{"id":200,"date":"2009-10-28T13:21:10","date_gmt":"2009-10-28T12:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/?p=200"},"modified":"2009-10-28T13:21:10","modified_gmt":"2009-10-28T12:21:10","slug":"research-debunks-promiscuity-objection-to-hpv-vaccine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2009\/10\/28\/research-debunks-promiscuity-objection-to-hpv-vaccine\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Debunks “Promiscuity Objection” to HPV Vaccine"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the objections to the HPV vaccine was that it might encourage promiscuity, and so should not be administered.\u00a0 There was a number of reasons why the objection failed.<\/p>\n

For one thing, it was never made clear that the fear of HPV would stop people having sex in the first place.\u00a0 In fact, it plainly doesn’t – and the evidence for this is that – gasp! – people were having sex with each other even before the vaccine.\u00a0 So, if someone is going to be having unsafe sex, then it’s not likely that the vaccine would make all that much difference – except to minimise at least one of the risk factors.\u00a0 Nor is it clear that vaccination would make it less likely that people would use a condom.\u00a0 Maybe the objectors had strangely powerful-yet-quiescent libidos, and they’d be hopping into bed and having unprotected sex at the drop of a hatwere it not for the vague threat not just of a<\/em> sexually transmitted disease, but of this particular<\/em> sexually transmitted disease.\u00a0 Who knows?<\/p>\n

Of course, the real point of the objection was nothing to do with the safety of sex – it was to do with the possibility that people (notably, the objectors’ own utterly sexless teenage daughters) might want, have, and enjoy sex at all.\u00a0 The objection was, in essence, that if horizontal dancing\u00a0were less risky, it might happen more.\u00a0 That is (somehow)\u00a0clearly bad, and the only way to stop it is, the thought goes, to keep it as dangerous as possible.\u00a0 (Phew!\u00a0 At least that way we might be able to pretend it doesn’t happen.)<\/p>\n

Am I building an Aunt Sally here?\u00a0 I don’t think so.\u00a0 For example, in a letter to the Christian Medical Fellowship<\/a>, a Newcastle paediatrician suggested that<\/p>\n

providing such a vaccine to teenage girls will\u00a0[…] anticipate fornication and therefore condone it. Christian doctors should have no part in this.<\/p>\n

[… Y]oung people will perceive that the consequences of fornication have been lessened and therefore fornicate more.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Obviously,\u00a0there are people – the kind of people who use words like “fornicate” and “sin”\u00a0– who do manage to think that the objection is powerful.\u00a0 For the sake of the argument, let’s imagine that you’re one of them.\u00a0 Are the worries warranted by the facts?\u00a0 Well, it would appear not.\u00a0 According to a paper just out in the British Journal of Cancer<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Girls were asked to indicate their agreement (agree\/disagree) with six statements that students had made during the piloting stages relating to how they, and others, perceived vaccination against a sexually transmitted infection. The majority agreed that HPV vaccination made them think about their health and future sexual relationships.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, teenagers of both sexes spend quite a lot of time thinking about sexual relationships.\u00a0 What’s actually meant here is that it would appear that awareness of the vaccine led girls to take their own sexual health more seriously than they otherwise might.\u00a0 93% agreed with the statement “Having the vaccine shows that you are serious about your own health.”\u00a0 78% agreed with the statement “Having the vaccination reminds me of the possible risks of sexual contact.”\u00a0 In other words, the vaccine does not seem to be seen as a licence to shag.<\/p>\n

On the other hand,<\/p>\n

[a]lmost 14% (73) thought that being protected against HPV might lead them to take more sexual health risks in the future and 19% (99) said that boyfriends might expect them to.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Still, this doesn’t mean that the worries are well-founded.\u00a0 Even if you think<\/em> that being vaccinated will make a difference to your sexual behaviour, it doesn’t follow that you’re correct: there’s nothing to suggest that the girls questioned actually expected the vaccination to make a difference, or that any such expectation would be justified.\u00a0 The figure could be explained by the fact that there was such a noise made by the proponents of the promiscuity objection: it wouldn’t be surprising if some of the fears had been translated to the girls themselves, and that the 14% figure simply reflects a report of those fears.\u00a0 The point is that “I think it might make a difference” doesn’t mean “I’m going to let it make a difference.”\u00a0 And, of course, noone ever said that the vaccine was a substitute for decent sex-education anyway.<\/p>\n

The authors also note that<\/p>\n

Approximately 20% of the total study population of girls completed this questionnaire and their parents may have held more liberal views on adolescent participation in consent than those of nonresponders.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If there’s anything worrying about the paper, then this is it.\u00a0 The evidence is that kids who come from the most open families are the kids who’re least bashful about sex, and so those who’re most likely to seek out information and to know what’s what, and most likely to be confident enough in their sexuality to stand up agaist pressure to do things with which they aren’t comfortable.\u00a0 In other words, we’re talking about the kids who’re probably least at risk to begin with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the objections to the HPV vaccine was that it might encourage promiscuity, and so should not be administered.\u00a0 There was a number of reasons why the objection failed. […]<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[511],"tags":[317],"class_list":["post-200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news","tag-research"],"yoast_head":"\nResearch Debunks "Promiscuity Objection" to HPV Vaccine - Journal of Medical Ethics blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2009\/10\/28\/research-debunks-promiscuity-objection-to-hpv-vaccine\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Research Debunks "Promiscuity Objection" to HPV Vaccine - Journal of Medical Ethics blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of the objections to the HPV vaccine was that it might encourage promiscuity, and so should not be administered.\u00a0 There was a number of reasons why the objection failed. 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