The FDA gets religion

[Troubleshooter]

http://www.reason.com/rb/rb110405.shtml

Safety, Efficacy, Morality
The FDA gets religion
Ronald Bailey


A wonderful medical breakthrough was announced last month. A new vaccine against the two types of human papilloma virus (HPV), which are responsible for thousands of cases of cervical cancer each year, has been shown to be 100 percent effective in blocking the virus. Each year more than 12,000 American women are diagnosed with cervical cancer, and more than 3,000 die of the disease. The advent of this new vaccine is a public health triumph and should be cause for celebration, right?

Not so fast, say some social and religious conservatives. For instance, Dr. Hal Wallis, head of the abstinence only sex education group the Physicians Consortium is worried that the vaccine might encourage people, especially unmarried teenagers, to be more promiscuous. "We're going to be sending a message to a lot of kids, I think, that you just take this shot and you can be as sexually promiscuous as you want and it's not going to be a problem, and that's just not true," said Dr. Wallis to the conservative religious group Focus on the Family.

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