Appalling Quote of the Day

Regarding mandatory (with parent opt-out) HPV vaccination for Kansas girls, Dawn Richardson, from a nutty anti-vaccine group (in Texas), says, “What they are proposing is vaccinating a bunch of healthy girls that are responsible and that do come from good homes for the benefit of irresponsible people.”

Nevermind that according to the CDC, “Approximately 20 million people are currently infected with HPV. At least 50 percent of sexually active men and women acquire genital HPV infection at some point in their lives. By age 50, at least 80 percent of women will have acquired genital HPV infection. About 6.2 million Americans get a new genital HPV infection each year.” I suppose 80% of women just come from bad homes and are irresponsible.

Folks, remember not to let extreme bias that would endanger girls and women for the sake of appearing to be from “a good home” be the only source you go to for vaccination information. While it’s true that long-term safety data is not yet available for this very new vaccine, you should be aware that many opponents of the vaccine are so because of reasons that have nothing to do with actual scientific data.