HPV Vaccine does not lead to promiscuity

Latest study from the USA - the HPV vaccine, which is so effective in preventing cervical cancer, does not lead to increased promiscuity.

Which is exactly what we said right at the start - but it's great to have it confirmed by the studies!! And now we can lay that argument against the vaccine to rest! Yay!!!

It's ideal if the vaccine is given to girls, and boys, before they have sex for the first time. Some parents were worried that having the vaccine would somehow give young people permission to have sex, but this new study refutes that idea and parents can now rest easy on that score.

"'Sunrise never lasts all morning"

"A cloudburst never lasts all day" so says George Harrison in his beautiful song "All Things Must Pass". It's a reminder that just as good times are transient and we should enjoy them while they last, so the hard times will pass...

Make the most of the good times, they give us a great buffer to be resilient to the hard times.

And if you're going through a dark time, be assured that those days will pass, the sun will shine again.

Women at the Olympics

I can remember spreading out the pages of the newspaper with the timetable of Olympic events, and  counting all the events in which men could compete, and all the events in which women could compete. About 25% of the events were for women and at that point I decided to boycott watching the Olympics.

It wasn't entirly successful, but it significantly reduce my Olympic viewing - with just a few 'can't miss' events sneaking into my viewing time.

I can remember the first woman who ever ran a marathon. She entered using her initials rather than her name, and people tried to pull her out of the race for fear she would kill herself. I've now seen event after event become open to women. And now for the first time - all Olympic events are open to women, every team has women (although some teams are pretty thin in the female component), and nearly half the athletes are women.

Hey - it's only taken 110 years. And I guess that's a message. When we want change, we have to work at it - often for decades if it's a big change. But unless we put the effort in, it will all stay the same.

Kia kaha

It's a good thing, to do good things....

I've just come back from a trip to Europe - with two weeks in Croatia and Bosnia. They are part of what used to be known as Yugoslavia, which was torn apart with a civil war in the 1990s. Any war is a tragedy, but a civil war is surely the saddest. Neigbours fighting neigbours, colleagues fighting colleagues.....it leaves scars which will take centuries to heal. What is really impressive, is how people keep going. Even when your city was shelled for years, even when the economy tanks, even when you are confronted, on a daily basis, with the memories of what happened, people are still picking up the pieces, mending the broken buildings and repairing the damaged lives. What makes us special is our humanity. In our country of New Zealabd, which is rich in natural beauty, and offers opportunities some can't even dream of, it's easy to forget what really, really matters. "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata" - the Maori proverb says it all. "It is people, it is people, it is people". It is people that matter. And when faced with a choice of what to do: do good things. It really does make the world a better place.

New Zealanders - I am ashamed of us

I've been watching the processes as the hearings about a proposal to tunnel, for buses only, between Glenorchy near Queenstown to Milford Sound. There were 1,800 submissions on this proposed tunnel.

The Nelson City Council has recently changes which will significantly restrict where dogs can roam free in the city There were 700 submissions to these proposed changes.

The Green Paper proposed by Paula Bennett, which is asking questions about what we can to do better protect vulnerable children from harm, had under 5,000 submissions a week out from closing date. There would certainly have been more which were sent through at the last minute, but even if it was double that number - 1,800 about a tunnel and dogs doesn't compare with the number of submissions for such a crucial issue as the safety of our children.

At one stage, I was excusing people: perhaps they were over-whelmed with the thought of making a submission to the Green Paper, perhaps they didn't know about it, perhaps they were too busy. But now I know that is not the case: if the issue is serious, people find the means and the time to have a say.

There is just one conclusion I can draw: we just don't care enough about children in New Zealand.

I am ashamed to call myself a New Zealander.