Name That Virus

[twincityhacker]

Whats a epidemtic virus that in the United States is primarly passed on from having unprotected sex, and when someone is vaccinated against it, it reduces the person's chance of contracting certian types of cancer?

No, it's not HPV. It's Hepititus B.

The Hepititus B vaccination is a mandatory vaccination for entering the 8th grade in Wisconsin (That's when I got mine), and for several other states at various grades. And while the rate of teenaged unprotected sex in Wisconsin is somewhat high - Chipawa Falls had the highest ratio of teen pregencies in the country a few years ago - having the hepititus B become a mandatory shot did not increase "risky sexual behavior" in teenagers and that's with a disease that you can actually prevent by using a condom.

Not that there are people against the Hepititus B vaccination. The Association fo American Physiscain ans Surgeons are aganist it, but because it prevents risky adult activites, and it appears that they're cautious on the subject of vaccinations in general.

Curiously, I'm thinking that if there was a HIV vaccination, people would be against that too.

Oh, and the next person who says "The protection that vaccinations give is a LIE" gets kicked. Actually, I'll kick them in the knees so they can run away and read to them books on polio and small pox and Johas Salk.

Comments

[commanderteddog.livejournal.com]

Bwha?

In Ontario, Hepatitis B vaccinations are part of the school system. You get them in grade 7, first starting with a lecture explaining what Hepititus B is, how it spreads and how the vaccination works. Thankfully I was spared the "Hepatitis B is a real bad rap" video, although my not-blood-related-cousin Lisa used to know the song word for word because it was awful. Then you got the vaccine over three shots, although I've heard they can do it in two now.

I can confirm that several of my friends had bad reactions to it; Lisa fainted in the chair right after the shot (she gets lightheaded from blood and needles, though) and my friend Morgan passed out while leaving the room following her shot. There was also someone in my class who had his arm swell up. However, I had no issue with it, other than the bitch of a nurse gave the shot in my left arm after I told her I was left handed. Dur...

I don't buy the "sexual behavior" debate, because everyone in freakin' Ontario gets the darn shots in middle school. The overall teen pregnancy rate in Canada is lower in than in the US. Me thinks something else is the issue there.

[msp-hacker.livejournal.com]

When I got my first shot of Hepitus B, I got a side dish of a tetus boster, and while I was fine in the clinic I nearly passed out later at the grocery store. = )

Yeah, I don't get it either. Both the debate, which prety much just using fear as a tool to get people to do what the speaker wants, or why so many more teenagers in the US chose to have unprotected sex.

Though I don't belive we got a lecture why the Hepitus B vaccine was mandatory, or maybe I justed missed it. The universe keeps conspiring to keep me out of those lectures.

[myrthrilmercury.livejournal.com]

Hepatitis A and B can be passed around through non-sexual contact, which is probably why the B vaccine is mandatory. Hepatitis C is through either sexual contact or sharing needles. (Pamela Anderson, anyone?) Hepatitis B and A can be passed person-to-person through things like not washing your hands and dirty silverware and cups. In the latter, it's similar to meningitis.

I don't understand the whole unprotected sex thing myself, but I have a general idea of what motivates kids. Mom teaches high school. All the kids seem to think they're invincible, and that bad things only happen to other people. Then, when it happens to them, they don't know why or how it could have happened.

[msp-hacker.livejournal.com]

I know that you can get Hepittius B though other things - like sharing razorblades or toothbrushes, going to a sketchy tattoo parlor - but in the US, it's mostly sex and sharing needles. Other places it's more of other kids catching it from one another, and others it's mother-to-child.

You have to have contact with some body fluids, it appears to be blood, to catch Hepititus B and C. For Hepititus A and E you need to have contact with infected fecal matter.

[purplesyringes.livejournal.com]

Gwah. >.<;

Oh, and totally inappropriate, but gonna say it anyway:

HEP. A&E. WITH BIOGRAPHY. X)

Sorry. ^^;

[msp-hacker.livejournal.com]

And Jack Perkins would still be enthustastic about it.