CDC on Forced HPV Vaccination of Immigrants
Posted by Rachel on October 15, 2008
At OBOS today, I have a bit on the new requirement that immigrants seeking legal U.S. residency receive the HPV vaccine, including information on the CDC’s response to the requirement (they didn’t know or mean it, they say).
Don’t forget: today’s the last day if you want to comment on school nutrition/WIC.
jonolan said
What’s the problem? If they want to live here, then they have to get the immunizations we tell them to get. If some some strange reason they don’t want to be vaccinated, they can stay in their birth countries.
Rachel said
I’d suggest reading the briefly outlined problems in the post and the additional links provided for background.
jonolan said
I don’t see those as valid problems. These are people who want to come to the US. It is up to them to meet the requirements in order to do so.
Rachel said
Well, “I don’t see those as valid problems” (a statement of disagreement) is different from “What’s the problem?” (indicating that the statement of the perceived problems hasn’t been read in the first place). Yes, they must meet the requirements. I am suggesting that we ask whether this specific requirement is valid or useful in the first place. This is the difference between “X is illegal” and “Does it make sense for X to be illegal,” and some of us are obviously going to disagree. If you think it’s appropriate to mandate a vaccine that we don’t mandate for citizens, for a disease that isn’t readily contagious and so doesn’t pose the kind of public health threat as other vaccine-preventable diseases, in a vulnerable population with no opt-out provisions (which we provide to citizens when we recommend or even mandate vaccines), then we disagree. Plainly.
MomTFH said
Jonolan, HPV vaccines are not required for citizens, HPV is not more prevalent in other countries or primarily spread by immigrants, and the vaccine is expensive and controversial. Just because they want to come here doesn’t mean that any requirement is automatically justified and should not be examined.
Lenny said
I think it’s pretty pathetic that because the Bush administration wanted to make sure that the Merck execs were fat and happy that they made it mandatory wherever they could. It probably really frustrated them when the ploy to make it mandatory to all US girls was thwarted by public outrage. Well, immigrants are a lesser class of human, right? Moronic if you ask me. So now my 25 year old wife, at little to no risk of HPV or HPV related disease, is required to inject this poison into her healthy body before she can live in the great US of A with her husband. What a wonderful country.
Elena said
For stories from individual women about this requirement, more information, and some of the organizing NAPAWF and other reproductive justice organizations are involved in- we’ve produced a half-hour radio documentary on the topic. The program is called “Guard Us All? Immigrant Women and the HPV Vaccine.” You can listen here:
http://www.radioproject.org/archive/2009/1309.html
Advocates argue that this vaccine is a new chapter in a history of reproductive oppression that targets women of color and immigrant women. On this edition of “Making Contact,” we have the voices of activists, doctors, attorneys and women most affected by the vaccination requirement.
Featuring:
Fatima Quraishi, Pakistani immigrant; Priscilla Huang, National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum policy and programs director; Dr. Deblina Datta, CDC division of STD Prevention; Jessica Gonzalez, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health director of policy and advocacy; Loretta Ross, SisterSong founding member; Beth Stickney, Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project executive director and attorney; Woman client (name withheld for confidentiality and safety), immigrant from Chile; Nial Cox Ramirez, and Elaine Riddick Jessie, residents of North Carolina and subjects of sterilization.
Rachel said
Thanks, Elena. By the way, “Guard Us All?” is a great, clever title.