HPV concerns ill-conceived, new study finds
Vaccinated girls Are less likely to Engage in riskier sex, experts Say
B.C. public health experts say they now have evidence to refute concerns of people who worried the HPV vaccine would lead to promiscuity among youth.
When the vaccine against the cancer-causing, sexually transmitted human papillomavirus became publicly funded for Grade 6 and Grade 9 girls in 2008, some religious leaders and parents said it was akin to condoning sexual activity and would lead youth to have sex earlier, with more partners and without protection. Since 2011, it has been freely available, but only to girls in Grade 6.
But a B.C. study published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that after the vaccine was introduced, girls were less likely to have intercourse before the age of 14, less likely to drink alcohol and less likely to take drugs. Girls in grades 7 to 12 also used contraception and condoms more often and reported fewer pregnancies.
The lead author, Dr. Gina Ogilvie of the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, credits improved sex education and awareness for the changes.
Ogilvie and her co-authors used B.C.’s Adolescent Health Survey, done every five years, to detect changes in sexual behaviours of girls before and after HPV vaccinations were introduced into schools. Data from the 2003, 2008 and 2013 surveys were analyzed. The study is based on responses from about 300,000 girls who identified as heterosexual and completed the anonymous questionnaire designed to spot trends in the physical and emotional health of students.
“It’s not that kids are becoming more conservative,” Ogilvie said of the findings.
“I think you know the NDP well enough to know there will always be robust discussions and our folks really don’t hold back on how they feel about things. That’s not going to change. The clarity that’s being looked for here is ensuring there are procedures and lines of responsibility and accountability for people who are representing bodies of the party.”
Sanford said the party has already heard concerns from some members about the language used in the draft and the need to more explicitly state that people can still be critical of the party and government as long as they make clear it is their opinion.
The code of conduct, which also includes sections on conflict of interest and dispute resolution, is modelled after those used by federal political parties, unions and corporations, said Sanford.
Nonetheless, the code would be unique among B.C.’s political parties, where pressure to toe the party line is often real but usually unwritten.
The B.C. Liberals and B.C. Greens have confidentiality agreements for officials who have access to financial details, voter databases and the personal information of members and volunteers. But neither has a clause that requires members to support party positions or only voice dissent within confidential internal structures.
“When parties like the NDP use this heavy-handed approach,
it makes you wonder what kind of disagreements they are having internally (that) they feel the need to suppress dissent to keep it from spilling into the public,” said the Liberal executive director, Emile Scheffel.
“To me that suggests a symptom of weak leadership. If you are willing to take this step to censor people it suggests you aren’t capable of bringing them along internally and making them heard.”
Green Leader Andrew Weaver has said the NDP is losing environmental supporters to his party after its Site C and LNG decisions. Some NDP MLAs campaigned against Site C in 2017, even though the official party position was to simply do a “review” of the project. That review resulted in Horgan announcing in late 2017 that the $10.4-billion hydroelectric dam near Fort St. John would proceed.
On LNG, many New Democrats fought against the previous Liberal government’s attempts to nurture the industry and opposed the pollution the LNG Canada project in Kitimat will cause. Yet Horgan’s government offered more than $5 billion in tax breaks to secure LNG Canada’s final approval this month.
Similarly, not all New Democrats support proportional representation in the November referendum. Horgan announced he will campaign in favour, and the party has followed suit with an aggressive fundraising and voter sign-up operation. But some New Democrats are in the campaign to oppose pro-rep, feeling the NDP is better positioned to win majority governments under the existing first-past-the-post system.
The code of conduct would insulate senior officials from blowback on party positions under a section called “mutual respect/inclusion” that says bullying, harassment and “questioning the motives of another member or staff ” won’t be tolerated.