To be clear, however, the Family Research Council's October 2005 position was a departure from the position it held in April 2005:

"Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV," says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a leading Christian lobby group that has made much of the fact that, because it can spread by skin contact, condoms are not as effective against HPV as they are against other viruses such as HIV.

"Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex," Maher claims[.]

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/sex/mg18624954.500

So, even if it does happen to be true that no major Christian group (however that might be defined) currently opposes the HPV vaccine due to the potential for promiscuity; it was not so long ago that the Family Research Council held such a view. Blog posts and editorials are not, therefore, coming out of left field with their assertions.

Doug,

Yes, much has been made of the statement by Ms. Maher, but from what I've read, it's a stretch to characterize that as an official FRC position. The current FRC position statement makes reference to that earlier remark and explains that while that was a concern they held, that concern has been resolved.

It's also worth pointing out that even Ms. Maher's remark doesn't express opposition to the vaccine--only concern over potential harm.

I think that Eric is right about the headline/title of a lot of articles being something along the lines of what he quotes; but the actual substantive coverage has been pretty accurate in reporting that it is the policy of mandatory vaccination that groups like FotF have objected to.

Their objections, however, are utterly stupid. A completely 'virtuous' woman can still contract HPV from either a less-virtuous spouse, or from rape. So the idea that premarital abstinence and marital sexual monogamy can protect one without the vaccine is, quite simply, false. Moroever, as with any vaccination program, the overall public benefit is very much a function of the degree of participation. Get close to universal participation, and you can practically drive a disease out of the population altogether. But if there are pockets of the unvaccinated, the disease can maintain itself indefinitely.

Moreover, it's already generally the case that you can seek a religious exemption for any mandatory vaccination. It's what Christian Scientists have to do all the time, and they have a _much_ better standing to object to vaccination, since it is directly inconsistent with their religious beliefs; as opposed to the ever-moronic 'might send a wrong signal' worry so popular among groups like FotF. Which is, indeed, another thing that is stupid about their objection: it completely fails to be based in any of the real social science that might actually bear on the question! It's all armchair reasoning, and it has to be, since the data just plain doesn't support their claims. See, e.g., http://www.cdc.gov/nip/acip/minutes/acip_min_feb06.pdf
pp. 27 - 28.

This 'message' logic is too often used as a substitute for actually confronting the challenging issues of real policy. But one sees it all over the place on the right these days; for example, much of the official defense of the administration's Iraq policy is based on entirely conjectural claims about what messages various actions would send to our friends and foes. It's not that one shouldn't consider possible message effects -- clearly one should -- but that one should do so in an empirical way, and in particular with attention to other ways that messages might go to other people than the one that seems intuitive to you on a half-second's reflection. (I suspect the main message we're sending in Iraq these days is that the US is, as currently administered, a dangerous, irrational nation that is unable to come up with policies that are good even for itself, let alone for others.)

It's worth bringing out that this is all another example of the revealed preferences of so much of the right these days, of the sort I was discussing in some other recent threads: ideology and a sense of personal virtue are more important to these people than, literally, their children's lives.

Hmmm...since the vaccine is effective against only a tiny handful of the known strains of HPV, what is the net benefit of the vaccine?

Alan K Henderson:
Hmmm...since the vaccine is effective against only a tiny handful of the known strains of HPV, what is the net benefit of the vaccine?

Not all strains of HPV cause cervical cancer. The vaccine is effective against the two strains that cause 70% of cervical cancers and the two strains which cause 90% of genital warts

See here

I think that Eric is right about the headline/title of a lot of articles being something along the lines of what he quotes; but the actual substantive coverage has been pretty accurate...

I agree that most coverage in the mainstream media now has its facts right, but many blogs and pundits continue to spread misinformation. (Not that that's a novel phenomenon, of course.) Also, I've seen numerous letters to the editor and even overheard a conversation or two reflecting this misinformation, so I'd say this particlar myth is pretty well entrenched on the left. Which is hardly surprising, because it fits right in with many liberals' stereotypes of conservative Christians.

I should have asked this: what is the estimated number of cases of genital warts and cervical cancer that the vaccine will prevent? Those ailments can represent a minority of HPV cases and still be significant enough to warrant wide-scale immunization. Still, can't do the cost/benefit analysis without the numbers.

*sigh* It's called "google", Alan -- you might want to think about learning how to use it. It would have taken you less time to look this up yourself, Alan, than to compose your post:

http://www.cdc.gov/std/hpv/STDFact-HPV-vaccine.htm