Why Aren’t Boys Being Vaccinated Against HPV?
A British Medical Journal study advises against vaccinating boys for HPV because it’s less cost-effective to vaccinate both girls and boys and besides, if girls are vaccinated, boys don’t have to be.
As Slate’s William Saletan writes:
In other words, boys don’t have to get vaccinated for the same reason they don’t have to wash dishes, do laundry, buy birth control, or think about other people in general: Girls will do it for them.
The study’s authors do suggest vaccinating gay men because, as Saletan points out, “[Gay men] can’t count on somebody else to take care of the problem.”
I love this:
If you want to see a world where men wash dishes and do laundry, it isn’t hard to find. It’s a world where men live, have sex, and share household responsibilities with other men. They don’t have wives or girlfriends to think about and take care of everything for them. They have to do it themselves.
Have I mentioned that I love William Saletan?
