Editorial: Removing social stigma

Saturday, March 10, 2007 | 7:12 a.m.

Experts say that the new vaccine to help prevent cervical cancer still carries with it a stigma that may prevent many young women and girls from receiving it.

The vaccine is designed to prevent the human papilomavirus (HPV), a sexually transmitted disease that causes about 70 percent of cervical cancers. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its use last summer, recommending it for girls and women ages 11 to 26, preferably before they become sexually active.

Nonetheless, a story by The New York Times on Monday says that misconceptions still abound when it comes to determining when girls should receive the vaccine. There are those who believe that a young woman doesn't risk infection if she has had only a single partner or two or if her partner uses a condom - assumptions that are patently false. One sexual encounter is all that is needed to transfer the virus, which also can live on skin beyond the areas protected by a condom, medical experts told the Times.

In addition, conservative religious advocacy groups, such as the Colorado-based Focus on Family, are saying that girls and young women can avoid the risk of infection by simply not having sex before marriage. Seeing as how abstinence-only thinking has not prevented all unwanted pregnancies, we are not optimistic that it will prevent young women from contracting this virus. And HPV poses serious medical risks - cervical cancer can cause infertility and death.

Assumptions based on fear, rather than fact, almost prevented this life-saving vaccine from even making it to the market. Conservative religious groups fought, and effectively delayed, the release of the vaccine on the grounds that it would encourage premarital sex.

But youthful indiscretions happen, and a single episode should not result in a life cut short or forever altered by a virus that, in many cases, could have been prevented. This vaccine does not make young girls promiscuous, but it could help keep them alive.