Newspaper coverage over the weekend

OVER the weekend I got two mentions in the papers, one which made me go ‘woo hoo’ and the other which made me go ‘wha…’

First Shane Hegarty in the Irish Times included this blog in the article ‘Blogs, what to read and why’ in Saturday’s paper, so thanks very much for that, I and my Mammy are delighted, and if you are here via that article, thanks for stopping by.

The second one was strange to say the least and was in the Sunday Tribune.

I first knew about the impending article on Friday when I got a message to contact the reporter, so I did and when he called me back we talked for about three minutes at most.

It seems an anti-vaccine (I won’t say anti HPV vaccine as their anti-ness is more encompassing than that) campaigner got onto the paper and complained that her comments were removed from the Facebook group I established in November (nearly 13, 500 members now).

In the article the Facebook group was called an ‘online petition’ which in actual fact it is not. I think actually a misunderstanding of the Facebook group as well as netiquette is in play here, which I shall explain as we go along.

For those of you who have followed this, it won’t come as a surprise that I knew exactly who would have been in contact with the paper, after all she had already phoned me to work, where she yelled insults and accusations at me, including how I must have ‘shares in the company’, I have ‘blood on my hands’ and how I am ‘killing children’.

So on Friday I talked to the journalist, for all of three minutes about this and he asked twice should she was not be allowed to raise alleged health concerns in the group. I tried to explain that wasn’t the issue and I’ll explain why in this post later.

The article itself copied a comment I made in the group where I told the poster that they might set up their own Facebook group, a comment we (myself and other admins) made repeatedly to her when asking her to stop bombarding the group.

The campaign group is for people to campaign on the issue. Seeing as how when she first commented she had no friends, it could be a safe bet that she joined Facebook to join the group given the coverage the group received in the media.

It is also worth noting that, as I will explain later, this all happened WELL before Christmas, and other comments not agreeing with the campaign are still on the discussion board, it was the conduct of that person within the group that has us remove their comments. That fact was not included in the story, I suppose it just doesn't fit in with the tone of the piece.

I should also add that I laughed at the headline of the article which read ‘Row erupts over safety of cancer vaccine’.

Oh really, I thought, surely at the very least it is downright rude to have a row with someone and not let them know, unless of course there has been absolutely no row. The Tribune reads that there are two of us in this Facebook comments row, but only one of us is arguing with themselves in an empty room.

I wonder as well if the Tribune realise her comments were removed about two to three months ago, does that make it news?

I wonder also if they understand trolling (I did explain that this is what was happening), which this person was doing, or indeed spam, which they were also doing. I had complaints from group members about this, she was told over and over again to stop and she didn’t so we deleted her comments. End of. It happens all the time in fora such as this when people troll, spam or go off topic.

The Tribune should also be aware in its non-story that this woman is still a member of the group. It just seemed to be more concerned with linking this to my work in the Labour Party. Now I have said time and time again, that I started this campaign off my own initiative, it was not and is not related to work. At a very basic level there are members from all political groups/backgrounds and it was vitally important that anyone who felt strongly that not bringing in this vaccine was a bad decision did not feel unable to join in because of party politics– that too is prominent within the group information and has been from the beginning.

The final straw for me in regard to the behaviour of this person was when they phoned my work to complain about me, she was crossing the lines between the Facebook group and reality. To see this in a ‘newstory’ now is frankly laughable.

But how and ever I would like to thank the individuals for once again highlighting the group particularly seeing as how the article was placed next to an article about Jade Goody, who is facing the last weeks of her young life. Kinda puts it in perspective, don’t you think?

[On a related note the group's membership keeps growing and growing, currently we have nearly 13,400 members, well done everyone. Please join, we need you, and we will be organising more action soon.]

Wednesday's vigils - a thank you post

I'M GOING to cross post something I wrote (with some minor tweaking) after this week's vigils in the Facebook campaign group .

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The vigils during the week were great. Like any other event like this, when I went to set up at the Dáil I was nervous and anxious thinking 'please let people show up' and you did :)

Both Cork and Dublin's events had about 60 people attending and considering the evening that was in it, a wet, cold, very cold evening, that was great.

According to Sorcha Daly (who organised the Cork event) the speakers were great and Ger Murphy who lost her daughter Evelyn last year to the disease was particularly powerful.

In Dublin we had deputies Jan O'Sullivan and James Reilly who spoke, unfortunately Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin was unable to make it out in time as he was due to speak on the Health Bill in the Dail and couldn't leave the House. He did make it out at the end having run out trying to catch the end of the vigil. We had many other TDs out at the vigil and I would be afraid to name them in case I would miss out on some, but their presence was fantastic.

What was also brilliant in Dublin was that some of the attendees came because they received an email about the event and one couple came because they heard about it from a friend via text. So well done that was brilliant. We are getting our message out using all sorts of methods.

I think that an important aspect to the group where people can participate on a level that suits them whether thats by attending demonstrations or by emailing or contacting family and friends on the issue. Everything has its place and all of it counts.

The vigils got fantastic news coverage; Newstalk, Cork's 96fm, the Sun, the Examiner, the Mirror, the Star and a brilliant spread in the Daily Mail (who have been running a campaign also calling for the vaccine) including the front page which featured Evelyn Cotter who died from cervical cancer last year.











We do understand that not everyone can make it to events like this which makes the online campaigning side of this issue very important so your emails to your Government TDs are vital, we need to consistently let them know that we are not happy with this decision and we want it reversed.

I also want to thank Sorcha Daly for taking the lead and organising a dual event in Cork, that was fantastic. And fair play to her for all the work. It is hard doing these things by yourself, with a budget of nothing. So for the group to pull off two great events was fantastic. Well done and thanks.

We will be doing more. I am going to draft a couple of standard letters to the editor which people can adapt and send to their local papers about the issue and after Christmas we'll work on another action.

I have found the nonsense moral undertones surfacing around this hilarious to say the least. One person who has bombarded the Facebook group with nonsense comments as well as my Flickr account even went so far as to phone my work to complain about me. The person she got through to put her onto me (thanks) and she gave out yards about god knows what before saying 'I bet you have shares in the vaccine company' to which I replied 'yes thats right'.

Whatever about not agreeing with the campaign and whatever about not agreeing with vaccines, people are free to believe what they want. But as it stands no one has a choice about this campaign and if the vaccine was implemented they would have a choice NOT to have their daughters vaccinated and we would have the cjhoice to have it. Being insulting, rude and aggressive to a stranger because you don't agree with them will get you nowhere and certainly will gain no respect from me.

You can see pics from the event on Dec's Flickr photostream, it was odd to be at a demo and not taking pics, I don't think people would have been impressed with me interrupting introductions of speakers to say 'hang on till I get a pic :) I was delighted to briefly meet Neil Dorgan and I look forward to his shots as well.

So thats it for now but more things are planned, so if you haven't joined the Facebook group yet, please do, we are nearly 11,000 members strong.

Vigil tomorrow evening for HPV vaccine

JUST STOPPING by quickly to remind you that if you are in either Dublin or Cork tomorrow evening (Wednesday December 10th) at 6.30pm there are two candlelit vigils organised calling for Minister Harney to reinstate her proposed HPV vaccine programme. The Dublin event will be at the Kildare Street entrance to the Dáil while in Cork they are meeting at Daunts Square.

More details of the vigils can be found in the post below, we would love to see you there. BTW the group stands at 10,600 members, isn't that brilliant? Well done and thank you everyone. The group's campaign will not stop at tomorrow evening's vigil so if you are on Facebook and feel strongly about this issue please do join and invite your friends.

PS normal blogging will be resumed as soon as possible.

Facebook organised vigil happening next Wednesday, Dec 10

PLANS are well underway for next week's vigils as part of the ongoing campaign calling on Harney to reinstate the HPV vaccine.

We were talking about trying to coordinate events in different cities and I am delighted that Sorcha within the Facebook group has organised a vigil in Cork, there maybe more and if there are I will post the details.

So if you are in Dublin on Wednesday, December 10th at 6.30pm please come along to Dail Eireann where the Dublin event is taking place. If you are in Cork again on Wednesday at 6.30pm the vigil will be taking place at Daunts Square. Full details of both events will be posted closer to the date within the group.



Even if you can't come you can help by downloading the poster either as a PDF or from Flickr and display it in your workplace and email it to your family and friends. We are also calling on people to email Harney again to express your disgust at this decision, her email is minister's_office@health.irlgov.ie

Lastly the Facebook group from where we are organising all this has reached 10,000 members which is absolutely amazing. It also shows how successful the Facebook ads are, thanks Gavin, who did all the work and more on the ad campaign. And thank you all for your help. And eh here's hoping people turn up ;)

Sexual politics rearing ugly head on HPV vaccine

LAST night I received a very interesting (chokes) message on Facebook from a complete and utter ignoramus and I thought I would share it with you. I won't be a complete pig and publish her details, much as I am tempted to. But lets just call her by her first initial, G. To me G represents the worst of the smoke-screen arguments being uttered on this vaccine.

She says: "I wonder why you invest so much of your time promoting this vaccine. If you are so worried about your daughter's health shouldnt you be spending time with her instead explaining to her that sex at 12 is not a great idea? I am sorry to put it this way but I just find it so shocking that a mum can support this type of "emergency measures" instead of devoting her time to educate and explain the main things to her daughter. If you expect your daughter to be sexually active by 12 then theres many worst things than cervical cancer that she could get from that. Many are still incurable and they are not only health related problems."

Mmm.

So I'll take this line at a time because unfortunately as we saw in the Sunday papers the nonsense has probably played a bigger part in influencing the decision to deny our daughters this vaccination than we have been led to believe. This argument is a woeful throwback to the jaded and faded sexual politics of the past, from people who believe they hold a higher moral ground than most of us. Once again I will just say mmmm or should that read shame on the whole bloody lot of you.

"I wonder why you invest so much of your time promoting this vaccine. If you are so worried about your daughter's health shouldnt you be spending time with her instead explaining to her that sex at 12 is not a great idea?"

Firstly you have no idea of how or what I have already explained/talked to my daughter. Rather like your message which is full of dreadful inaccuracies, you are talking nonsense about my daughter who is not 12 years old. My daughter is too old to receive the vaccine, she was too old even if it was introduced this year and too old even if the Government had decided in its initial announcement to include 13 to 15 year olds, my daughter was still too old.

"I am sorry to put it this way but I just find it so shocking that a mum can support this type of "emergency measures" instead of devoting her time to educate and explain the main things to her daughter."

No problems G apology for your utter ignorance accepted. I find it shocking that someone would call what is essentially a vaccine that helps prevent cervical cancer from developing in 70 to 80 per cent of the recipients 'emergency measures'. How do you explain that? Its makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever, if you want a different view point have a read of some of the testimonies that members of the Facebook group have written on the discussion board of their own experiences of this cancer. Dismiss them all you like, their stories only make me more fervent in my belief our campaign is right.

"If you expect your daughter to be sexually active by 12 then theres many worst things than cervical cancer that she could get from that. Many are still incurable and they are not only health related problems."

Aside from the fact, which has nothing to do with anything really but I have to add it, my daughter is not 12. But that is not to say that another mother who wants this for their 12-year-old is somehow being irresponsible, or indeed encouraging their child to become sexually active.

I would dearly love someone to explain to me how on earth they equate this vaccine with becoming sexually active young because I really do not see it and do not get it.

Do they think a 12-year-old thinks 'thank Heavens for that, I am now vaccinated against HPV so I won't (well a 70 to 80 per cent chance) in my future life contract cervical cancer, lets go get jiggy'. Really? Do you think that? Are you wise?

If a 12-year-old is having sex the reason for that is as far away from your explanation as you can get. I wonder how many 12 year olds you have been around.

Indeed a pal said: "Sure in my school we got a rubella vaccination at 13, to protect any unborn babies against German Measles...we didn't all run out and have sex cos our babies would then be protected from rubella! And it's a vaccine for CANCER! Not a free for all for sex."

"If you expect your daughter to be sexually active by 12 then theres many worst things than cervical cancer that she could get from that. Many are still incurable and they are not only health related problems."

MMmm advice from someone whose point of view is somewhat offensive to me, no thanks. You show up your ignorance ten-fold. So there are things worse, like hellfire and damnation perhaps?

At the end of the day G, if you have daughters, hopefully at some stage you have a choice whether or not to allow them to have a vaccine that will protect them in later life against 70 to 80 per cent of cases of cervical cancer. As it stands now we will continue to campaign to have this choice for our daughters so your phrase of 'invest' my time is very apt.

As an aside and it really has nothing to do with this issue G but I feel compelled to spell it out, you don't know anything about me, nothing to enable you to judge as you do in your message. It is funny though because I find myself now judging you and it isn't favourable.

Saturday's rally calling on Harney to reinstate the HPV vaccine

SORRY sorry I meant to post about the weekend rally before now but things have been really busy, this is really my first chance to. About 100 people turned up and while I would have loved to see thousands turn up I am also (mostly) realistic and see Saturday as the beginning of a broader campaign, more action will be planned which of course I will post here. I should also say (cos it kinda read that I did) I didn't organise the rally, I set up the Facebook group, got details of the rally and publicised it through the group. Then again while the group may not have decided on where, what and when for the rally, but members did Trojan work spreading the word.

Meanwhile the group has been growing and growing, with lots and lots of comments not to mention links. Between Saturday lunchtime and today the group doubled in size. I have found this phenomenal and absolutely brilliant. Currently there are 5, 355 members and growing.

Throughout the last couple of days I have been able to click refresh on my browser and see the numbers climb upwards. So do expect the campaign to pick up momentum. If you haven't done so please do join the group and we'll keep you informed of anything and everything planned around this issue. Pics of the rally are up on Flickr.

Rally today for the cervical cancer vaccine

THIS afternoon I'll be meeting with, hopefully, lots and lots of other angry people at the rally organised to tell Harney that we want our daughters to receive the cervical cancer vaccine. Are you going?

We are meeting this afternoon at 2pm at the Spire on O'Connell Street, Dublin and then going to the Teachers' Club at 3.30pm for a public meeting. You can read more on the Irish Times.

Are you Facebook? If so please join the group where the campaign continues.

I have to give a massive shout out of thanks to Gavin who has been absolutely brilliant giving lots of help and more with the group. At times we have been chatting on Facebook astounded watching the numbers joining steadily rise with each page refresh.

As I write this some 2, 435 members have joined and climbing, we have not been able to work out how many invites members have sent out as once you reach 6,000 invites Facebook doesn't tell you how many invites after that. We reached 6,000 invites on November 14th.

Hopefully this response will be matched on the streets today. People are angry about this we need to let Harney know it.

Save cervical cancer services rally

Defend Women's Health Rally:

Save Cervical Cancer Services for Girls and Women.

Saturday, 15th November (this Saturday) at the Spire, O'Connell Street at 2pm

Join the Facebook group

Harney in the Dáil again on cervical cancer - more guff

I CAPTURED Harney's contribution to the Private Members' Motion on the cervical cancer vaccine. Its a long one so sorry about that, but it is worth watching if you are following this debate as I noticed some inconsisitencies between her interview with Ray D'Arcy yesterday morning and what she said in the Dáil last night. One glaring one was in the morning she spoke of the vaccine for next year in secondary schools (as if to say she would somehow find the money between now and then) and then last night she spoke of next year in primary schools. Clarification please.



I could blog about this at length but a number of things strike me about this.

Firstly the Government's constant argument about screening, screening, screening is nothing more than a smoke screen. The screening only began in September, it is important but it is not the be all and end of all of this, not when there is a vaccine.

This is a vaccine against cancer, I might repeat that for emphasis, this is a vaccine against cancer. I know it doesn't give 100 per cent protection but thats okay because the women will be screened. Both vaccine and screening go hand in hand or should go hand in hand.
For 70 per cent of women who would receive the vaccine, they will be saved from ever contracting cervical cancer.

If this programme doesn't happen as it was planned, who knows when it will. I am not fooled in the slightest by any of the guff put forward by the Government. Thats why I am continuing with this.

There is talk of a demo, when I hear where and when, I'll post the details. And do check out the other posts as there are many comments with great suggestions you should check out as well as trackbacks to all the other bloggers highlighting this issue. You can also check out all the different blogs on this subject at Irish Blogs.

Some more action on Cervical Cancer

FOLLOWING on from yesterday's fantastic response from angry people to the disgraceful decision to scrap plans for the cervical cancer vaccine, I felt I should try my best to keep this live.

If you have already emailed Harney with a photograph of your daughter (minister's_office@health.irlgov.ie) and emailed your friends and family urging them to do the same, there are another couple of things you can do to keep the pressure on.

You could contact your local Government representative, you will find all their emails on the Oireachtas website and let them know you are not happy. You can also call them to the Dáil by phoning (01) 618 3000 and asking to be connected. Incidentally I have not received any acknowledgement from Harney's office that my correspondence was received, nice work there. I didn't expect much but some kind of 'we received your email' response would be the least I expect. Maybe it was just a hectic day for emails in her office ;)

In addition you can sign the online petition which is doing the rounds and which you can find here and please do send the link on to everyone in your email address book.

Doing one or both of these won't take a huge amount of time but do not underestimate the impact a barrage of phone calls can have, look at the pensioners and medical cards if you don't believe it.

Let's make sure this issue doesn't fade away over the weekend. And thanks to everyone who has helped so far.

Harney's statement in the Dáil

HARNEY made a statement on her cervical cancer vaccine decision, I have more footage of the questions put to her by other TDs at the end of the debate, but it is about half an hour long and am not sure if even google video can handle that.

I was also thinking if people wanted to send me on the photographs of their daughters I will compile them together into a video which we can also send to Minister Harney. If I don't get many I won't bother understanding that people are not comfortable with it.

And many thanks to people for acting on this, I received a copy of my post back to my work email before lunchtime. Don't forget to email Harney with pics of your daughters minister's_office@health.irlgov.ie

Email Harney photographs of your daughters

EDIT: @ 12.22pm Ray Darcy has a page on Today FM's website where you can email directly as well as providing Harney's email address to send her pics of your daughters. Minister Harney is also making a statement in the next couple of minutes which I will post when it is over.

THE GOVT's decision to halt its proposed HPV vaccination programme was featured heavily on the radio this morning. I caught most of Harney's interview on Morning Ireland and if she listed what she is doing one more time (such as other vaccines for babies - sorry not a good point Mary this should all be provided anyway) I was going to spit . The link to her interview is available on the RTE website, here's a link to full section and here's a link to the Harney interview. Edit :@ 12.26pm the links to Morning Ireland are now up.

Then just as I was going into work I switched onto Ray Darcy and while I missed the main feature he did on the ridiculous and appalling decision not to provide our daughters with the vaccine I did hear a great idea from a listener.

Let's send Mary Harney photographs of our daughters.

Let's show her all the young girls who are being denied this vaccine that could prevent some of them getting cervical cancer in later life. This decision has nothing to do with the screening programme that should be done anyway and nothing anyone can say can make me feel any differently.

If you feel strongly about this please email Harney, here's her email minister's_office@health.irlgov.ie - I will be emailing her and I am urging all my friends with daughters to do the same. Please do it too and please ask your friends to also take part. The cost of this is nothing, nothing compared to saving someone from cervical cancer in the future.

HPV vaccination programme 'put on hold'

I CAN'T believe it though in fairness why it surprises me I don't know but Health Minister Harney has put on the back burner a programme to vaccinate 12 year olds in the recently announced HPV vaccination programme. Read more on the Irish Times website.

So why doesn't this surprise me, well given the delays and hassles surrounding the rolling out of Breastcheck, a national breast screening programme, why on earth would this Government make a vaccination a priority that could prevent one of our children getting cervical cancer in the future.

This was only announced last August and it only took until the beginning of November for it to be scrapped, let's face it who has any faith in this Government's phrase of putting it on hold.

At the time I was annoyed that at 16 the Young Wan wouldn't get a look in, in fact neither were 13 to 15 year olds as the Government decided that it was too expensive to include a catch-up programme. And yes I know that a small majority of kids are sexually active at that age, but come on, this could save lives.

So from my initial thoughts which were great once again my family doesn't matter and now it seems that the young girls who were almost lucky enough to be included in this programme, now won't be. So it is just as well plans for the national cervical cancer screening programme are underway, unless of course this ends up being like the national breast cancer screening programme.

Shame on you Harney, this was about saving lives, now it is about saving money.