Cross-posted with permission from Dr. Jen Gunter’s blog.

If there’s a whiff of a story about vaccine safety or controversy, expect the major media outlets to be on it like buzzards on carrion.

Michele Bachmann spouts anti-vaccine crap and it’s a headline. Everywhere.

Rick Perry back peddles over his HPV vaccine policy in Texas and it’s discussed for days.

The war cry of the GOP (Grand Old Puritans) is that the HPV vaccine is a license for public fornication. This is how they rally their financial base. I get that, but the Press doesn’t have to take the bait. It only becomes a story if the press makes it so.

To be fair, many major news outlets do call the GOP out on these falsehoods. However, an

Oh by the way, the HPV vaccine is safe and doesn’t cause promiscuity

in paragraph 6 doesn’t fucking cut it.

But what really pisses me off is when an article comes out that refutes the GOP HPV vaccine porn, it goes ignored. For example, the article I quoted in yesterday’s post that tells us that adolescents and young women who are vaccinated against HPV are no more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior than their unspoiled unvaccinated peers.

And that’s bullshit.

I couldn’t find the article referenced on any major news site. Not on MSNBC, ABC news, or CNN. I didn’t check Huffington Post, because between you, me and the fence post now that Oprah’s only on cable, Arianna is the main stream industry leader in medical woo. I’d trust the aliens at The National Enquirer to be more accurate than the crystal cartel at HuffPo any day.

Reporting is about follow up. It’s about holding people’s feet to the fire. It should be about truth, not about rhetoric. Because otherwise we only perpetuate the mythology.

That article is a news story.

It’s pretty pathetic that no major health reporter agreed with me.

It’s no wonder only 23% of vaccine eligible adolescents and women have been vaccinated.