Wednesday, November 12, 2008

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.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Defend Women's Health Rally: Save Cervical Cancer Services for Girls and Women. Saturday, 14th November (this Saturday) at the Spire, O'Connell Street. I am away this weekend for work, unfortunately, but this is being organised by the Feminist Open Forum. It's worth showing that it's not just the oldies who can organise these days.

Anonymous said...

Defend Women's Health Rally: Save Cervical Cancer Services for Girls and Women. Saturday, 14th November (this Saturday) at the Spire, O'Connell Street. I am away this weekend for work, unfortunately, but this is being organised by the Feminist Open Forum. It's worth showing that it's not just the oldies who can organise these days.

Anonymous said...

Woops, didn't mean to say it twice. Not that it ain't worth repeating . . .

Anonymous said...

Cowen was spouting the same shite about screening this morning. He's now aligned himself with the Harney hymnsheet. Nell McCafferty wiped the floor with with Deirdre DeBurca over this last week.
Let's take 100 admin redundancies in the HSE, take away TD's expenses for this year, freeze funding for horse and dog racing for 2 years, and let's see what we've got to pay for vaccination. I haven't costed that, it's off the top of my head.
It's been said elsewhere, but cutting funding for preventative medicine to save money doesn't add up when measured against treating the cancer years later. But then Mary will be politically out to pasture then.
Mary Harney you are an obscenity.

Declan said...

Want to know how we can fund the vaccines?

Look at the Committee for Performance Awards report for 2007 and you'll find €3 million
http://www.finance.gov.ie/documents/publications/reports/2008/cpareport07final.pdf

Then look for the same commitees report on local authority awards and there's another 3 million

http://www.environ.ie/en/Publications/LocalGovernment/Administration/FileDownLoad,18049,en.doc

And that was from a 5 minute google search.

Maybe the slogan for this campaign should be

"They get a Christmas bonus, your daughter gets cancer!"