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Here is the reason why "Gardasil" was developed: to ultimately rid the world of the horrible scourge of HPV. It is being cleverly marketed to people under the guise of preventing cervical cancer so that parents who are conservative won't feel ashamed to vaccinate their young daughters against an STD. Was this a wise decision on the part of the marketing department? Of course it was, otherwise this virus will keep spreading.

It seems to be the right decision to vaccinate any person against any kind of virus that may cause cancer. This seems obvious. What they aren't specifically advertising-beyond the percentage chance that this virus will give your daughter cancer-is that over 50 percent of the population has HPV. Yes, 50 percent is a staggering figure to think about, especially when it is referring to the people who have genital warts. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association roughly 27 percent of all females in the US are infected with the disease. That means about 1 in 4 teenage girls are infected.

Doctors say that Gardasil is recommended for girls after the age of 11 or 12. The real importance of this vaccination isn't to keep little girls from getting cervical cancer. Let us not mistake cures for cancer for what they really are. There is no cure for cancer right now, and it would be a miracle vaccinate that could do it. In the commercials for Gardasil they subtly elude to the fact that it doesn't cure cancer, it keeps you from contracting a virus that may cause cervical cancer; "May cause" being the qualifiers in that sentence. This means that your daughter may still get cervical cancer some other way. This vaccine has very little to do with cancer at all and part of me wishes that the general public weren't so easily fooled by marketing. The other half of me realizes that it is the only way we will be able extinguish a disgusting epidemic. It worked for small pox. It worked for polio. Let's make it work for HPV and never mind all of the social stigmas we put on it as a sexually transmitted disease.

All those parents out there who refuse to admit or acknowledge the fact that your teenager is engaging in sexual intercourse-your ignorance is feeding an epidemic. We are so fortunate that this particular virus has the potential to be cured, not just for the sake of our daughters to have one less type of cancer to worry about but also giving the population a very real chance of wiping out another annoying sexually transmitted virus.

Learn more about this author, Rebekah Oakley.
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