Good news on cancer? Not for everyone
By Ellen Goodman November 12, 2005
THERE WAS a time when only the loony left believed that the loony right favored death over sex. Not anymore.
If you've been engrossed in the culture-war correspondence on the judicial front, maybe you missed the news on the medical front. While the religious right escorted Harriet Miers out and welcomed Samuel Alito in, a group of scientists announced the beginning of the end of a deadly cancer.
In clinical trials, a new vaccine was 100 percent successful in preventing the virus that causes most cervical cancer, the second-leading cancer killer of women in the world. Every year some 10,000 American women are diagnosed with it and nearly 4,000 die. It now appears that with government approval and funding, we're on our way to ending this scourge.
The success story was greeted with cork-popping enthusiasm by doctors. Eliav Barr of the beleaguered Merck, one of the two companies to develop a vaccine, offered a toast: ''This is it. This is the Holy Grail." But it appears that social conservatives aren't drinking from the same chalice.
This was the response of Leslie Unruh of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse: ''I personally object to vaccinating children against a disease that is 100 percent preventable with proper sexual behavior."
The honchos at the Family Research Council said tepidly that they ''welcome medical advances," but with a very frayed welcome mat. FRC's Tony Perkins said he would not inoculate his own daughter: ''It sends the wrong message. Our concern is that this vaccine will be marketed to a segment of the population that should be getting a message about abstinence... http://tinyurl.com/a2vug
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By Ellen Goodman November 12, 2005
THERE WAS a time when only the loony left believed that the loony right favored death over sex. Not anymore.
If you've been engrossed in the culture-war correspondence on the judicial front, maybe you missed the news on the medical front. While the religious right escorted Harriet Miers out and welcomed Samuel Alito in, a group of scientists announced the beginning of the end of a deadly cancer.
In clinical trials, a new vaccine was 100 percent successful in preventing the virus that causes most cervical cancer, the second-leading cancer killer of women in the world. Every year some 10,000 American women are diagnosed with it and nearly 4,000 die. It now appears that with government approval and funding, we're on our way to ending this scourge.
The success story was greeted with cork-popping enthusiasm by doctors. Eliav Barr of the beleaguered Merck, one of the two companies to develop a vaccine, offered a toast: ''This is it. This is the Holy Grail." But it appears that social conservatives aren't drinking from the same chalice.
This was the response of Leslie Unruh of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse: ''I personally object to vaccinating children against a disease that is 100 percent preventable with proper sexual behavior."
The honchos at the Family Research Council said tepidly that they ''welcome medical advances," but with a very frayed welcome mat. FRC's Tony Perkins said he would not inoculate his own daughter: ''It sends the wrong message. Our concern is that this vaccine will be marketed to a segment of the population that should be getting a message about abstinence... http://tinyurl.com/a2vug
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posted by Dan at 8:39 PM
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