Catholic Fire

A new report has revealed that Merck & Co., which was lobbying aggressively for all states to impose laws requiring that young girls be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted disease with its vaccine, was told by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to back off. According to a Washington Times report , Dr. Jon Abramson, of the CDC's advisory committee on immunization practices, said the message was given to Merck officials. "I told Merck my personal opinion that it shouldn't be mandated," Abramson told the newspaper. "And they heard it from other committee members." The company's intensive lobbying campaign to require the vaccine in order to be allowed to attend school should be dropped, the company was told. [more] My Comments: Good for you, Dr. A. It is obvious that Merck has been pushing for this primarily for their own monetary gain. HPV is not like the measles - it is contracted only through sexual contact and contrary to what the...

Consider the Costs Excluding the costs incurred to treat HIV, an estimated $8 billion dollars is spent annually to diagnose and treat STI's. There were 757,000 girls ages 15 to 19 who became pregnant in 2002. Fifty percent of unmarried teens were aided by governmental assistance programs within one year of giving birth. Babies born to adolescent mothers are at an increased risk for both prematurity and low birth weight. Compared to children from two parent homes, the generation born to teen mothers is at an increased risk for neglect, incarceration, and drug use. In general, teen mothers attain much lower levels of education than than other women, severely limiting their career options and sharply increasing their likelihood of economic dependency. Only 70% of teen mothers complete high school education or earn a GED, and 1.5% earn a college degree by the age of 30. Abstinence Education Works Since 1991, when federal abstinence funding began, there has been a 43% decrease in births...