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Once the HPV vaccines receive approval, however, the issue could heat up.

Abstinence

HPV has already long been the subject of controversy, as part of broader debates around sexually transmitted infections, promotion of condom use and sexual abstinence.

Early last year, conservative groups supportive of abstinence welcomed a statement by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that "the surest way to avoid transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, including HPV, is to refrain from genital contact."

The CDC also said that "the use of condoms should not be a substitute for routine screening with Pap tests to detect and prevent cervical cancer."

"The only 100 percent sure [HPV infection] prevention is sexual abstinence until one enters a mutually monogamous marriage with an uninfected person," Concerned Women for America said in a statement last February. "Sex outside of marriage brings many health risks, including high-risk types of HPV."

Asked this week about the HPV vaccine, Scott Phelps of the Abstinence and Marriage Education Partnership cited a recent letter in which he raised concerns about giving the vaccine to youngsters.

"We're all for preventing cancer, but is this really the way to do it - by shooting this stuff into our kids?" he asked.

"What are the side effects in these young children? And are they told what the vaccine is for? I'd be interested to listen in on that discussion."

Phelps said issues like the HPV vaccine were a reminder that "we do what we do [that is, promote abstinence] so that these types of 'solutions' will not be necessary."

Leslee Unruh, president of the Abstinence Clearinghouse, said in an article on the group's website that the money spent on developing the vaccines and which parents would have to pay for it "would be much safer spent on abstinence education."

New Scientist magazine recently quoted Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council as voicing concern about giving the vaccine to young girls.

"Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV," she said. "Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex."

No clear link seen

Asked for the views of America's largest faith-based physicians' body, Christian Medical and Dental Associations associate executive director Dr. Gene Rudd said this week that unless currently unknown medical risk/benefit problems arose, he would not oppose an HPV vaccine and doubted many of his Christian colleagues would either.

"Rather, I would welcome a development that would greatly reduce the disease and death caused by HPV," said Rudd, an Ob/Gyn physician.

"While we should be concerned about healthcare decision-making that could encourage poor sexual choices, I do not see a clear linkage between the decision to accept this vaccine for a six year-old child, or even age 12, and subsequent sexual decisions," he added. "The vaccine decision will likely be made by the parent."

Rudd also pointed out the risk of marrying a spouse who was already infected.

"Even parents who teach and expect their child to be virtuous should allow for the possibility that their child might someday marry a person who had previously acquired HPV," he said. "We would want protection in that circumstance."

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