support the vaccine," says Linda Klepacki, a nurse and health analyst for Focus on the Family, the faith-based conservative advocacy group in Colorado Springs, Colo.
But her support comes with a caveat: The suggestion from the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (the vaccine is awaiting approval by the Food and Drug Administration) and the vaccine makers that vaccination should start with girls ages 11 or 12 may be going too far. "These are minors. Parents have the right to be their primary decision makers," says Klepacki. She's concerned that making this vaccination mandatory--to enroll in school, for instance--takes that decision out of parents' hands. And once these kids feel safe from HPV, a sexually transmitted infection, they will indeed have more sex, she says.
Studies say not so. Fear of sexual disease ranks very low on the list of reasons for not having sex, according to the National Survey of Family Growth. Far more important is whether premarital sex is against the teachings of parents. "I think educating kids about these things is what makes a difference," says Lisa Wigfall, 33, whose children Helen and Tony Wright are in clinical trials of the vaccine. "Not some shot." And as for targeting such young kids, the point is to protect them before what is delicately called "sexual debut." But Klepacki says there's another, better way: abstinence until marriage. That may be, says Wigfall, but a shot is good insurance.
BURDEN OF YOUTH
HPV infection by age
(percent of population)
[labels]
0
5
10
15
20
25 pct.
13-20
25-29
35-39
20-24
30-44
Source: Diane Harper, Dartmouth Medical School; Anna-Barbara Moscicki, University of California-San Francisco
This story appears in the April 3, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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