The right's opposition to the HPV vaccine was a harbinger of what blossomed fully into a categorical hostility to preventive medicine. Right down to the weird moralizing view that the righteous don't die of these diseases. - ThreadSky

amandamarcotte.bsky.social • 90 days ago

The right's opposition to the HPV vaccine was a harbinger of what blossomed fully into a categorical hostility to preventive medicine. Right down to the weird moralizing view that the righteous don't die of these diseases.

Reposted from Benjy Renton

The HPV vaccine has been recommended in the US since 2006. New study out today shows that cervical cancer deaths in young women in the years that followed have plummeted, decreasing 15% per year from 2013-2015.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Comments

natchaug.bsky.social•90 days ago

Had a co-worker who I didn't know was an anti-vaxer until the HPV issue blew up. He had a 12yo daughter, at the time. I asked him if he would rather hold his 35yo daughters hand while she was dieing of cancer or get her vaccinated now. He never spoke to me again.

spiraldragonfly.bsky.social•90 days ago

There's an old saying that if you loan someone $20 and never see them again, it was probably worth it. This has the same energy.

drpaulitious.bsky.social•90 days ago

It's an easy view to prove, once you include getting the disease as evidence of non-righteousness. Impossible to disprove, just like the rest of the pseudoscientific nonsense these fools fall for.

elnosnusk.bsky.social•90 days ago

Is it wrong to hope that enough of them take their own medicine (or lack thereof ) and die as a result? Darwin to the rescue as it were …

rosehaydensmith.bsky.social•90 days ago

My daughter was in the first wave of recipients. There was pushback from some folks. So glad we did it.

exlitigator.bsky.social•90 days ago

Get them for your son's as well so they don't transmit.

bluemeade7.bsky.social•90 days ago

Same. She is 33 now.

rosehaydensmith.bsky.social•90 days ago

It’s a relief to know this has proven to be so successful.

bluemeade7.bsky.social•90 days ago

My elder daughter also received the vaccine when it became available up to age 44.

rosehaydensmith.bsky.social•90 days ago

That’s fabulous.

aaricka34.bsky.social•89 days ago

I remember the gross arguments that the HPV vaccine would lead to sexual activity or that vaccinating girls would force parents to prematurely have to talk to them about sex. Did the MMR vaccine lead to awkward convos on measles in your home?

rrtrent892.bsky.social•90 days ago

I remember seeing the kerfuffle in Texas when it was momentarily mandated (by Rick Perry!) and thinking the GOP will double down on this in no time

joatmnb.bsky.social•90 days ago

I don’t want to spam but this is so important, so many parents think their boys don’t need it! And they are so so wrong! https://medicalnewsbulletin.com/five-reasons-to-get-your-son-the-hpv-vaccine-yesterday/

herglorang.bsky.social•90 days ago

Was just thinking how I never see people talking about boys getting the vaccine. The first of my kids who got it was my son. I mentioned to him that the RW was screaming that kids would get it and then go have all the sex. Offended, he said "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard!"

2dognight.bsky.social•90 days ago

The refusal to let your daughter get an HPV vaccine is right up there with giving them purity rings on the creepiness scale.

exxzackly.bsky.social•85 days ago

The "personal responsibility" narrative pushed by the right has always been bullshit, and is really just a way to externalize, excuse, and ignore their own selfishness :P

jronc.bsky.social•90 days ago

Goes hand-in-hand with prosperity gospel tbh.

sackofsorries.bsky.social•89 days ago

HPV doesn’t just cause cervical cancer either. It can cause throat cancer.

aaricka34.bsky.social•89 days ago

And anal.

nclud.bsky.social•90 days ago

Same “logic” as the people who celebrated AIDS. They see suffering and death as proof of god doing justice against their out-group.

amandamarcotte.bsky.social•90 days ago

During the HPV vaccine fight, the right's argument was kids don't "need" it, because they should be abstaining until marriage. The implication is that those who die of cervical cancer deserve it.

That "logic" is all over the anti-vaxx arguments re: covid.

kenwolnak.bsky.social•90 days ago

Sacrifice the weak.

ghostyspook.bsky.social•90 days ago

I’m still pissed they did all this and would only give it to kids when I could have gotten it I.n my 20s

kyt-thatsme.bsky.social•90 days ago

You can possibly still get it. It’s been approved to 40s I think.

defund-and-abolish.bsky.social•89 days ago

So glad that both my grandkids got the vaccine for HPV. The idea that we shouldn't vax against a preventable disease is SICK.

welcome2absurdia.bsky.social•90 days ago

😤😡🤬

amandamarcotte.bsky.social•90 days ago

You hear RFK and Rogan and others argue that proper diet and exercise (and supplements you can buy through them) are sufficient to prevent serious illness from communicable disease.

It's the same argument: preventive medicine is somehow "replacing" self-control.

kevinault.bsky.social•89 days ago

I'd like to point out that you can practice safer sex, quit smoking, eat a good diet, and get vaccinated. These aren't mutually exclusive choices.

exxzackly.bsky.social•85 days ago

They're never gonna change their minds, but the fact that we invented "artificial" medicine in the first place means that isn't enough! Like, they're obviously ignoring the breadth of human history before we created all this stuff, where people were dying left & right of mundane things

exxzackly.bsky.social•85 days ago

But they're so fucking far gone, that they're not even living on the same planet anymore 😒

amandamarcotte.bsky.social•90 days ago

It's frustrating because this argument is wrong on two levels. First: factually wrong. There aren't two populations of people who prevent disease through self-discipline and those who don't. People who wait for marriage are so rare as to be non-existent. And immunity doesn't work how RFK thinks.

amandamarcotte.bsky.social•90 days ago

But it's also morally bankrupt. It's a eugenics argument, that sees disease as a good thing that supposedly culls the weak. It's very tempting to argue against that part, but I worry about doing so, because it falsely implies following their behavioral rules could prevent illness and it can't.

tessafisher.bsky.social•90 days ago

Now, now, it culls the weak *and* produces deaths that can be used as examples for why one should follow a Godly path, lest ye be damned to Hell for eternity, the resulting enormous human suffering notwithstanding.

Remember, it's not just eugenics, it's also a death cult (tm)!

amandamarcotte.bsky.social•90 days ago

So the disease becomes a post hoc rationalization. You got cervical cancer, so you must be slutty. You died of covid, so you must not have taken care of yourself. They treat it as dispositive, when in reality, the link between behavior and disease is....not there.

alwaysagoodday.com•90 days ago

It’s also very adjacent to prosperity theology.

wildoneness.bsky.social•90 days ago

Actually there is a link between behavior and many diseases. And I take your point. They are just cruel. Until it happens to them they have no compassion.

lpdoak.bsky.social•90 days ago

Having lived through the early days of the AIDS pandemic this all sounds so familiar. The exception being it was supposedly a loving god acting as the judge jury and executioner. You'd routinely hear preachers bloviating that those that passed were burning in hell. Awful to see this again.

carbonatedobserver.bsky.social•89 days ago

As a Christian this honestly infuriates me. The connotation that human suffering, disease and sickness is somehow innately indicative of sinful behavior and wickedness isn't just morally bankrupt, as you rightly note, but it's also unbiblical. Did Jesus not Himself heal the sick and raise the dead!?

janus303.bsky.social•90 days ago

Had a guy earnestly tell me on Facebook that transgender kids don’t need hormones, they need vitamins, particularly magnesium supplements, which is why he’s super-stoked about RFK jr.

nothingsmonstrd.bsky.social•90 days ago

Conservative public health is taking a path conservative economics often goes down. Neither health nor prosperity are valid goals. What counts is punishing the non-elect. Disease, unemployment, poverty — these are God's instruments, not evils to be fought.

tofanacocktails.bsky.social•90 days ago

Every time a doctor tells a woman to lose weight & exercise FOR YEARS rather than looking for the source of her actual medical issue, he’s doing the same thing

jazziknits.bsky.social•90 days ago

When the vaccine first came out, several moms in our playgroup (our kids were too young for it then) very righteously said that their kids would never get it, that it would encourage “promiscuity.” I hope they changed their mind.

reno419.bsky.social•89 days ago

Trump, Musk & RFK Jr...

Make Infectious Diseases Great Again!!!

3dayeventer.bsky.social•90 days ago

I have a very evangelical "friend" who insisted his daughters didn't need it and he wouldn't "allow" them to get the HPV vaccine because they were "good" Christian girls and would never have sex before marriage. All are living with their partners, unmarried. 🙄

bethanyedits.bsky.social•90 days ago

They are making a lot of assumptions and willing to risk cancer for their kid over it 😔

rudolfboogerman.bsky.social•90 days ago

I guess some people have nostalgia for the dark middle ages.

tofanacocktails.bsky.social•90 days ago

There’s nothing shocking or unique about this. It’s just fundamentalism and evangelicalism and Puritanism all wrapped up in one big ball of stupid.

mrspebbleton.bsky.social•90 days ago

They're anti-life in every respect.

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