Saturday 3 May 2008

Those in favour of inanity...

The government has finally announced it's going ahead with the vaccine for young girls to vaccinate them against cervical cancer. Good. About time. It's been available for a while now, and makes sense to use it if we can make use of medicine to protect people against diseases.

To go with this story there was a poll on Stuff, to see if people thought it was a good idea, or a bad idea with two options. The thing that troubles me is that only 80% of people said it was a good idea. (Yes, yes, selection bias, and nothing like a previous potential biased poll, but I'm not talking about that one.)

The first 'no' option was "it will encourage early sexual activity". The hell? What kind of thinking are you doing? "If we stop a deadly cancer, people will have more sex." I know what the majority of people who think this are also thinking (hint: highly religious), but this is power-mad feverish thinking of the worst kind.

The other 'no' option was "I don't believe in vaccinations". Right. Yes. Medical science has developed vaccinations, wiped out small pox, protects millions of people against the flu... anyone remember the outbreak at a Porirua school a few years ago because parents were anti-vaccination? And don't even mention autism to me on this topic... Again, mad thinking.

Evidence based reality... why do so few people want to experience it?

[END]

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

NICE Blog :)