CNBC Interview on HPV Vaccine

Joe Kernen: Tomorrow is the deadline for the FDA to give a widely expected green light to Merck's Gardisil, a vaccine that helps prevent cervical cancer. In studies of women ranging in age from 9 to 26, Gardisil was 100% effective in warding off two strains of infection from a sexually transmitted virus that caused 70% of the cervical cancer cases.

If approved, should Gardisil be administered as a mandatory vaccination for all middle school girls? Diana Zuckerman is President of The National Research Center for Women & Families in Washington. And joining us form Kansas City is Linda Kopaki, analyst for Focus on the Family.

Let me start with you, Ms. Zuckerman. Should this be mandatory or not?

Diana Zuckerman: It's really important for vaccines to be mandatory if we really want to prevent, in this case cervical cancer, and several other conditions. If you don't make a vaccine mandatory, many children will not get it. If the children don't get it, they're not protected as adults. That's why we do have mandatory vaccination programs for many, many vaccines.

JK: All right. Ms. Klepacki, the vaccine seems to be 100% stopping cervical viruses. Why would you not want every girl vaccinated?

Linda Klepacki: Joe, this is not an infection that you go out and catch. It's something you really have to go out and invite into your body. This is a sexually transmitted infection, which is very different than other vaccinations we have. With the exception of hepatitis B, but that's also spread through blood products. This is not an infection that you catch from coughing or from sneezing. It's not that sort of infectious disease. This can be prevented by primary prevention, and that's abstinence until marriage, and faithfulness within marriage.

JK: Let's say someone plans to abstain, and they slip, which some do. They should get cancer?

LK: That's one of the reasons why parents may choose to vaccinate their children or an older teen. This is really a parental rights issue. Parents are the primary medical providers for their children and they have the right to make this decision.

JK: Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry, Ms. Zuckerman.

DZ: I'd like to respond to that, because it is not a virus that women invite into their bodies. If a woman abstains until marriage and is monogamous in marriage, if the man that she's sleeping with, her husband, has had sex with any other person, he could be carrying this virus and give it to her. So it really is not something that we should think of as a punishment for bad behavior. Even if you think that every person in this country should abstain until marriage and be monogamous in marriage, if there is a man who isn't -- and we know certainly that there are - a woman can get it.

JK: How about that?

LK: That is a good point. That is one of the points we make on the pro side for parents deciding whether they'll vaccinate their children. That's a very good point, is that if you get married, you may not know that sexual history of your potential spouse. And so that's one reason that you might want to make that determination. But there are parents who may choose not to make that - not to make that determination, and they have the right to decide whether they'll vaccinate their children or not.

JK: Ms. Klepacki, kids are so sweet and innocent, sometimes you have parents for whatever reason, religious beliefs, I don't know all the different reasons, they might not even give life-saving - might not even allow life-saving treatment for whatever reason with their children. Parents aren't necessarily going to do the right thing. They might not even - they might not take the time to get this done. There are a lot of reasons it wouldn't be done. Shouldn't we just do it with the kids, get it out of the way, no one gets cervical cancer, lets just do it?

LK: You can take that to the extreme and say that the states are going to mandate every medical procedure for the kids because the parents can't make the decisions. Some parents do make good decisions, that's the truth. Parents know their children the best. Parents have the right to be the decision-makers for their children, especially when it comes to medicine.

JK: Ms. Zuckerman, this does bring the government back into, I don't know, I guess you would say meddling with a person's personal health. Is that what we want?

DZ: Of course, we don't want the government meddling with personal health. But we have vaccination programs and there is a very good reason, to protect the public health. If you want vaccines to work, people have to take them. And I believe that if vaccinations of any type, and particularly the HPV vaccine, if it was not required, there would be many children who wouldn't get it. And it wouldn't necessarily be because their parents were ideologically opposed to it. It would be because parents don't get around to getting these vaccines. So from a public health perspective, you really do need to protect the public, and that's everybody.

But I also just want to mention that if this product is approved, as is expected, still it's been tested on a few thousand people. You want to make sure that it really is safe and effective for millions of people. I'm not saying we should rush out to make it mandatory immediately. We do want to make sure that when a lot of people take it, it is safe, and it is effective.

But then the decision should be made on the basis of the science and the public health.

JK: Ms. Klepacki, if you saved just one person that would have gotten cancer and doesn't get cancer because of this, doesn't that override some of your concerns about - what is your concern, that parents need to have the right themselves? If you save just one person, that wouldn't have gotten it for whatever reason?

LK: Again, nothing overrides the parents' rights and responsibilities to be the primary medical decision-makers for their children. If the state is going to meddle in every public health concern -

JK: That is the belief -

LK: No, no -

Carl Quintanilla: One quick question. Could you draw a similar example? There are car seat laws in this country for kids to go in the car seat. The parents obviously have no plan to get in an accident. Are those kinds of laws flawed, as well?

LK: When you start mandating vaccines, it's similar to saying, you know, you're mandating filtered cigarettes. You're mandating - if we take this -

JK: There are a lot of childhood vaccines.

LK: No, hold on, we have to be careful because other vaccines are for infections that are truly infectious, from coughing, from sneezing -

JK: There was no bad behavior, in your view it's bad behavior that caused it so that makes the infection qualitatively differently?

LK: Wait, I'm not using the word bad. You're using the word bad. Sexual behavior is what transmits this virus. And so this is different than all other vaccines. This is not the same as vaccines for purely infectious diseases. This is a disease that can be prevented by not being sexually active.

DZ: But it is purely infectious. This is a virus. It is infectious. Girls can get raped - excuse me - they can get raped.

LK: Absolutely.

DZ: We know that rape is a problem. We know that incest is a problem, and we know that the majority of boys and girls do have more than one sexual partner --I should say men and women, do have more than one sexual partner in their lives. And so even if, as I said, even if a woman did only have one sexual partner in her whole life and she was married to him, that would not necessarily protect her from this virus.

LK: Again, again, states should not be mandating vaccines when it's sexually transmitted viruses. Parents have the right and the responsibility to make an informed decision on whether they will vaccinate their children.

JK: This is going to be interesting to watch because we'll see what happens there's about once the FDA approval comes, then this really comes to the fore. Thanks to Diana Zuckerman, the National Research Center for Women & Families, and Linda Klepacki at Focus on The Family.