eugene has company

apparently eugene's editorial yesterday was not enough. today while sipping my morning tea, i was treated to a rant that left me in shock. while eugene's attacks on oprah yesterday were clearly calculated, courtland milloy had to have been drunk while putting together this screed entitled:
"District's HPV Proposal Tinged with Ugly Assumptions".
HPV stands for human papillomavirus and HPV infection is directly implicated as a primary (and preventable) cause of cervical cancer in women. a new vaccine that is 100% effective at preventing HPV infections in the cervix. particularly problematic is that: 1) HPV is largely asymptomatic and 2) the virus is nearly ubiquitous. if, as a woman, you are having sex with multiple partners (you go girl), then you have probably already run across HPV; men are the vector for transmission and they almost never show symptoms.

courtland duly reports that rates of cervical cancer are 13.5 per 100K in DC and its prevalence nationwide is ~8 per 100K. no mention of WHY DC has an elevated rate of cervical cancer. perhaps it mirrors the same effect noted for HIV, where ca. 1 in 20 (there are no good statistics) in the district are HIV positive, hear the story.

courtland is bent out of shape at the following proposal: in order to advance to the 6th grade, all girls going to DC public schools must first show proof that they have been vaccinated against HPV.

let's frame courtland's point: the response to HIV in the district has been miserable, at best, and passive tolerance of genocide, at the worst (the estimated 1 in 20 is the highest per capita rate of HIV in the nation BY FAR). courtland's concern is that girls in the DC public schools are being the subject of libel, i.e. that the establishment has the expectation of these girls becoming whores. and this point induces courtland to throw out the race card faster than al sharpton or jesse jackson. from courtland's viewpoint, the offense is: this vaccination effort is spearheaded by two white people who, by suggesting mass vaccination, slander black girls as assuming that all girls in DC will become sluts. hmmm, sounds fishy already. courtland's outrage is then presented through a set of cautionary tales/couterpoints which include: state sponsored paternalism, norplant for convicts, the tuskegee syphilis experiments, and vaccine-induced autism.
re-reading that brief synopsis of courtland's screed leaves me scratching my head, still.

which leads me to add a few points for consideration:
1. vaccination is paternalistic. before vaccination there were quarantines, also paternalistic. public health measures do not lend themselves to suiting individual needs/desires/whims, etc - vaccination is a blanket approach that may harm and kill a small number via anaphylaxis. but the benefit of vaccination to the enitre public outweighs the risk to a small, unfortunate subset which will die a horrible death by asphyxiation/anaphylactic shock. quick sidebar: the most dangerous vaccine? the flu shot. so courtland, if these girls are not vaccinated and develop cervical cancer (which, with vacciation, is 100% preventable) then will you go to the funeral and eulogize the dead woman? will you state that her death was a small token towards the greater idea of "taking a stand" against white-/state-sponsored paternalism? (note to courtland, the majority of DC's government is black).
2. the end justifies the means. this cliche is oft quoted and seldom truly appreciated. in this case, courtland doesn't give us a viable alternative. does he think that vaccination should be encouraged rather than enforced? should girls who are going to be at higher risk (by their own admission) be vaccinated? remember courtland, that the vaccine does not work post-exposure so you have to vaccinate before girls become sexually active (which is averaging 17 these days - it would be interesting to see the distribution behind the average to show the spread). hence the suggestion of using the 6th grade, because everyone knew some girls in junior high that were already sexually active. courtland says, in an indirect way, that these "white people" are slandering "black girls" as being inherent sluts - his definition of the two groups, not mine. courtland wants us to focus on ensuring that the means employed suit his racial politics and then he will endorse the end. courtland, what are the means you want to employ such that the beneficial end will be realized? would it be different if adrian fenty, DC's new mayor, had suggested it?
3. the race card is really unnecessary. had courtland specified that montgomery county or PG county is not requiring vaccination for promotion in school, i would have conceded the point. courtland, i would agree that perhaps there needs to be a metro-wide discussion about a concerted effort to vaccinate girls (and boys down the road). why not have a constructive dialogue about how to save lives? why imbue every corner of your article with racial distrust and using racial descriptions that are superfluous to the discussion? why do you automatically assign a racist motive to this situation? based upon the elevated epidemiological statistics for cervical cancer deaths in DC, perhaps vaccination (indepdendent of the perceived slander) is warranted? when thinking about the nature of the vaccine and when it is effective, a very measured and responsible suggestion to prevent cervical cancer has been offered but was it offered by the wrong people? why courtland are you trying to obfuscate the value of vaccination with a haze of racism?

4. this was in the metro section, not on the editorial page. the Post really ought to reconsider the location of this regular column. it contains a regular dose of bombast while simultaneously offering little educational value (typical of Op-Ed pieces).

5. finally courtland, it is HPV and not HVP - please proofread the screed. when advocating that DC women should contract a fatal, but preventable disease, do those unfortunate souls the favor of spelling the cause of their prevetable death correctly.