Feminists Don't Trust Gardasil Either

Haley Swanson, my co-blogger at pushback, calls me out on something she noticed while reporting on her college campus:

[T]here was a crowd of women who were completely comfortable with their current or future sexual activity who were also skeptical of Gardasil and hesitant to seek out vaccination.

Most of their reasoning centers on a sophisticated level of media savvy. While we are constantly inundated with new advertisements for new drugs we just must have, we also lack any active or visible public health infrastructure to provide a non-profit driven perspective on these drugs.

Haley's absolutely right that there are plenty of sexually liberated women that are distrustful of pharmaceutical giant Merck's predatory nature. Plenty of older feminists that remember the first days of birth control with too-high doses are skeptical as well. I still think this is ultimately good for young women, but I'm glad that Haley pointed out it's not a conservative v. progressive issue. It's a lot more complicated than that.