i'm a pixel here, myself

Mornings should be abolished. Let's all agree that the workday starts at 11:30am, allows for an hour-and-a-half lunchbreak, and ends somewhere around 2pm. That way I'll still be able to go to the gym before catching any trains I need to catch, plus it'll give me a chance to sleep in.

Soon, my pretties, soon there will be self-indulgent fic. All the pieces are coming together. ::evil hands:: I may have squealed with glee when I got the most recent one. \o/

( have some Jared; get through your day )

I don't often write about politics, because I probably agree with 80% of you (though that may be a generous number) on most things, because politics frustrates the hell out of me, and because this is supposed to be a shiny, happy, fun fandom place rather than a place where I look at the world in a serious manner. Add that to the fact that very few things happening in politics cause me joy at the moment, and you have a recipe for not wanting to write about politics.

But this is a little bit different. This is the story of a vaccine, and it's a story that some of you might find surprising that I'm aware of, given my Y chromosome. As some of you may have heard, Merck has developed a vaccine that prevents human papillomavirus (HPV), the most prevalent STD. HPV is also, in large part, the cause of cervical cancer and genital warts. This vaccine is 100 percent effective at preventing HPV-related cervical cancer. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT. It is also 99 percent effective at preventing HPV-related genital warts. Let that sink in. 3,700 women in the United States die each year from cervical cancer, so this vaccine has the capability to save thousands of lives. And it very nearly did not get FDA approval. Why? Politics.

I hate saying "the right wing" because that sounds like this group is part of a saner whole, and I hate the phrase "fundamentalist Christians", but perhaps if we combine the two you'll know who I'm talking about. RWFC (my abbreviation for this group) did their damnedest to block this vaccine. Why? Because, they argued, eliminating the risk of cervical cancer by blocking HPV would lead to more girls having sex. Again, let that sink in. They would rather let girls get cervical cancer and possibly die than have sex. I simply cannot understand the mindset that this comes from.

Fortunately, their efforts have been thwarted. Today, Gardasil, Merck's brand-name for the vaccine, was [approved by the FDA]. This is a victory for sanity, for girls and women, and for long-term disease erradication. The vaccine should be available by the end of June, and I encourage all of my female friends who are 26 and under and who do not have HPV to look into this.