The world must accept that the HPV vaccine is safe

[Liberal Veteran]

313. 'You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into.'

There are certainly some good points to made against HPV vaccination (although to be honest, I haven't found any in this thread that really sing out as particularly reasoned).

Really bad arguments:

Not 100% percent safe. - Nothing is. There is always a minority of people who will have a bad reaction to something. Sugar, water, peanuts, vaccines, aspirin, penicillin. As far as safety is concerned, we are a decade into this and some 86 million doses administered in the US alone pretty much put that concern to rest. So far, the predictions of everything from massive die-offs to mass sterility have yet to materialize in real world usage.

Will encourage risky behavior. - Yeah, that's what they say about giving kids condoms or teaching sex ed. This is hardly worth acknowledging. Sorta like saying making people wear motorcycle helmets or seats belts makes people want to crash their car into the nearest tree.

Doesn't cover all strains/not 100% effective. - The fact that seat belts don't always prevent injury doesn't mean they don't stop a lot of people from flying through the windshield on impact and reduce the risk of serious injury by 45% in car accidents.

Merck and/or some republican supports vaccination for HPV. - So what? Okay, maybe their motives aren't pure, but again...who cares? No matter how you slice that one, it boils down to Argumentum ad Hominem. It is a rubbish argument meant to appeal to prejudice rather than reason.

In case of legitimate HPV infection, the body has a way to shut that down/clear the infection. - I don't even know where to begin with that. Even though that is a paraphrase, that argument immediately brought to mind the whole "pregnancy from legitimate rape" debacle. Yes, the body can do remarkable things, but I'm sure that results in cold comfort for those who end up NOT clearing the infection and enjoying genital warts and/or cervical/anal cancer.

Specious arguments:

Pap smears will take care of the problem. - The value of regular pap smears cannot be understated, but it doesn't change the fact that not everyone goes to their doctor as they should and we still get some 12000 cases of cervical cancer annually in the US.

Too many vaccines. - I suppose if there weren't so many illnesses, we wouldn't have so many vaccines. Even so, it isn't as though the body has some low threshold on the number of pathogens it can recognize and react to and we need to parcel out vaccines like misers for fear that next year you won't be able to get your flu shot because because you used up all your lifetime quota of preventable diseases.

Not easily communicable. - The fact that you aren't going to get it from breathing the same air someone doesn't change the fact that upwards of 75% of the population ends up exposed to HPV.

I don't like mandates. - Mandates are inconvenient and can be expensive. Cancer is also inconvenient and expensive. Complete freedom from mandates doesn't exist when you are part of a civilization.


The really troubling thing is deep down, I know a lot of these arguments were created to justify a position already taken in order to sound reasonable. It all comes out a lot like this: