Mandatory Vaccinations

For instance, the Gardasil vaccine. Now that one was put in place to help prevent cancer. Since cancer isn't contagious, why would states try to make it mandatory?

It's quotes like these that bother me the most throughout this thread. The majority of you speaking out against vaccinations, whether skeptics or full blown opponents, have all made at least one moronic error like these in one of your posts, something that, quite honestly, makes the rest of us question the validity of your arguments if you don't even know what you're talking about in the first place.

In this case, Talia, Gardasil vaccinates against four types of the human papiloma virus (HPV), two of which cause over 70% of all cases of cervical cancer. HPV is a sexually transmitted infection, and is therefore contagious, so vaccinations against such pathogens, if available, are highly useful.

You're also correct to say that Gardasil protects against some penile and anal cancers as well. According to the above article I linked, the drug is in high demand among gay men especially, as one study of the San Francisco area showed that 95% of gay men infected with HIV were also infected with HBV.

Now should this drug be mandatory in schools? I haven't done enough research to make a conclusive stance, but at the moment I'd personally say no, simply because it protects against an STI, and unless you're going to a porn school or something, it's unnecessary.

All that aside, the main contention of this post is to request that people actually know about the disease and vaccine themselves before they start discussing them. It was AnonymousMoose as well, for example, who idiotically called influenza a retrovirus. If you want to be taken seriously, know the basics.