Why Shouldn't Obamacare Cover Free Birth Control?

Some have opposed the inclusion of abortion in the bill.  Few know that Obamacare MANDATES coverage of birth control.


So, what's the big deal?


That's a question that's answered, in great detail, by a National Review interview, with additional information about the hazards of teen sex.   Just a few eye-opening facts:

How much protection do condoms provide? The answer is more complicated than you think. While there is no doubt that proper use of condoms prevents some infections to some degree, and terms such as “highly effective” and “significant” are commonly used, condom effectiveness in preventing infection varies a good deal, depending on the bug. A recent study declared that condoms provided “moderate protection” against contracting herpes. What would you consider “moderate” protection against an incurable infection that can cause significant physical and emotional suffering? 80 percent? 60 percent? Think lower: It’s a 30 percent reduction with 100 percent condom use. Sex educators have an obligation to share these numbers with their students. I know of a case of suicide in a young man, a university student, where herpes played a real part in his depression and hopelessness. And yet a 30 percent decrease in the chances of transmission is considered “protection”? Not in my book.

 There's more, and you owe it to yourself to read it.

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Yet Another Reason NOT to Vaccinate with Gardasil

This is tragic - parents who used the new Gardasil vaccine, have found their children experiencing an ALS-type progressive disease.

Turns out, warnings concerning ALS and vaccines have been raised before. John Iskander, the CDC's associate director for immunization safety, tells me the agency previously has received reports of ALS following the anthrax vaccine. This, in addition to the deaths of Jenny and Whitney, "kind of tells us that we need to look more broadly at this issue," he says. He's quick to add that "we're doing just an initial review at this point; we don't have suspicions that these are casually related."

Merck, the manufacturer of Gardasil, maintains that its vaccine is extremely safe and points out that it could potentially save women from dying of cervical cancer
. "There are unusual and rare diseases that occur in girls and women in this age group whether they're vaccinated or not," says Rick Haupt, Merck's head of the clinical program for Gardasil. "These patterns don't indicate any causality." He says no cases of ALS occurred in Merck's clinical trials but also admits that the trials—which included thousands, not millions—weren't large enough to detect such rare diseases.

Barbara Shapiro, an ALS expert and associate professor of neurology at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine who was enlisted by a mutual friend to help the Tetlocks do their research, isn't ready to dismiss the cases as pure coincidence. She's pored over the medical records of Jenny, Whitney, and Alicia and sees a striking similarity. "Juvenile ALS tends to progress very slowly over years or even decades, but these girls all seemed to have a more rapid, progressive form." She also has uncovered another VAERS report in the CDC database that could be similar, but since it was filed by a pharmacist, the CDC told her it doesn't have details on the girl's identity. Shapiro worries that there may be more cases out there that the CDC doesn't know about.

After all, she tells me, both Whitney and Alicia came to the CDC's attention only after their parents discovered Jenny's blog and Phil Tetlock urged them to file a VAERS report. This system of voluntary reporting of adverse events related to vaccines by doctors and patients is notoriously crude. All too often, adverse events go unreported, whereas many reports that are filed turn out not to be related at all to the vaccines. When I point this out to Iskander, he tells me that while VAERS certainly isn't perfect, it's pretty good at catching rare events.

I've been saying for some time, that this vaccine has been rushed to the market, and HEAVILY promoted by the same people who want all girls to be "protected" against pregnancy by pushing birth control and abortion services without their parents' knowledge or permission. These zealots think that every teen is a lust-filled organism, incapable of making moral choices.

I'm linking to previous posts I've done about this issue of using the Gardasil vaccine.

Gardasil Side Effects

2 Dead in UK, Linked to HPV Vaccine

Merck Vaccine Update

What's the Hurry?

More on HPV Vaccine

Texas Orders ALL Girls to be Given Herpes Vaccine

What's Next - Child Neglect for Parents Who Won't Vaccinate?

HPV Vaccinations

Gardasil - Side Effects

I just found this warning about the side effects of Gardasil, the vaccine that claims to prevent cervical cancer. Raven does a magnificent job of tearing down the inflated claims about the drug's wonder status.

Roughly 15,000 women a year are DX with cervical cancer.
Many will catch it in it’s early stages where it can be successfully treated. Life expectancy is high for those who take care of themselves. Remember not all these cancers are caused by HPV…and the women who are DX with this have other risk factors present.

Go, read the rest - it's an awesomely comprehensive answer to the scare mongers who want to force all young women to submit to vaccination.

2 in UK Dead, Linked to HPV Vaccine

I haven't liked the HPV vaccine push for some time. Frankly, it strikes me as overkill - vaccinating almost all girls on the off-chance that a few of them will have sex at a young age with many partners, contract one of the 4 types of HPV associated with cervical cancer, and develop a malignant cancer. The vaccine is too new to be trusted, too expensive, and strongly linked to shady dealings with politicians.

Now it's linked to death.

The European Medicines Agency (EMEA) said one of the young women who received Gardasil died in Germany while the other was in Austria. It has not released their ages.

It follows the deaths of three young women aged 12, 19 and 22 who were reported to have died in the U.S. days after Gardasil was administered, with 1,700 patients suffering "adverse reactions". There were no previous recorded deaths in Europe.

The EMEA said: "In both cases, the cause of death could not be identified.

"No causal relationship has been established between the deaths of the young women and the administration of Gardasil."

Merck Vaccine Update

Perry, and MANY others, are still wrongly calling the HPV vaccine a "cancer" vaccine.

That's like calling sunblock a "cancer" cure - after all, it stops sunburn, which CAN lead to skin cancers, doesn't it? FoxNews.com reports

"When a company comes to me and says we have a cure for cancer,

Well, no, that's a POSSIBLE preventive of SOME cancers.

Assuming it works. Yeah, I know, the 411 is that it stops women from being infected with HPV strains that cause 70% of cervical cancers. But, I'm a little suspicious. There's a big difference between theoretical effectiveness and real-use effectiveness.

For example:

• There's the widely known adage that nature abhors a vacuum. In scientist's lingo, an empty niche must be filled. Will another virus slip into the open slot?
  
  
• Will the targeted viruses do what many viruses do, and mutate? Therefore rendering said protection invalid.
  
  
• Will boosters be needed? Most vaccines need to be periodically updated. In fact, the suggested update will need to be scheduled just when those 11 and 12 year old girls are hitting their peak of sexual activity.
  
  And, FYI, MOST booster shots are not given. The now-vulnerable person is an adult, and decides to do what most 20-somethings do - spend the cash that could protect their health on wild times, living expenses, college costs, cars, etc.

Can someone help me out with the numbers?

I just had a thought - the HPV pushers have been pointing to the INCREDIBLE incidence of HPV in the female population. According to the pro-vaccine people, about 50% of the sexually active population has been exposed.

Naturally, most people reading those stats start sweating. Even if only 1% of the infected population gets cervical cancer, that's a heck of a lot of women who would die.

Right?

Wrong!

I just checked with Wikipedia (yeah, I DO take their information with a grain of salt, but, on basic topics, they're not bad).

ALL WARTS - THE KIND YOU USED TO GET ON YOUR HANDS, PLANTAR WARTS (OCCUR ON THE FOOT - I'VE GOT ONE NOW), AND ALL OTHER TYPES - THE ONES THAT OCCUR ON OLD PEOPLE - ARE CAUSED BY THE SAME HUMAN PAPILLOMA VIRUS!!!!

So, basically, you can ignore MOST, if not virtually ALL, of the hype about the dreaded incidence of HPV, and how the virus will lead to a decimation of the female population, due to cervical cancer.

Without breaking apart the stats into specifically genital-area infection, all the stats are USELESS!

Does anyone have a better breakdown of the numbers?

What's the hurry?

From
The Washington Times

Negative side effects of Gardasil, a new Merck vaccine to prevent the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, are being reported in the District of Columbia and 20 states, including Virginia. The reactions range from loss of consciousness to seizures.
"Young girls are experiencing severe headaches, dizziness, temporary loss of vision and some girls have lost consciousness during what appear to be seizures," said Vicky Debold, health policy analyst for the National Vaccine Information Center, a nonprofit watchdog organization that was created in the early 1980s to prevent vaccine injuries.
Following federal approval of the vaccine in July 2006, a storm of legislation was introduced across the nation that would make the vaccine mandatory in schools.

The same article is reporting lower stats than other sites – I'm generally reading 11K+ cases of invasive cervical cancer projected for 2007. That's a major jump, especially since the incidence of cervical cancer (US) has been declining for years.

The American Cancer Society estimates there were 9,710 new cases of cervical cancer in the United States in 2006.

I'm particularly unnerved about this:

Merck spokesman Chris Loder said the vaccine is effective for five years and the Whitehouse Station, N.J., drug maker is not sure how long afterward the vaccine will work. Critics point out that an additional booster shot may be necessary.

So, are they suggesting that a booster may be necessary? From my reckoning, it will need to be updated just when the girls are hitting the 16-18 year range – precisely when they are more likely to be having sex.

Therefore, vaccinate them early, because some girls are having sex at ages when their partners could be charged with stat rape. However, at the ages girls are more likely to have consensual sex, the vaccine MAY NOT WORK!

From the Merck site:http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/g/gardasil/gardasil_ppi.pdf

As with all vaccines, GARDASIL may not fully protect everyone who gets the vaccine.

Merck says that, even if previously infected with HPV, women should get the vaccine, since there's no way to know precisely which strain caused the positive response. On the Women to Women site, http://www.womentowomen.com/sexualityandfertility/gardasil-landing.asp
in contrast, they found that

trial subjects who had already had exposure to the four strains showed higher rates of cervical neoplasia (abnormal cancer cell precursors), raising questions as to whether the vaccine impairs immune response under such circumstances, or whether there were demographic factors at play, or both.

The evolutionary issue has to be considered – remember that old maxim, Nature abhors a vacuum?

How long will protection last? Will boosters be needed? Or worse, will elimination of just four out of over 100 viral strains create a niche for other strains to fill? Swimming in its own vast gene pool and with billions of human hosts at hand, HPV has quite a survival advantage. What will happen to the niche currently occupied by strains # 16, 18, 6 and 11, if they are eliminated through vaccination? Microorganisms enjoy an extremely short life-cycle relative to ours, giving them the evolutionary edge when it comes to developing resistance against the very drugs and vaccines (and pesticides) we employ to annihilate them.

Further, I don't entirely agree with adding the 2 strains of genital warts to the package. Wouldn't it have been more useful to protect against the remainder of the HPV strains that are said to be responsible for about 30% of cancers?

Where have all the young men gone? On another note, if our desire to protect women from cervical cancer is genuine, when would such a vaccine be ready for administration to men and, for that matter, when will boys and men be lined up to receive it? Some speculate that the reason protection is afforded against two genital wart strains by the vaccine is not simply because, as the company describes it, the presence of infection from the two strains can be a confounding factor in determining exposure to oncogenic strains, but because men worry most of all about the cosmetic impact of contracting genital warts, so having resistance to warts would lend cachet to having the vaccination.

Yeah, the unsightliness of those warts on the penis does inhibit women from rushing the guys into the sack. You have to look at the warts and say, wow, if he has that, what ELSE does he have?

The American College of Pediatricians opposes forcing HPV vaccination as a requirement for school attendance.

The American College of Pediatricians applauds the availability of HPV vaccine. We strongly oppose requiring students to obtain the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine as a requirement for public school attendance.
HPV is spread only by intercourse. Keeping children out of school because they have not been vaccinated with the HPV vaccine is a serious, precedent-setting action. It replaces parental medical decision-making with government regulation which should be reserved for the improvement of the general public health. HPV cannot innocently be “caught” in a classroom as measles or other vaccine preventable diseases can.

The College also addresses the need for boosters

Waning protection is an issue with almost every vaccine in existence.

From Merck's own site, something new. I know I've not seen this information before

GARDASIL* is a non-infectious recombinant, quadrivalent vaccine

Given many people's reaction to manipulating DNA, I think the public should be aware of this.

More on HPV vaccine

I've been checking out what other sites have written since I posted, previously, about the executive order by Texas Governor Perry to mandate ALL girls in Texas be given the new vaccine.

First, most sites write about the "anti-cancer" vaccine. It isn't - it works against about 70% of the sexually-transmitted Human Papilloma viruses. 2 of them are suspected of causing SOME cervical cancers.

Texas Governor Ignores the Zealots is the all caps heading of Truthdig - Ear to the Ground site.

For a map of the US that shows where legislation has been introduced to MANDATE vaccination, click here. The legislation is being aggressively pushed by a group called Women in Government. What's really interesting is the following, from their site:

Most women will have HPV, but few will develop cancer.

and

Only HPV that persists can lead to cancer.

So, why are ALL girls in Texas being FORCED to be vaccinated?

What's Next - Child Neglect for Parents Who Won't Vaccinate?

Boy, sometimes I really think there are conservatives who have gove over the edge in seeing the heavy hand of Big Brother in every government action.

And then something like this happens.

New Hampshire announced plans Wednesday to become the first state to offer the new cervical-cancer vaccine free to all girls. Beginning in January, the vaccine against the human papilloma virus, or HPV, will be provided to girls ages 11 through 18 as part of a state program that offers various immunizations to children at no cost.

The program is paid for by the federal government and insurance companies.

The Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine in June for girls as young as 9. It prevents infection from some strains of HPV, a sexually transmitted virus that can cause cervical cancer and genital warts. Cervical cancer is the No. 2 cancer killer in women.

I REALLY don't like this. It strikes me as another Nanny State action, the kind that overrules the legal parents of a minor, pooh-poohing any objections, and forcing medical services on the family - but, it's FOR THE CHILDREN!

Yeah, I know it's voluntary now, but, eventually, the pressure will grow to force immunization on everyone.

I also have a quibble with the statistic on cervical cancer being the # 2 cancer killer in women. According to the 2002 cancer report, uterine cancer is 4th, after lung & bronchus, breast, & colon and rectal. And that uterine cancer is both cervical and other uterine cancers.

Women are about twice as likely to die of pancreatic cancer - about 6% of all cancers. But when have you heard the massive outcry to increase research for that type of cancer? You haven't.

Check out the stats yourself.

Frankly, I don't understand the hysteria this whole issue causes. Why go gonzo about the admittedly rare possibility of getting HPV, let alone having it develop into cancer?

I don't believe that the general public understands that one reason the cervical cancer stats have APPARENTLY been rising is that, instead of categorizing only true, late-stage cancers as part of those stats (the situation before the Pap test), now they call ALL the abnormal results "cancer", even those that the doctors themselves consider pre-cancerous, or only potentially, eventually cancerous. A lot of women have been led to surgery to eliminate those abnormal results, with the outcome that they are dropped into the cancer stats hopper.

HPV Vaccinations

I just checked out a link to an article about the new push to vaccinate all pre-adolescent girls against HPV, which has been linked to some cervical cancers.

I'm not on-board with giving young girls this vaccine, for several reasons:

1) It hasn't been studied long enough. Even its promoters acknowledge that long-term effects are still unknown. Is it possible that it will have side-effects affecting fertility, development, or other bodily or mental changes? It does have potential, but why push so hard? We need to take this slow, rather than find ourselves with a bigger problem in the future.

2) Vaccinating all girls strikes me as overkill. Not every woman will be exposed to HPV. Of those, not every women will develop cervical cancer. So, why are we treating this like polio, where even a passer-by could potentially infect you? HPV is not spread that casually.

As I understand it, HPV causes most of its problems when other infections are present. The severity and duration of the warts increases when multiple infections are there - as would be the case with promiscious partners. HIV-infected gay men have shown the cancerous changes associated with HPV infection, for example.

3) HPV vaccinations DON'T PREVENT CANCER - they only work against about 70% of the HPV types.

But backers are promoting it as a total solution. I'll bet that most people don't know it isn't fool-proof.

4) Backers of the vaccine point out that abstinent women can be infected by a promiscious partner.

That's true. So, why haven't we bit the bullet, and promoted, instead, an STD check before sexual activity? Think about it - not, run out and buy a condom, or, make sure you're wearing the patch, but, don't get naked before a total STD check - HIV, HPV, hepatitis, etc.

Will that stop all STDs? No. But neither will the vaccine.