{"id":1843,"date":"2010-02-26T01:06:47","date_gmt":"2010-02-26T06:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=1843"},"modified":"2010-02-26T01:06:47","modified_gmt":"2010-02-26T06:06:47","slug":"bedside-manners-why-this-feminist-cares-about-mens-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2010\/02\/26\/bedside-manners-why-this-feminist-cares-about-mens-health\/","title":{"rendered":"BEDSIDE MANNERS: Why This Feminist Cares about Men’s Health"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, the NYT reported “Merck: Studies Boost Gardasil for New Uses<\/a>“; this week the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) met to discuss these new results.\u00a0It will be interesting to see\u00a0what, if any, changes result from\u00a0new clinical\u00a0evidence that (1) the vaccine is effective in preventing\u00a0anal precancers in males and (2) the vaccine is effective in women 27-45 years old.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Those\u00a0who’ve\u00a0followed HPV research for the past decade were not surprised by the findings of either\u00a0study. What has surprised me is how little attention ‘male’ Gardasil has attracted since\u00a0receiving FDA approval last October. Writing a feature article for the\u00a0Winter 2010\u00a0Ms.<\/em> magazine<\/a>\u00a0gave me\u00a0the opportunity to more deeply explore this\u00a0topic and\u00a0hopefully raise awareness —\u00a0not only about Gardasil<\/a>, a.k.a. the “cervical cancer” vaccine, but also about the full range of male HPV-related cancers that it might also prevent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So,\u00a0this month’s\u00a0column is inspired by my desire\u00a0to respond to some of\u00a0the interesting<\/em> questions, comments and accusations that I’ve\u00a0received\u00a0via the blogosphere (like WashingtonCityPaper<\/a> and HugoSchwyzer<\/a>) in\u00a0these first\u00a0days following\u00a0the publication of my article. I’ll start by acknowledging that my article’s title seems to have pushed more than a few buttons: apparently not everyone wants to know\u00a0“Why Men’s Health is a Feminist Issue<\/a>.” One comment asked\u00a0“Why does the burden for sexual health need to fall, yet again, to women?”<\/em> My response: It’s a burden for only<\/strong> girls\/women to be responsible for sexual health, so prioritizing equal access to STI\/STD vaccines results in a more\u00a0fair sharing of this ‘burden.’ From the opposite side, a comment criticized this angle as being\u00a0self-interested: “…when feminists speak of male health issues, it is usually in the context of the way they affect women.”<\/em> To that, I reply: if you read the full article, you’ll see that boys\/men have plenty of reasons to care about having access to this vaccine that have to do with protecting their own health, regardless of whether or not they ever have a female sexual partner.<\/p>\n

This leads to another trend in responses: What’s in it for men?<\/em>\u00a0 Or, as one comment put it, “The only reason for males to get the vaccine would be to prevent HPV in women.”<\/em> Really? How about the variety of serious HPV-related male cancers (oral,\u00a0penile,\u00a0anal, and others) that are (1) on the rise, (2) often fatal due to lack of accurate testing\/screening, and (3) in the U.S. likely result in more combined deaths in men than cervical cancers in women? (See my Ms.<\/em> article for\u00a0an overview of these stat’s or, if you love charts check out p. 4 of the American Cancer Society’s 2009 report<\/a>).<\/p>\n

And, media coverage of Gardasil\u00a0would not be complete without\u00c2\u00a0questions\/concerns focused on whether or not Gardasil\u00a0does\u00a0more harm than good. For the record: I have not taken a pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine stance on Gardasil or any other vaccine. But, I\u00a0speak in favor of\u00a0equal access to vaccines<\/strong>,\u00a0support the conducting and media coverage of medical studies that reveal the full range of potential health costs and health benefits of any vaccine<\/strong>,\u00a0\u00a0and\u00a0argue for funding\u00a0public health campaigns about\u00a0HPV and other sexually transmitted\u00a0epidemics<\/strong>. And, though some blog comments reveal confusion over the possibility of being “required”<\/em> to get the Gardasil vaccine, I’m not aware\u00a0of any current\u00a0U.S. vaccination policy that does not allow for ‘opting out.’ (Note: as of December 14, 2009 Gardasil was no longer required for female green card applicants.)<\/p>\n

A less popular theme, though one that intrigues me, came from those who\u00a0took the angle of “What’s in it for big pharma?”<\/em> One comment hypothesized, “…you can’t help but suspect Merck’s money motive is playing a role in the push for expansion to men.”<\/em>\u00a0 And, I reply, what PUSH? If money was their motive, then wouldn’t they have updated the Gardasil.com<\/a> website to encourage male consumers? Visit that site prior to March 1, and you’d think that it was still only approved for girls\/women.<\/p>\n

I’ll end this post by expressing my thanks\u00a0to all of the journalists<\/a> and blog authors who are raising awareness about this topic, including Ms.<\/em>‘s own Executive Editor Katherine Spillar on the Huffington Post<\/a>. I also send out my gratitude to blog readers who add insightful, thoughtful, sociological, and truly feminist comments like\u00a0Annie<\/a>‘s<\/em>.\u00a0In my opinion,\u00a0to be feminist is not to be pro-women, it\u00a0is to be pro-equality<\/strong> and pro-justice<\/strong> (not to mention\u00a0anti-sexism,\u00a0anti-racism, anti-homophobia, anti-ageism…you get my drift). I don’t know if the pro- and anti-vaccine folks will ever see eye to eye, but there’s absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain by being pro-HPV-education<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, the NYT reported “Merck: Studies Boost Gardasil for New Uses“; this week the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) met to discuss these new results.\u00a0It will be interesting to see\u00a0what, if any, changes result from\u00a0new clinical\u00a0evidence that (1) the vaccine is effective in preventing\u00a0anal precancers in males and (2) the vaccine is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1918,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21094],"tags":[2397,245,21377,21395,33,2862,21505,876,21579,21628,665,1528,21821,21823,21902,21925],"class_list":["post-1843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bedside-manners","tag-boys","tag-feminism","tag-gardasil","tag-girls","tag-health","tag-hpv","tag-katherine-spillar","tag-men","tag-mens-health","tag-ms-magazine","tag-science","tag-sexism","tag-std","tag-sti","tag-vaccine","tag-womens-health"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1918"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}