The American Academy of Pediatrics, along with the CDC and the AAFP, recently announced changes to the childhood vaccine schedule.

For parents who follow their pediatrician’s vaccination guidelines, not much will change.  New recommendations include:

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Just like last week’s announcement that women can put off breast exams until fifty, we weren’t surprised to hear the hew and cry over the new ruling from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecology that women can limit pap smears to every other year.

Are insurance companies just try to save a little cash? Are women going to get by with the uncomfortable leg flop just once every other year?

So here’s what fascinated us at Strollerderby: Continue reading »

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When use of the cervical cancer vaccine became widespread, some conservative parents and groups balked. Clearly, if girls were protected against one sexually transmitted disease, they’d throw caution to the wind and forget the other risks of sexual activity:  pregnancy, for one, as well as all those other STDs the HPV shot doesn’t cover.  Stupid girls (was the unwritten message).

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A study out of the Harvard School of Public Health has found that giving boys Gardasil–the vaccine against HPV, which causes the majority of cervical cancer cases–is not “cost effective.” Continue reading »

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If we vaccinate, that is. Professor Jack Cuzick, a leading cervical cancer expert from England, is calling on European governments to educate the public about HPV vaccines, which he believes could eradicate cervical cancer within 50 years.

“There’s been a lot of concern, particularly with the vaccine, that dissemination of information about HPV has come mainly from the drug companies, and people are, not surprisingly, a little sceptical of pharmaceutical-based education programmes,” Cuzick says.

Currently, the vaccine protects women from HPV strains that are responsible for about 75 percent of cervical cancer cases. But doctors are well on their way to developing vaccines that will inoculate against all nine strains of the human papilloma virus, so, according to Cuzick, widespread vaccination of young women could wipe out cervical cancer within 50 years.

As someone who has been vaccinated and who has witnessed the expensive and scary health problems HPV can cause, I certainly support widespread HPV vaccination and agree with Cuzick that a vaccination campaign needs to come from health care providers and government, not just pharmaceutical companies.

Still, I don’t understand Cuzick’s argument that eradicating HPV will eradicate cervical cancer. While the majority of cervical cancer cases are caused by HPV, not all of them are. Either The Independent missed something in the retelling of Cuzick’s argument, or he’s not addressing a crucial loophole in his reasoning.

In any case, his point about the importance of widespread HPV vaccination still stands. Would you, or have you, gotten your daughters vaccinated?

Photo: columbia.edu

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Soon the choice whether to cut or not may get snatched out of your hands.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are mulling over a proposal to impose circumcision on all baby boys. While the CDC’s mandate decision wouldn’t make snipping completely mandatory, it would apply undue pressure on parents who don’t want to. Plus the CDC recommends the surgery to uncut heterosexual adult males.

This is absurd and frankly offensive. Continue reading »

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When 29-year-old Jemma Oliver found out she would soon die of cervical cancer, she turned all of her attention on the future of her two young children. She filled out years worth of birthday cards, wrote letters, and even decided which schools they should attend.

Then she sat down with her husband and filled him in on all the rest. He called his days of household and parenting lessons his master class in motherhood. Continue reading »

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