October. The. Pink. Month.
Who doesn’t know by now that Is this the month that companies must do or die? The local fire engine is now pink — really? How many tax payer dollars were used for that?
(Aside: This is not a post against victims and survivors of breast cancer; I have the utmost compassion for their plight.)
I’m wondering how the gents feel each October; I wonder if prostate cancer should have a huge splash, too.
This business of breasts is quite the marketing opportunity for companies to show ‘raderie. Heck, it seems girls and women’s bodies are incredible treasures of opportunity for pharmaceutical companies.
Merck’s Gardasil
Gardasil, the Merck creation of a series of three injections for pre-sexual teen girls to ward off human papillomavirus which causes cervical cancer, recently …albeit the drug launched in 2007. Turns out one of the side effects was fainting on the day of the shot (do you think that was purely anxiety for these young ladies?).
The Texas governor Rick Perry mandated all girls get the shot while 24 states launched legislation requiring all school girls to get the shot in 2007 prior to safety studies.
Barr Pharma Plan B Contraceptive
How about the from Barr Pharmaceuticals called Plan B, to all the teen-age girls’ families throughout 50 schools in the 1-million student body?
The Associated Press broke the story Sept. 26, 2012 .
It’s being given to teenage girls many who have yet to have intercourse and to parents who have the option to opt out of the program. Only 1 to 2 percent of parents refused.
Here’s more:
- More than 7,000 New York City girls ages 15 to 17-years-old get pregnant each year.
- More than 2/3 of those pregnancies end in abortion.
A parent and president of the parent association at a high school on Staten Island quoted in the story by the Associated Press said, “The children nowadays are not going to abstain from sexual intercourse. How many unwed mothers do we need?”
How Do You Feel?
As a mother of a 10-year-old girl, I cringe. The message I hear for our daughters is one promoting promiscuity with a drug safety net. Let’s not even address birth control measures for teenage girls, either.
Boys and Condoms
Here’s what I’d like to know…are condoms being passed out to families and all the teenage boys in high schools? Are boys suffering the consequence of teenage pregnancy as well as the girls? Do boys have to carry around the computerized babies that actually throw a tantrum, puke and poop in the night? I have never seen a boy carrying those faux babies; but, they should!
From what I’ve read of late, the consequence of teen intercourse is a one-sided situation skewed to the girls. When pink October arrived with a bang on the heels of the Gardasil news last week and the morning-after pill the week prior, I knew I had to speak.
This about firing up your blog pushed me over the edge to publish.
I’m a concerned mother of a pre-teen daughter, a business owner who sees females being exploited in pharmaceuticals, and a parent on the fence about these new fixes that may or may not be a good thing. I just don’t know yet.
What I do know is that gender inequality about this business of breasts and sexual promiscuity is alive and well.
Bring it…
