Schools denying girls the cervical cancer jab on religious grounds

[DowagersHump]

This is absolutely appalling. Even worse, they are not telling GPs that they are choosing not to offer vaccination :(

Grauniad article

Against the mass hysteria of MMR I opted to have my DD vaccinated. Given hard facts I felt able to make that decision on her behalf for her benefit.

Given what I have gleaned from an afternoons surfing, and on a subject I had very little insight into I feel there is possibly something dark and sinister afoot and will continue to seek out the hard facts (there may be some new data which emerges which changes my stance, so could be one who would be campaigning for changes to ensure all children, even the eight year olds who are being targetted for vaccination, to seriously consider the benefits).

I have a family member who at international level is trying to find the best way forward to formulate a policy which can tackle FGM. Far from the commonly held belief females are forced to undergo the procedure, many see it as a right of passage, and it's administered by elder women. It's ingrained in culture. Try stopping the modern trend of proms and see how many were happy to comply. This is over 1000yr of culture you're up against. Hey, what do I know on the subject of FGM.

SQ Don't let the door hit your arse on your way out

MsAnnTeak now you sound like a rational person. An open mind is a gift.

"I feel there is possibly something dark and sinister afoot"

I bet you do.

SQ - just popped in to offer another message of support - damn right religious nuts trying to deny girls a vaccine that's potentially life-saving because of some sort of weird set of religious hang-ups about female sexuality is a feminist issue.

Note to anti-vaxers - this is a distinct issue from whether or not the vaccine is safe - these nuts don't care about women's health (women in Nicaragua being denied treatment for ectopic pregnancies and dying because the Catholic church has such a stranglehold on legislation that doctors fear they will be prosecuted under anti-abortion laws if they save a woman's life). Shame on the lot of you for trying to conflate the two issues.

Conflate? wtf is that?

This is maximum 20 girls you are talking about who can get the vaccine anytime they like from the GP ffs, will you all stop wetting yourselves.

Pigletjohn, I'm nearly half a century and have spent a lifetime loving talking to people and discovering what they are about.
Without any university education, but with a keen interest in knowing information and learning from those who have greater knowledge it hasn't been rocket science to grasp how society really functions and who pulls the strings, it's rarely ever for the benefit of the masses. So when I spend an afternoon not particularly searching but find the articles which raise concerns, especially in light that the company peddling the drugs have nbeen found numerous time to be providing dodgy drugs and witholding vital, life saving info, forgive me if alarm bells start tinkling.

LurcioLovesFrankie, women in Nicaragua being denied treatment for ectopic pregnancies and dying because the Catholic church has such a stranglehold on legislation that doctors fear they will be prosecuted under anti-abortion laws if they save a woman's life. Shame on the lot of you for trying to conflate the two issues."

Could you point me to the source and I can check out the situation. If this is the situation what is the stance of the WHO and is there any ongoing action to address the situation? Need to the aid Nicaragua receives, the origin and is there any criteria in receiving it. Putting pressure on these people could have the knock on effect in changing policy

SQ - another message of support!

Here is the link that Sossiges quoted btw in case anyone is interested www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2012/07/20/creationism-and-cervical-cancer-jabs-letaos-react-proportionately

It is interesting and it links to the data from the magazine here which doesn't say that this is only about 20 girls.

The survey is a bit of a dog's breakfast but it looks like 9 out of the 24 schools were stated as faith schools, I counted a couple that weren't and the others it is not stated, because it wasn't asked.

Most of them don't give a reason, but I don't think it is jumping to conclusions to think that it may be related to religion. Presumably all these schools don't see vaccination itself as 'against their ethos' or 'a matter for parental choice' when it comes to BCG injection (or rubella, in the days when it was given in secondary school).

Piglet John -- "I feel there is possibly something dark and sinister afoot"

I bet you do."

This is what you find your voice about? You've read this entire thread and all you can do is be snide? You can't respond to a single substantive issue?

The Nicaragua issue, FGM, they are all so much MORE distinct from this issue than whether or not the HPV vaccine is safe. The fact that millions - and millions of women - are being given this intervention - with poor safety testing - poor post roll-out monitoring - is such a huge feminist issue it negates the however many schoolchildren is who have to go to their GP to get it instead of getting it in school.

You want to turn this into a general religious issue - I'm sure lots of feminists, me included, will agree with you on those other issues. But you have been offered information on a health risk for millions of women - which supercedes the smaller specific issue addressed in the OP but is related to it - but WHICH DOES NOT INTEREST YOU AT ALL.

Do excuse the shouting - but it is inconceivable to me that you have not one single speck of interest in these women's voices. Not a tiny, tiny bit. And you call yourselves feminists? What, are these women not worth listening to? Are they somehow lesser beings? What makes you so confident that they're worthless that you don't even have to bother reading about them, and entitles you to be bickery and snide with women who draw their stories to your attention?

I'm afraid I can only say - no - it's shame on you. Piled on you.

"Presumably"

Such a scientific word.

You are seriously defending FGM on the grounds that it has a long cultural history??? What about women whose feet were bound in China? Very long cutural history. Women in the West wearing corsets so tight health was put at risk? Cultural history. Women not being allowed to vote? Extremely long cultural history. Widows throwing themselves on husband's funeral pyres.....

It's appalling that you would defend that kind of oppression on such a ridiculous argument.

Rosabud, of course I'm not defending FGM on the grounds of cultural history, it was in relation to difficulties faced in changing the attitudes of the women themselves to stop the practice. But I thought it would have been obvious from my post, or do you choose to twist it to suit ?

Corsets. There's a fascinating diary excerpt, think it's 17C online from a 13yr female who describes the excitement and pain of breaking in her new corset. Describes how her mother ties her into it.

Footbinding took me a while to understand it from the point of view of mother who would put her daughter through such pain but from a historical viewpoint and given opportunities I could fathom why so many would put their daughters at risk and cripple them for life.

Widows on funeral pyres yes understand why that happened

Yes they are all barbaric, screwed up practices yet taking it in the context of educated western females routinely placing themselves under the knife for various augmentations, body modifications, self harming, starvation and probably several hundred other weird practices where do we place the line as to what women should be allowed and not allowed to happen to their bodies ?
Possibly some masochistic reminder females pass down to females that in order to fully understand womenhood we must in some way contiue the programing of pain and suffering that must go with it ? For Eve's sins, wasn't she forever to endure pain in childbirth and all of her daughters too?

I can't get sentimental on certain subjects, not because I don't care but it clouds reality and facts. As a mother of DDs who has GDs I possibly have more of a vested interest than most in feminist issues and the impact society does and will have on them.

Your statements reveal much about you as a person but go a long way to understanding why so many young females do not wish to engage feminism. As supposed champions of women and their plight you have a pretty strange way of showing those looking in just how much you really care, or are willing to grasp on certain subjects and choose to belittle, misunderstand those who offer something to a debate which isn't in keeping with one of the sisterhood.

"Pupils follow strict Christian principles, marry within their own community and do not practise sex before marriage."

This applies to, and, I repeat, the "2 Christian schools with less than 10 pupils" which are mentioned in the report. I am not "presuming" that the number involved is greater than 20 - there is no evidence for that.
Dowager's Hump "I presume 1% of eligible children (who won't be offered the vaccine in school) will actually run into thousands..." er, not quite.
I suppose a news headline saying "Minority religious groups say they don't want HPV vaccine administered in their schools (but pupils are welcome to have the jab at their GP surgery) - by the way, this involves fewer than 20 pupils" isn't quite so exciting is it?

If you want to blather on about "patriarchal control of women's sexuality" why not get a teeny bit more outraged about Pharma testing it's crappy vaccines on innocent young girls, who aren't going to be having any sex if their lives are ruined by adverse reactions.

Oh I didn't mean to belittle or misunderstand your point - I genuinely did, however, misunderstand it. But, in fairness, I think you have misunderstood the original point which is that due to attitudes to female sexuality, some girls are not being offered something to which they are entitled. In fact, your point about the problem of women themselves being misguided by cultural norms only serves to reinforce this argument. If these girls are at schools which actively refuse to offer the jab on grounds of the religous dogma which promotes certain views about women being sexually active, then, even though they may well be told it is avilable at their local doctors, there will be a certain cultural expectation there that the girls should not have it done at all and are bound to be affected by this! So your very argument suggests that we should not allow these schools to opt out and therefore culturally mis-guide the girls involved.

Whether or not the vaccine is safe is another issue really. I take your point that patriarchal pharmacuetical companies could be causing harm to young women (though I don't agree) but that is not BECAUSE they are women. They would equally be pushing their drugs in this sitaution to both genders. However, the refusal to give the jabs on grounds of a religous nature is directly linked to the gender of those receiving the jab.

Oh and it's so kind of Merck to be giving free womennewsnetwork.net/2012/07/19/kenya-hpv-vaccine-roll-out/ Gardasil to the Rwandan girls, I wonder why? Maybe those batches are out of date now, maybe they're 'hot', maybe it's a 'scientific trial', no, I'm sure they're doing it for lovely philanthropical reasons.

I bet they'll all need re-vaccinating in 5 years time (lovely money!)
You would think they'd been through enough already

I just love an unsubstantiated smear.

Of course, it all depends where you're coming from.

There are some people who come onto this thread from the position:

• vaccines prevent or reduce disease
• some of these diseases are fatal or life-threatening
• having protection against disease is a Good Thing
• prejudices which cause people to oppose healthcare are undesirable
• anyone who has control or influence over children and uses it to prevent them being protected from disease should be viewed with suspicion

Other people might be coming from the position:

• vaccines cause disease
• healthcare is unnatural
• it's interfering with Gods Will (or "nature") to prevent or reduce disease
• anybody who works in healthcare must be doing it to make money and not becuse they want to help
• Pharmaceutical companies and all their employees are wicked and want to damage health
• National and International schemes to reduce disease are insincere and should be opposeds

On this thread, the first group has been drowned out and (mostly) given up.

Oh PJ do you always see everything in black and white?

Anyway, this thread is not about vaccination, it's about women's rights, apparently. So I keep getting told.

rosabud "the refusal to give the jab on grounds of a religious nature is directly linked to the gender of those receiving the jab" yes, at the moment that is true since the vaccine is only being offered to girls! When they roll it out for boys too (any minute now) and religious schools with a few pupils say the same thing, will it still be linked to gender? If such schools refuse the jab for girls, I think they're just as likely to refuse it for the boys under their care, on the same grounds (if they teach boys).

Pigletjohn, ubsubstantiated smear ? Given what I found in one afternoons surfing and it didn't come from a conspiracy website, all the facts emerging surrounding this vaccine I have no idea how you can still deem it a as either unsubstantiated, or a smear. France didn't take up the program and India halted it, not investigated the reasons but will be interesting to find out.

Putting down a significant percentage of those fainting following the vaccine as ' that's what girls usually do when they are immunised, better make sure we let them sit down for 15mins.' is possibly patronising. Are there any studies out there which prove females are more likely to faint than their male counterparts when given exactly the same vaccine ? Based on fact or a preconceived idea brought about by living in the patriarchy. If the boys were dropping like flies would it be of more concern ?

Following the recent scandal on breast implants I'd assume most people would be more cautious and wish to be as informed as possible before they jump to take anything into their body which could possibly cause harm.

India halted HPV vaccines because of deaths in their trial. They've got more sense than we have.

Hey, I know this is nothing to do with this thread (about women's rights) but I notice that Merck are flogging RotaTeq to Rwanda as well. Easy money, eh?