A few thoughts on the HPV vaccine:

Researchers have found that Gardasil is cost-effective for young girls, but not for older women.  Some of this is because the vaccine is only effective before exposure to a particular strain of the virus. Some of it could also be due to the fact that it’s generally more worthwhile to save a younger person’s life than an older person’s life - the latter has fewer years to live, anyway, and is more likely to die of other causes.  Additionally, once Gardasil goes off-patent, and generics come onto the market, the cost/benefit analysis will change.

Problematically, the researchers operated under optimistic assumptions.  Gardasil has been proven to prevent individuals from becoming infected with certain viruses, over a short period of time.  It has not been demonstrated to prevent infection of any mutated forms of the virus, nor has it been found to directly prevent incidences of cervical cancer.  Ultimately, we are still using girls as guinea pigs in a manner that would be entirely unacceptable - i.e. for the benefit of a pharmaceutical company - if it were not for the fact that opponents may be painted as repressive prudes who would like to punish girls with cancer.

Oddly enough, mother’s attitudes about Gardasil have little correlation to their attitudes about premarital sex.  There are a number of sensible reasons to be cautious about this vaccine: new, barely tested, expensive, may or may not work long-term (for a disease that takes several decades to manifest itself), and mandated to  be given to girls who are far too young to consent to sex.  One need not be anti-premarital sex in order to be anti-11-year-old sex.