Protecting Our Daughters
Like many other healthcare organizations, Planned Parenthood believes the best way to protect our daughters from cervical cancer is to make sure the HPV vaccine is administered to all young women, whether low-income or not, before they are at risk of infection ("Our Best Shot," 2/1/07). We fully support school entry requirements for the HPV vaccine provided that they do not go beyond seventh grade, are fully funded, and have no additional grounds for opt-out beyond the usual state requirements for school entry vaccinations.
Each year, about 11,000 women are newly diagnosed with cervical cancer and this preventable disease claims the lives of about 4,000 American women. An important component of the path to eradicating this disease is through widespread vaccination. That is why Planned Parenthood affiliates are working now to make the vaccine available and affordable to our patients.
Vaccine opponents argue falsely that the vaccine will promote promiscuity among young people. The truth is prevention does not promote sexual activity and the HPV vaccine will no more cause promiscuity than umbrellas cause rain or seat belts cause reckless driving.
The HPV vaccine should be considered a routine, normal part of health care and should be treated in the same way as other school entry vaccines, such as Hepatitis B and mumps, measles, and rubella (MMR). The vaccine represents a major breakthrough in the prevention of cervical cancer, and critical decisions made now about how it is administered will directly affect the health of many future generations.
Vanessa Cullins, M.D., Vice President of Medical Affairs
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
An American in Paris
As an American residing in France and having traveled widely, I wish to express my amazement at Sasha Abramsky's complacency toward Andrei Markovits' Uncouth Nation ("Bashing Goliath," 2/2/07).
While I only know of Markovits' book from this review, its main point is all too clear: Europe's criticism of America is irrelevant. The trouble is it's not, and many Americans share the same analysis as Europeans concerning America (and its "sidekick," Israel), which cannot make us "anti-Americans" (or "anti-semites").
The target of most European criticism of America -- the unbounded market fundamentalism, rampant militarism and contempt for international law, all embodied by the George W. Bush administration -- is a perfectly good target and Europe's lucidity a true sign of friendship, not rivalry.
If a couple generations ago Europe had comparable or worse demons (fascism, colonialism), that is no longer the case. In most respects, Europe today is ahead of the US, whether in health care, education, equality, human rights, war and peace, or the environment. And European criticism of the U.S. is far better informed than U.S. criticism of Europe -- the 2003 crisis over Iraq having demonstrated that amply enough.
Similarly, Europeans have always shown great respect and admiration for America's progressive and iconoclastic spirit, in the arts, and in the socio-political realm, sometimes more so than Americans themselves. Should an Al Gore administration come to the White House in 2009, most of those same, critical Europeans will be just as enthusiastic as I, and tens of millions of Americans will be.
So it is not a question of national jealousy or rivalry, but of moral standards. Sadly, Abramsky squandered the opportunity to question the politically myopic -- and dubious -- thesis of this book.
Duncan Youngerman
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