sexually transmitted disease vaccines, kids, and condescending professors

The Tribune has a story today about new vaccines to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. The manufacturers want to inject them into your 11 year old.

A wave of experimental vaccines against sexually transmitted diseases could revolutionize the prevention of such infections during the next few years, but there's a catch: The shots likely will work best when given to children as young as 11.

The first such vaccine to prevent human papillomavirus--the leading cause of cervical cancer--could be submitted for approval to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by year's end. Another vaccine against genital herpes is in advanced clinical trials, and shots for gonorrhea and chlamydia are in the works.

Already the injections have drawn moral opposition from some conservative groups, who fear such immunizations could give young teens a green light to have sex.

Medical experts who are helping develop the vaccines conceded that some parents might find the idea of shielding their young children from future STDs hard to accept. But they said the overriding goal is to save lives by boosting children's immune systems before they are exposed to the viruses that cause such diseases.

"For most parents, the moral decision is to protect their children," said Dr. Gregory Zimet, a professor of pediatrics and clinical psychology at Indiana University School of Medicine who has studied parents' views on the immunizations.

Notice the condescending attitude of Dr. Zimet. If you don't give this vaccine to your 11 year old kid, you don't love her! You big bad parent! Well, Dr. Zimet, I'll protect my kids by raising them with good values and morals, and educating them about greedy vaccine manufacturers that lobby the government at all levels to create "markets" for their products, starting with each human being on the day of birth. (For those who haven't had a kid lately, I'm referring to the fact that they will try to give your child the hepatitis B vaccine before you even take him home from the hospital, to allegedly prevent a disease which is almost exclusively transmitted via dirty needle sharing and sexual contact).