A recent decision by a federal health panel is cause for hope. Women’s health care has been poorly served the past few years by ideologically motivated appointees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and also at the FDA.
This time, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices appeared to put aside bias, voting in favor of women’s health over ultraconservative religious beliefs.
The panel recommended that all 11- to 12-year-old girls routinely get a vaccine for the human papillomavirus, two types of which are believed to cause 70 percent of cervical cancer cases in the U.S.
This is considered an enormous breakthrough for women’s health but is predictably opposed by radical right-wing zealots, who say anything that takes the risk out of premarital sex (from birth control of any kind to accurate sexuality education) is promoting immoral behavior. The “just say no” approach run amok.
The vaccine is promoted as prevention for cervical cancer but few people know the other effects of HPV. Forget genital warts. HPV is responsible for many difficult pregnancies, spontaneous abortions and premature births. Most women infected with the virus have no idea they have it or where they got it. Their husbands easily could have infected them, as many men who carry the virus are symptom free.
While I have mixed feelings about mandatory vaccinations, I understand the value of making immunizations universal. We have that mandate to thank for the eradication of polio and other serious childhood diseases. As for HPV, the ruling for girls as young as 11 or 12 makes sense, not because we expect them to become sexually active, but because they are the most likely victims of incest and predators. The vaccine is believed not effective after infection occurs.
The CDC will soon rule on the panel recommendation and, though it ordinarily accepts the findings of its advisory panels, it could vote the other way. Earlier this year, the FDA ruled against an advisory panel, refusing to make emergency birth control available over the counter. How this lowers the abortion rate or helps victims of incest or even date rape is beyond my understanding. Have these people no compassion?
This brings up the broader issue of the medical establishment exerting undue power over patients, often overriding their concerns about surgery and other treatment options. When a parent refuses treatment for a child, the courts get involved and, in many states, have the right to remove the child from the parent’s custody. In the name of child protection, they may order medical treatment that could, in fact, turn out to be detrimental or even fatal.
A case in point involves a Washington mother who was so relentlessly pushed by doctors to permit kidney surgery on her 9-month-old son, that she smuggled the child out of the hospital in a diaper bag. When the mother and child were found two days later, the child was returned to the hospital and operated on without the mother’s consent. She was released on $500,000 bail and is now awaiting prosecution on kidnapping charges. Custody was awarded to the child’s father. The parents are not married or living together.
The father, who did not press charges or seek custody, and was torn between approving or denying the surgery, seemed to be the coolest head of the bunch. He said he understood completely the mother’s concern and her reaction to doctors’ pressure to approve surgery when she was strongly opposed. Her supporters say the mother’s rights were annihilated when she had only the child’s best interests at heart. She has been allowed state-supervised visits with the child, whom she was breastfeeding. Her attorney said she had to pump her milk when they were separated.
The mother reportedly had strong faith in alternative therapy, saying she wanted to try natural approaches first and considered surgery a last resort. What’s so wrong with that? Alternative therapies tend to boost the immune system and, in this case, might possibly have given the child’s kidneys time to strengthen and develop normally. Many people would find this to be a prudent course to take.
Are we reverting to the days when parents with strong religious beliefs against serious medical interventions were accused of criminal negligence or child endangerment? My mother had close friends who were Christian Scientists and consulted a practitioner for most ailments. However, when their children were sick, they also sought diagnoses from a pediatrician because they feared legal action if the child’s condition were to worsen.
There are increasing numbers of intelligent adults disaffected with the medical establishment and pharmaceutical industry in this country. They are turning to homeopathic and natural remedies and centuries old Eastern therapies, such as acupuncture and herbs. For surgeons to dismiss these approaches out of hand is simply arrogant. To brand adherents as criminals is an abuse of power.
Just as we should have the choice to become parents, and the methods available to avoid disease and problem pregnancies, we also should have the choice of treatments for our children when needed. The Washington mother should have been encouraged to seek a second opinion or to find a doctor more agreeable to her concerns. The preference for natural therapies does not have to be religiously motivated to be valid.
With more respect for other beliefs and less self-righteous arrogance, we might just say no to disease and allow the healing to begin.