Dust Jacket Dispatch

Imagine a stranger comes up to you and promises you that your school-aged child will never die of this one particular disease; this scourge on the human race that has taken so many sons and daughters, mothers and fathers. Imagine he says this will only cost a menial amount. Imagine he’s legit and there are no strings attached, no Rapunzel-esque paybacks that will creep up to haunt you later on.

You’d take the deal, without question, right? Who wouldn’t?

As modern medicine has advanced so quickly that Robert Koch’s Nobel winning work seems as distant and out of date as using pagers as a communication tool (remember that shit?), we of the modern generations have been blessed with the ability to be immunized from the biggest and baddest diseases that ever walked this Earth. City denizens used to go running and screaming from the threat of the mups and measles the way Tokyo residents would Godzilla. But then they cured that shit. Or at least they developed a vaccine that sent those baddies into the annals of history (the proverbial Mothra, if you will).

And yet there are those in our society who deny vaccinations, those who refuse to accept the stranger’s offer of saving their children from these silent killers. I’m speaking specifically about the uproar over and downright neglect regarding the HPV vaccine that was released several years back.

The Human Papillomavirus is a sexually transmitted disease that can cause cervical cancer in women. It’s a disease that anywhere from a quarter to a third of the sexually active population is likely to have. Men can’t be tested for it. For the most part, there are no signs until the cancerous growths begin. 

Some parents refuse to give the HPV vaccine to their children claiming that the immunization would promote sexual promiscuity, the same sort of logic that would have a kid fresh out of their DTaP shot running out of the doctor’s office only to immediately plunge so many rusty nails into their skin that they looked like a fucking Cenobite.

Others argue that the risk of HPV hanging over their child’s head will be successful in dissuading kids from engaging in sexual activity. These fools seem to forget that there is this tiny thing called the AIDS epidemic which has slightly more of a higher risk for a fatal end to the sexually active (unless you’re a leprechaun or Magic Johnson).

Then there are those who oppose it for moral reasons, citing religion as a factor. However, unless you’re one of the 900 Christian Scientists out there, chances are your God would be happy to offer your child a chance to survive; in fact, he might have been the son of a bitch who created the life-saving drug. And if you are one of the 900 Christian Scientists out there, what the hell are you doing reading this, don’t you have a Monitor 

At the end of the day, there are no good reasons to not immunize your child. It’s for their safety, for their life. And whatever crackpot science you read that says that it isn’t good for them is probably written by Tom Cruise and those of his whackass ilk. Put down the Hubbard and pick up a Grays Anatomy. It’ll do you wonders.