Okay, this nincompoopery - not ranting. Not funny ninmcompoopery. More like very sad.
There is a new vaccine that protects against one kind of Cervical Cancer - the kind that is transmitted by HPV a Sexual Transmitted Disese.
But the President has appointed a Focus on the Family member to the health board that decides how to immunize kids. Most members say this immunization should be given to all girls before puberty (along with measles, and other vaccines). But since the virus is sexually transmitted - even thought it leads to a form of cancerm that infects 10,000 women a year - the vaccine should not be given. It might lead more people to have sex.
So what is the cost of putting nincompoops in charge. So far, 3,700 female deaths per year. (But, Focus on the Family prefers to think of it as 3,700 harlot deaths per year).
Key paragraphs from the newspaper article.
The jockeying reflects the growing influence social conservatives, who had long felt overlooked by Washington, have gained on a broad spectrum of policy issues under the Bush administration. In this case, a former member of the conservative group Focus on the Family serves on the federal panel that is playing a pivotal role in deciding how the vaccine is used.
"What the Bush administration has done has taken this coterie of people and put them into very influential positions in Washington," said James Morone Jr., a professor of political science at Brown University. "And it's having an effect in debates like this."
The vaccine protects women against strains of a ubiquitous germ called the human papilloma virus. Although many strains of the virus are innocuous, some can cause cancerous lesions on the cervix (the outer end of the uterus), making them the primary cause of this cancer in the United States. Cervical cancer strikes more than 10,000 U.S. women each year, killing more than 3,700.
The vaccine appears to be virtually 100 percent effective against two of the most common cancer-causing HPV strains. Merck, whose vaccine is further along, plans to ask the Food and Drug Administration by the end of the year for approval to sell the shots.