Ed Silverman's Pharmalot had essentially this story up a few days ago, and he was instumental in bringing to the world's attention the crashingly off-key note the original effort sounded. So -- I've been meaning to add a squib on it, since Monday. . . but here it is, Thursday night. Ah, well.
The below appears in the New York Times' version:
. . . .Immigrant girls and women will no longer have to be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted virus to get their green cards. Starting December 14, the human papillomavirus vaccine will no longer be on the list of immunizations female immigrants ages 11 to 26 must receive before becoming legal permanent residents. . . .
This finally begins to put to rest the undercurrent of an awfully stereotyped notion -- that (somehow) immigrants just-arriving in America are more likely to harbor, or contract, this viral disease (primarily transmitted via sexual activity) than native-born Americans are.
So slowly, ever so slowly, sanity is finally making a comeback. [Even if one is not inclined to buy into the previously-discriminatory whiff here, the now widely-available NNT figures, on Gardasil, may well make this one vaccine-too-far -- at least if we intend to use the full-force of law to mandate its injection -- into the bodies of young women.]
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