Justin Buist

Looks like Michigan might soon require 6th grade girls to get HPV vaccinations.

First, let me present the first entire paragraph to the article:

Sixth-grade girls in Michigan could be the first required to be vaccinated against cervical cancer under a proposed new law.

Now, since we already require other vaccinations this seems to be reasonable, right?

Well, we don’t actually require them. Parents are always allowed to sign a waiver that will allow their children into public schools without getting the diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B, polio, etc. vaccines. I cannot imagine the legislature actually making this “required” without also providing the waiver option. It would be a major divergence from the status-quo not only because the other requirements have a waiver option but because this infection is sexually transmitted while the others are not.

However, we’ve already nailed my beef with such legislation. It isn’t how it’s written, it is how it is presented to the public.

When you pull up the current official document of “Required Childhood Immunizations for Michigan School Settings there is no mention of a waiver at all. The media outlets reporting on it all term it “required” when it likely wouldn’t be.

That’s my beef. I don’t want to see people herded down the path of immunization, even for the older vaccines, just accepting that they “must” be done because a government employee said so.

People tend to take the path of least resistance. So, they’ll do the vaccinations without really thinking about it much. Of course, if you also present the waiver option immediately to parents that have not done any immunization procedures out of ignorance you open up a new path of least resistance that may not be the best thing for society as a whole and the actual child. This point was brought to my attention by a very intelligent woman, whom I love dearly, that doesn’t really agree with my take on the issue.

To that point, I’m not sure how to strike a proper balance. How you present the option of the waiver, which should be well understood by the local educators, without also protecting children from ignorant parents? This I do not know, and I will likely ponder it for some time.

Should the HPV vaccine be promoted? Absolutely. Over 50% of the population now carries HPV and around 3,700 women die of cancer annually because of cervical cancer caused by it.

Should it be mandated by the government for school girls? Absolutely not — no medical procedure should ever be mandated by the government. While such programs are often very good, and done with the best of intentions we have seen them go awry in this country before. Incidentally Michigan was the first state to propose a eugenics program in the United States. Right here in this country we sterilized women up until 1976^* without their knowledge in an attempt to better our society.

I see grave danger in accepting government mandated health care procedures. I do not worry that this very proposed program will do so, but I do worry that the populace will continue to accept said programs out of hand. If we, as a people, continue to accept them without great scrutiny I have no reason to believe that our “benevolent leaders” will return to their previous thinking and start right back up with the previous atrocities.

^*: I’ll see if I can dig this up. The Wikipedia article says 1960’s but I recollect an article some years back that brought the issue to light again stating that it was up until 1976 in either North Carolina or South Carolina. It was where I learned the term “eugenics” so you’ll just have to trust that I have a decent memory. That, or you can disregard my date and just admit that we did some pretty f-’ed up things in this country anyway.

Judge lifts order requiring treatment for teen with cancer

I didn’t see this one coming.

Long story short boy has Hodgkin’s disease, a cancer of the lymph nodes, and after going through round one of chemo treatment the boy decided he’d like to do something else.

State steps in and takes partial custody of the child and insists on chemo treatment. On appeal a judge has overturned that decision and given control back to the parents and the child.

As it should be.

I do feel differently about this case than I do about Katie who I’ve mentioned in the past. In this case, presuming the media is presenting it properly, the only reason young Abraham doesn’t want to continue chemotherapy is because it was extremely uncomfortable. In Katie’s case there was concern of her becoming sterile and the parents were getting differing medical opinions on the right way to proceed. They were also looking for treatments within the realm of accepted treatments by the FDA — not herbal stuff from Mexico.

While I believe that the choice should be left to the sick and their parents, in Abraham’s case I would strongly recommend chemo based upon what I have seen. Of course, I am not a doctor, but, his only complaint is that it’s too hard on him.

Man up, nancy-boy! Life’s hard. Sometimes doing what you need to do to stay alive is going to hurt. Did you know that the first chemo patient ever was taken off chemo because doctors, aside from his own, objected to it and insisted that the patient was going to die from the treatment? The cancer was shrinking, and the patient would have likely lived if treatment was continued. Did you know that it was for a fairly treatable cancer these days? Throat cancer. The patient contracted throat cancer likely for his love of cigars and chewing tobacco.

The patient was George Herman Ruth. Babe Ruth. The Great Bambino.

Now, perhaps “man up, nancy-boy!” is a bit harsh but the primary reason that I found this case so appauling is because the “child” in this case is a 16 year old male. He would easily be tried as an adult in a murder trial anywhere in the country because at that age people understand life and death. I’m also biased when it comes to his gender — I’ll heap responsibility and critisim on a 16 year old male before I will a 16 year old female.

Yes, I’m sexist, if you want to call it that. I’m more likely to harsh on a young male than I am a young female. I’m also more likely to bitch out a family member than I am a stranger for the same reason: I’m part of that group, I’ve been there, and I know what you’re thinking.

If I were the judge I would have dismissed this too, but with the above nancy-boy talk.