Just because there is a vaccine, doesn't mean everyone should have to have it.

There has been some debate about whether or not to require young children to get the Gardasil shot. According to the New York Times article, some parents do not want the government to require the shot because they feel it is an invasion of their privacy. There are also concerns about how the shot will affect children later on down the road. Parents do not want their children to be “guinea pigs” for Gardasil and find out later that it has harmed their children. One senator things it is a good idea to require the shot because she was affected by cervical cancer and wants others to avoid having to go through what she went through.

There is also a public concern about Merck’s lobbying of state and federal governments because it is seen as something that is being done to benefit them. When Merck lobbies for the shot to be mandatory, it is seen as if they trying to make as much money as possible before their rights to the shot expire and other companies can begin to make it and sell it for less. While Merck claims they are just concerned about the public, their lobbying cannot help but look as something they are doing to benefit themselves.

The controversy over Gardasil fits in with the article about risk and trust when communication about health risks. Cervical cancer is something that affects some women, so wanting to protect people from it seems like a noble cause. The question then is, should we make everyone get the vaccine, or should we leave it up to each individual person to decide whether or not they want to get the vaccine? The article Risk and Trust in Public Health: A Cautionary Tale raises this same question. They used a fictitious disease but then asked that is people were tested for it and they tested positive, should they be given medicine. The medicine had some bad side effects and even if you tested positive, the test may not be %100 correct, so you may not have the disease anyway.

This scenario is somewhat the same for Gardasil. The actual percentage of women who get cervical cancer is quite low, but if there is a way to prevent cervical cancer, should we make everyone get the vaccine whether or not they may get the cancer.

I can see both sides of the issue, but I believe that people should be allowed to decide for themselves whether or not they want to get the vaccine and if they want their daughters to get the vaccine. Cervical cancer is not an infectious disease, so children will not spread it to others at school, like they may spread polio or small pox. A vaccine is great for cervical cancer, but to me all the possible side effects of the vaccine are not well known. What if in 30 years it is decided that Gardasil had some adverse effect on the ability to have children? If that happened, there would be a national uproar and many unhappy people. I think that before we require children to get the vaccine before attending school, more research should be done into the long term effects of the vaccine and everyone should be free to choose for themselves whether or not they want the vaccine.