Rent-a-quote Green, the lazy journo’s favourite

Stephen Green has become the answer to the lazy journalist’s prayer. Once again, he’s wheeled out to comment on a story that has no connection with religion at all. But, well, it’s about young people’s sexuality, ennit? So we call on a religious figure, don’t we?

Duh!

This national director of Christian Voice – and, as far as we know, perhaps its only member apart from his gerbil – has been called on by at least two UK papers, the Mail and the Telegraph, to comment on reports that girls as young as nine may be given a licensed vaccine to protect them from the human papilloma virus, which can lead to cervical cancer.

One proprietary drug is called Gardasil (another is Cervarix), which, so it is said, “could help cut 1,000 deaths a year” caused by this (mainly) sexually transmitted virus, according to the Mail story. But Green thinks this will cause promiscuity and threaten fertility. The Mail doesn’t say where he gets his information from, or why it didn’t go to a scientist instead of someone whose only credentials seem to be his superstition.

Lazy journalist number one, Jenny Hope, quotes Green in the Mail story as saying, “Anyone giving this drug to a girl is telling her, ‘I think you are a slag’.

“The best way of not getting cervical cancer and genital warts is to stay a virgin and marry a virgin.

“The message is one of despair, disrespect and low expectations.”

The Telegraph story (written by lazy journalist number two, Paul Stokes) provides a more rounded account of things, and tells us, among other things, that the drug is most effective if administered before the onset of sexuality.

So there you are, Mr Green, a scientific reason why young girls should be given this vaccine.

But he doesn’t get it. He tells the Telegraph, “Since the vaccine works best before the onset of sexual activity, they will be treating these girls, to put it bluntly, like tarts, saying they are sexually incontinent, lacking in self-respect and the basic morality required to keep their virginity” (emphasis added).

No, they won’t. That just doesn’t follow. The stories seem to be saying that they’re telling girls and their parents that vaccination at this age is likely to produce a better result, whether they’re having nookie or not. Even if they don’t have sex till they’re, say, twenty and married (not that they should wait that long to satisfy an urge if they don’t wish to, or, indeed, get married), they will, we assume, be protected by the vaccine they had aged nine, and better so for having had it at that age and not at, say, sixteen.

Pamela Morton of a charity that fights cervical cancer, Jo’s Trust, says it’s wrong to be talking of girls as “slags”. She would prefer that parents wait until a proposed schools vaccination programme begins next year, which will see it administerd to girls of twelve and thirteen. However, she recognises that the drug is licensed for girls and women aged nine to twenty-five, so parents can buy it privately if they wish (a course of three injections will knock them back £495).

It’s not the first time Green has been invited to have a grumble about this drug. Earlier this year he was at it in a story that said it is available for boys, too (who can carry the virus and pass it to a partner).

According to the Telegraph story, the virus can be passed on through other intimate contact as well as sexual activity. Parents are thought to have passed it on through changing a nappy, for instance. Hence, one assumes, the desirability of vaccinating early rather than too late for adequate efficacy – because the latter course would be a waste of both time and money.

Isn’t it about time these journos stopped going to Green, knowing full well that he won’t shy away from giving them some standard, self-publicising quotes, and found someone else to give balance to their stories – someone with more knowledge and authority, perhaps?