Thursday, May 10, 2007

Mothering Magazine

I recently read the newest issue of Mothering. Good article about the HPV vaccine (also scary!). This vaccine was being heavily marketed at the Speaking of Women's Health conference I went to at the end of April. They gave me a free t-shirt even (I gave it away). I'm really concerned that this is something that has been inappropriately pushed through the FDA approval process without adequate research and could be a public health disaster. It is a very slick marketing strategy to call it the "cervical cancer vaccine"--it really only vaccinates against 4 different strains of HPV (there are over 100! Hence, the slick marketing). I really think people will feel like "I've been vaccinated against cervical cancer, so I don't need to worry about that," and the rates of cancer among young women may actually go up instead of down (4 out of 100 strains is not many and it does NOT preventative!)

There was also an interesting article about pospartum psychosis. Mothering seems to be branching out lately from their natural family living niche (in both good ways, such as exploring less rosy "my natural family is so perfect!" type stories, and also in bad ways--occasionally I wonder if I'm reading Mothering, or just another conventional parenting publication).

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