Should Your Daughters Get the HPV Vaccine?!

So you're sitting at the dinner table and your 10 year old daughter starts telling you how her and her friends are getting the HPV vaccine at school tomorrow... What's your first reaction to that?! Hmm, I am guessing 10 million thoughts would go through your mind; HPV vaccine? My TEN year old will be sexually active soon?!

Here's the big question though: Are these girls too young to get this shot?
Based on the article, Should Your Daughters Get the HPV Vaccine?, several parents believe that this age is too young to even know where the cervix is, let alone what HPV really is.
For anyone who doesn't know what the HPV vaccine is; here's a quick summary ; it's a drug that helps prevent a sexually transmitted virus that could lead to cancer. I was really anxious to know why girls need to be at that extremely young age to get this needle, so I did a little research and here's what I got...
The vaccine covers four HPV types and girls who have not been infected with any of those four types will get the full benefits of the vaccine. Therefore, the younger you are, the less sexually active you will be, which means you will less likely be infected with an HPV type.

Would I want my daughter to get the vaccine? It took me a while to come up with an answer because I was worried about what side effects this might have; however, I searched to find these side effects and I couldn't find any severe ones that might be harmful. This helped answer my question; although allowing girls to get this needle might encourage sexual intercourse, I would take that risk to protect my daughter from getting cancer. And yes, there's no actual guarantee of this vaccine working, but if I have the option of somewhat preventing cancer, then I definitely will allow it.

Some parents hesitate in allowing their daughters to get the vaccine because of the public eye. Yet, they never take into consideration what's in the best interest for their daughters. As discussed in class, empathy is the ability to see something through the eyes of someone else; therefore, in this case, the parents should be empathetic and experience the situation from their daughter's point of view rather than the perspective of the public. At the end of the day, it's your daughter that will be affected by this decision, not the public!

Looking back at the article, I believe that although society looks for the safety of young girls/women, it should still be the parents' decision for their daughters. I also believe that forcing the parents by having their daughters get the vaccine at school for free is not fair. If the society's main concern is the safety of young girls then this vaccine should be given for free rather than letting them pay over $400 for three doses over six months.

I just thought that this video is a great example as it outlines the views of the government, the parents and a 4th grader on this issue!

(From American Morning News-CNN)


Work Cited:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070914.whpv15/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/home
http://www.cdc.gov/std/HPV/STDFact-HPV-vaccine.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9zcwW4mTP8

http://publicaffairs.uth.tmc.edu/hleader/gfx/2006art/hpv.jpg

http://images.parenthood.com/hpv-vaccine.jpg

Alder, B. Ronald, George Rodman ,and Alexandre Sévigny. Understanding Human Communication. Canadian Edition. Don Mills: Oxford, 2008.