If you believe that the big bang theory is wrong, thats fine. If you believe that evolution is bunk, thats OK. If you think the earth is only 2000 years old, good for you. When, however, you start basing laws based on these views, we are going to have some problems. And that is what seems to be happening with a new cancer cure.

Merck & Co. Inc.’s vaccine to prevent the world’s most prevalent sexually transmitted infection sailed through a panel of U.S. health experts, despite early fears of opposition from the Christian Right that it might lead to promiscuity and a false sense of security.

The drugmaker’s efforts to educate Christian groups while touting the vaccine’s top selling point — prevention of cervical cancer — helped win them over.

But Merck may ultimately find itself at loggerheads with those same groups as it seeks to make the vaccine mandatory for school admission, a step considered key for widespread acceptance and one that many of the groups oppose.

The vaccine, known as Gardasil, with an estimated $2 billion U.S. market potential, targets four types of sexually transmitted human papilloma virus, or HPV, which is believed to cause more than 70 percent of cervical cancer cases and 90 percent of genital warts.

“We don’t think it should be made mandatory for school attendance,” said Peter Sprigg, vice president of policy at the Family Research Council, who attended the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel meeting on Thursday.

That view is shared by evangelical Christian group Focus on the Family

From here.

If you want cures, you need science. So we could tackle this problem one of two ways, we could ignore these anti-science crusaders and continue to enjoy the plethora of benefits that science has brought us. Or we can fight fire with fire and try and use our beliefs in science to pass our own laws. Perhaps we could pass laws that say “unless you believe in science, you can’t get anti-biotics.” or “unless you believe in science, no motorized travel for you.”

I kid, but that is basically what these people are doing. They are using there faith to influence laws such that we the science champions will not reap the rewards of all that hard work.

Honestly why not cure cancer if you find such a cure? Why worry about weather or not curing cancer will lead to more sex. Cancer is bad, we should cure it. If having sex at an early age is bad, lets stop that as well. However we should never make arguments that curing X will lead to more of Y, and because Y is against my belief we can not cure X.

You can not have it both ways, if you want cures for cancer, and AIDS and even the common cold you need to embrace science. If you are reading this right now you are using products of science. Most things in life are products of science. For all its comforting ways, faith has cured very few illness (if any) and created no new technology. If you like cars, TV, Advil, flight, guns, shoes, radio, Viagra, and many many other things, then you like science.

It can bring us bad things, good thing, neutral things, but its the only way we have found so far to get new things. If you don’t like it, stop using all the things science has lead to and don’t try to hold these things from the rest of us.