To follow on from yesterday’s post that highlights the inadequacies of research surrounding the HPV vaccine -in which reaction not efficacy has been used as enough criteria to implement a vaccination programme. Of course, it is also noted that the media are acting irresponsibly in not emphasising the importance of continuing with cervical screening – even after vaccination.
Therefore, while the onus remains on girls and women to carry the ‘Guinea Pig’ status for research and development of this programme – research has shown that HVP is actually more prevalent in men.
Anna Giuliano, a scientist from the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Centre & Research Institute in Tamper has no idea what is feeding into this high prevalence. However, her preliminary research on men shows a prevalence rate of 59.4 percent against a 26.8 percent prevalence of the virus in women.
A report published last Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported a 26.8 percent prevalence of HPV in women. Giuliano’s preliminary research on men shows a prevalence rate of 59.4 percent. “It’s twice as high for men that women,” she said.
It is also known that certain strains of HPV put men at risk for developing penile and anal cancers.
In light of this – why is the onus put onto females to be used as a tool for combating cervical, penile and anal cancers? Especially when it is shown that men actually have twice the prevalence rate for carrying the virus. I am curious as to how yet once again it remains the females duty and responsibility to “protect ourselves”
Men appear to become invisible when it is apparent that they need to take some accountability whether it be contraception, or now – disease prevention of sex organs at risk from cancer.
“Men seem to become invisible when it becomes apparent that they need to take some accountability whether it is contraception or now – disease prevention of sex organs at risk from cancer.”
…. or rape.
Exactly – this is what I am getting at with the it always seens to be our responsibilty to “protect ourselves” from the amazing invisible men.
I agree that men seem to be invisible in this issue, and am surprised at how the media has focused strictly on women. It seems that nobody understands that nearly every case of HPV in women comes from men in the first place!
How do we involve men more? Reminding them of the risk of penile and anal cancers may help. Also, it is now felt that 25 percent of oral cancers in the U.S. are due to HPV, especially HPV 16 which is one the strains covered by the vaccine. Perhaps focusing on certain male risk factors that make transition more likely would bring men into the picture. Men who are not circumcised have an increased risk of contracting penile HPV, and in the case of men with multiple sexual partners, it increases the risk of cancer in their female partners (New England Journal of Medicine). I have seen many ads and discussions about the HPV vaccine, but NOTHING reminding men who are uncircumcised and have more than one partner, to use condoms. Once again it seems it is up to women alone to have this information and protect themselves accordingly.
Lynne Eldridge M.D.
Author, “Avoiding Cancer One Day At A Time”
http://www.avoidcancernow.com
There was a comment in the full story where a university male said something like — yes he knew that women had HPV and could pass it on. Where is campus Planned Parenthood in all this? Why are they not getting the word out on STDs, and the dangers and limitations of this vaccine, as well as the (limited) good. I understand some PPs are actually backing the vaccine defacto becoming a part of pharma marketing departments. Do they receive funding from pharma? Non profit orgs should be working on behalf of the taxpayer who is their primary funding source, and should not accept any money at all from business and corps. Breast Cancer Action is the model they should follow: No corp funding, no funding that compromises them.
I should say no donations from business and corps connected to the pharmaceutical industry or industry that is complicit in carcinogenic production.
I can’t link right now, so go to http://www.bcaction.org and click on our policies. Orgs working on women’s or any health issue should adopt the precautionary principle.
Thanks Pony – it says
“Why doesn’t BCA accept contributions from pharmaceutical companies?
BCA wants people who receive our information to be secure in the knowledge that what we say is in no way influenced by who gives us money. In August of 1998, BCA became the first national breast cancer organization to adopt a corporate contributions policy that bans the organization from knowingly accepting funds from corporations that may create a real or apparent conflict of interest for BCA, or whose practices endanger public health or may contribute to cancer incidence. Corporations covered by this policy include, but are not limited to: pharmaceutical companies, chemical manufacturers, oil companies, tobacco companies, health insurance organizations and cancer treatment facilities. This policy is intended to ensure that BCA is independent from outside influences in the pursuit of our mission and to avoid potential or perceived conflicts of interest”
I agree – or it just gets open to abuse.
Hello Lynne – thanks for your insights and I am pleased that you confirmed.
“It seems that nobody understands that nearly every case of HPV in women comes from men in the first place!”
In addition, thank you for reminding me of the HPV and oral carcinoma link – I was unaware of the 25% figure!
I am stunned that there is NOTHING reminding men who are uncircumcised and have more than one partner, to use condoms.
Responsibility for sexual health just seems the by-pass the men. Once again I feel that we have been handed the “here you deal with it” If many men are unconcerned regards infecting their sexual partners then maybe the possibility of penile cancer may wake them up?
According to a BBC news report on 23rd February, 2007. Homosexual men are requesting the vaccine Gardasil because this vaccine supposedly protects men against anal and penile cancer. Given the fact it is a number of homosexual men are asking for this vaccine, what are the implications for heterosexual men? Surely not the fact that HPV and other STI’s are primarily passed from male to female during sexual activity? HIV/Aids is primarily passed from male to female but what happened – onus is once again on women to protect themselves. However, given women’s unequal power within many heterosexual relationships, it should not be women’s responsibility but men’s. Of course this issue is all about sexual politics wherein it is always women who are deemed to be at risk or diseased not men. In addition many women are not able to demand or even expect their male partner will respect their wishes sexually, but instead the woman is expected to always concur with what the man wants sexually.
Here is the link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6342105.stm
Whilst my status as a “rocket scientist” has never actually been officially recognised, my maths skills have never been questioned.
Near-on 60% of males carrying some form of HPV, vs just over 25% of females.
So, in the *sane* world, to eradicate the disease, target only the group with the least impact??? FFS (that’s rocket scientist speak for “not exactly effective”)
1. If a single-sex vaccine programme is instigated, then immunising the majority of carriers would make sense, not the minority.
2. Makes just a tad more sense to instigate such a programme to both sexes.
3. Human female reproductive system is far, far more complex than the simplistic male one.
4. Proposed immunisation programme is being targeted at pre-pubescent females, a time when ‘the system’ is just beginning, so tampering with it could lead to devastating effects in the long term (refer to #3, complex/delicate balance).
5. Proposed immunisation programme has the backlash effect of less condom usage, ‘false sense of security’ for other STDs and cancer screening.
6. It’s just another load of sexist bullshit whereby the female of the species must carry the burden of all consequences of sexual activity.
OK, well, point #6 was really The Big One. These were just off the top of my head, I’m sure I could think of more.
From the marketing point of view, it’s piss-easy to get a male-orientated immunisation programme off the ground “get this vaccine, or we may have to chop off your beloved willy”.
Males are just so fucking used to never having consequences for any of their actions, esp. for sex. The burden has always been borne by females, whether that be for STDs, pregnancy, child rearing, domestic violence or rape.
Thanks stormy – I think it’s agreed then
Jennifer – for some reason your comment went into the spam folder. The Matrix apologises!
Excellent link – thank you and you are completely correct about how the Sexual Politics muddies the reality from what would be considered in accordance with reason and logic.
Adding to my list:
7. Negligible/nil value giving the vaccine to girls who are lesbians, or who will become lesbians, or females that remain celebate.
In a change of pace, I am now going to tear apart the BBC and their sexist bullshit reporting which seems to be getting worse by the day.
Which immediately puts the association between gay men and femaleness (i.e. ‘non hetero male’)
This is clearly misleading, the vaccine is to prevent a virus that can be present in both females and males (with illness/symptoms in both). To say that homosexual men are requesting this vaccine to prevent “a female cancer” makes them sound stupid and foolish. Additionally, a phrase such as “a female cancer” makes it sound like a female-only cancer, sets up an association that females are somehow more diseased, and also that heterosexual men need not worry about this “female cancer” (‘just another woman problem’ mentality).
Here it is not clear if ‘men’ refers to the gay men as bleated out in the headline, or gay/bi/het men.
At last some sense! (Even if Peabody secretly hopes to increase the ranks *wink*). As homo/bi/het males can all get the diseases (and they have a greater carrier rate anyway), it protects all males, not just the gay/bi ones. The added bonus is that more females would be protected in this way (and probably even without a female immunisation programme).
Well, this is just silliness from the doctor, because it would protect males whether or not gay or straight. Penile cancer is penile cancer, and genital warts are genital warts. I don’t think the virus/cancer has evolved to be clever enough to suss out the sexual orientation of the host.
Perhaps if porn wasn’t educating da menz into demanding anal from their female partners, then we would see a reverse in this trend??? The lower rate in men possibly indicates that the gay community are using condoms fairly often. Which brings me to the caption under the picture “Condoms are not guaranteed to stop HPV transmission”, there is no clarification of this in the article, or the article link, however, the lower rate in males would indicate that perhaps condom usage does work.
Hey thanks stormy – I also noted both the overtly sexist and the err ‘interesting’ remark made by the doc re:
“I would be interested to see the response of suggesting to parents that they should vaccinate their boys at 12 in case they become gay.”
Missing the point of course and anyway…so what? We are talking about sexual health here. There is no room for personal worries regarding potential homophobic concerns.
Says more about him me thinks and the BBC are becoming increasingly myopically challenged in their reporting.
Heh – since I have put up these posts I’ve had a mighty spam rush for Acyclovir.
hey stormy, you may be some amazing maths machine but: ‘FFS (that’s rocket scientist speak for “not exactly effective”)’ surely that’s NEE (short for Nee Bloody Good?) yes; i did spelling at university rather than silly number things.
Sparkle, yes, the beebs are getting quite the sexist/homophobic in their reports of late. I picked up a lot of it when doing the DV Memorial blog (and some of the rape-related items on the women charged with PtCoJ, and women charged under Section 5 of the DV C&V Act). Most of those stories (whereby I highlight the sexist reporting more as a side issue) can be found under:
http://stormcloud.wordpress.com/tag/courts-the-law/
As for the homophobe-doctor, sadly, the he is a she:
“Dr Anne Szarewski, clinical consultant for Cancer Research UK”
Which just shows that women are indoctrinated into the patriarchical culture (the prime example are those women who believe stripping and polestering are *empowering*). Only the oases of the radfem blogs are immune from such overwhelming brainwashing!
SW: “Nee Bloody Good” sounds a bit Geordie to me. As I have lived in a variety of countries and hemispheres, I prefer the international over the regional. “FFS” is a good all rounder, with the variant “FFFS” (For Fucking Fuck’s Sake) — for those occasions where the two Fs are insufficient.
My other favourite is “FF,FF” (fuck-fuck, fuckity fuck). However, that is a stormy-specific invention, used primarily to express extreme dismay when viewing misogynistic crap on the internet. “FF,FF” and the lesser punctuated variant “FFFF” (which looks a little like a Hex number) may perhaps come into general usage.
StormyLabs are also working on the “FFFFF” (fuck fuck, fuckity fucking fuck), in preparation for the growing exploitation of young women into the sex industry, rampant misogyny, rape and domestic violence. Unfortunately, it appears that this situation is fast approaching, and “FFFFF” may have to be rolled out without adequate clinical trials.
MEMO:
From the StormyLabs MD (Marketing Department):
The proprietary brands have now been approved, and can now be marketed worldwide via the following (the bracketed version at the end is for the lay-person too lazy for the additional html coding):
FFS = F₂S (FFS or F2S)
FFF = F₃S (FFFS or F3S)
FFFF = F₄ (FFFF, “FF,FF” or F4)
FFFFF = F₅ (FFFFF, or F5)
The SL MD hopes that this ready-reckoner will be helpful in dispensing the appropriate level of disgust/indignation/exasperation as and when required. Please use the preceding in a highly irresponsible manner.
Yours sincerely,
Marketing Department, StormyLabs
Dear Sparkle
Hello, you are an inspiration – just in case anyone was confused about my stance on Sparkle’s blog and her views.
Yours Truly truly truly (true)
The One and only Daisy (TM)….. (Thoroughly Medicated) xx
Dazey — yes, there has been an imposter-troll floating about, pretending to be you. Think Trollbuster will expose it soon enough?
Thank you Dazey – now I may need the secret sign just to be certain that in fact you are who you say you are!
Lots of Pukes running around yunno.
Quick Look….there’s one! Ha! got the little spray of vomit!
stormy – I am loving your pseudo-medical ready reckoner! I’ll just throw in the odd tds (3xper day) or qds (4x per day) bd (2x per day) and so on. Therefore e.g. F5 qds which would generate 20 Fs
FFS! (F2)
Lots of F’s stormy…lot’s of F’s
“Think Trollbuster will expose it soon enough?”
Who you gonna call?? Trollbusters!
Should we make a film and compose our own theme tune? After all, my name is a bastardisation of another film’s character which was really misogynistic – Daisy Duke from the Pukes of Hazard- (esp the video from the film – total porn – the song – “these boots are made for walking” – remember? sorry to remind you, was a totally bad song but the vid was more or less jess simpson lap, pole and podium dancing in next to nothing, and having pseudo sex in a pink bikini, washing a car – film cliche’ soap suds and boobs thrust out writhing over the stupid car – was sick that this was being shown to little girls – all the men were perving over it – and this vid was supposed to be mainstream) – I digress – Daisy Puke puke puke puke!! So there.
Pink did a take on that video. It’s on her website. Some say it wasn’t cool for Pink to call out women who pseudofuck car fenders. I say (as you know) any woman who is shilling for the patriarchy should be called out.
FFs qds
Sparkle, one can never have too many Fs (well, at least in the radfemism world anyways). I’m working on the F with the sideways 8 (F-infinity for the slow ones out there). F∞
Dazey and you knows I luvs ya, but the origins of your blogname do make me cringe *shudder*– and this is only from remembering the 1970-80s TV thing, not the overtly pukey cinematic remake (thankfully I have been spared that horror).
Where is our Trollbuster? I’ve been humming the theme tune, and still a no-show. Her bingo-wings are usually faster than that!
NEWSFLASH……..StormyLabs were today warned that their vast fuck footprint is endangering the world breeding supply of f’s which are reported to be nearing extinction. global fucking is a reality and may result in this year’s hurricanes having to skip directly from Edna to Geronimo.
Simp: There’s always Sanskrit.
PRESS RELEASE:
StormyLabs, Industrial Relations:
The media hysteria surrounding a potential global shortage of Fs, whilst blown out of proportion, could in fact be rectified by XYs desisting in the exploitation, violence and rape of the XX sector of the population.
Alphabetical balance would then be restored.
Pony – totally agree – I said the “character” did I not?
The character portrays a woman in a sexually objectified way, and jess simpson apparently had to to daily training, dieting etc for weeks before she took the (mostly unclothed) part – yes, Pink’s video took the piss out of media and how they expect women to tow the line – that vid was genius and about time- the way the media always slot women into the narrow role of sexually-objectified, often body-modified commodity – many feminists did and still do not “get” her her “stupid girls” vid – it was a wry commentary on the pressure on women to be commodities and nothing more.
she was asking women to just actually “think” about how they are being pressured and suggesting that they rebel against the crap they are being fed by the media and culture.
To criticise that system, you have to critique what that system produces – it’s so obvious.
Ooops yes you did. Forgive please I am truly having serious vision problems. I must slow down and read word by word, as is not effin NORMAL!!
Do ask if you think I’ve got something wrong and it seems out of character for me, Ms Puke.
Actualy the problem is that even though only 25% of women have HVP the risc of a woman infected to get cancer if far larger than that of a man. So even if a man has HPV the cancer risque is very low compared to the cancer risc of a woman with HPV. And about those jabed by the “female cancer” expresion. Call me up when a man get’s cervical cancer.
Balom – Demonstrating (which you have not done) the various percentages of cancer risk to the different sexes is neither here nor there. Men carry this virus and pass it on to females – therefore men should be included in the vacc programme. This article is concerned with men taking some responsibility for sexual health. Not a contest for – “well your HPV has more risk of developing cancer therefore it is you that needs to be pumped full of chemicals to prevent that” It would make sense, to go to the source of the infection and vaccinate – before males have an almost 60% chance of becoming a carrier and potential infector – radical I know.
The highlighting of the “female cancer” jibe drew attention to the BBC’s article that used the term to ridicule homosexuals. So no call needed.
Well balom call me up when a woman gets cervical cancer from HPV. Because the PAP smear (been around several decades you will read up on it now won’t you, now you’ve made yourself out a total dope?) catches CELL CHANGES that MIGHT lead to cervical cancer. Those CELL CHANGES are then treated with an 20 minute office procedure, and follow up pap smears.
The CELL CHANGES that aren’t caused by a a yeast infection, crap sold on our tampons or wipes, perfumed soaps and just plain icky sperm, usually go away on their own, with no CANCER caused.
Those few remaining CELL CHANGES which become dysplasia (not ther yet, nope, no cancer now either) is watched or removed (see above 20 minute procedure).
Cervical cancer is SO fucking rare as to be unheard of among women. Oh those who THINK they have cervical cancer usually have only the precurser dysplasia. Not cancer.
Cervical cancer is usually only found in women who are not getting their pap smears, not using condoms, and that is usually because they have no health coverage, are living in remote areas (vide supra) or have oppressive male partners, and/or opportunistic gynes who see the chance for a whacking fee with an unnecessary procedure.
Pony – nothing wrong with your eyesight at all – was reminding other people for the sake of clarity – it sounded as if I was being sharp with you- sorrry I wasn’t! I get over-angry (what? really? ya think?) sometimes and word things insensitively I think maybe (I don’t care if it gets to the mra’s or the pro-porns or the troll lurkers – that goes without saying and is who I am blasting half the time (hence, someone recenlty posing as me putting nasty messages up from daisy – nice try bozo) – but I know this issue has blown up all out of proportion in the past and the comment was designed for any potential challengers to my post. Heh!
‘The media hysteria surrounding a potential global shortage of Fs, whilst blown out of proportion, could in fact be rectified by XYs desisting in the exploitation, violence and rape of the XX sector of the population.’
StormyLabs were today accused by alphabet change scientists of playing down the risk of consonontal shortage: ‘next they’ll be telling us it’s down to fat men in australia drinking all the xxxx’, opined S Wondered O’Toole of Patriarchy Inc.
Meanwhile Josef Papp was trying to get to the bottom of a number of smears emanating from a geordie crypto-feminist website…
geordie crypto-feminist website…
geordie crypto-feminist website…
smears
Wha’? :0
it was a cunningly veiled comment