Today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will determine whether Gardasil - - which has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a guard against the cancer-causing human papilloma virus, or HPV, for girls and women ages 9 to 26 -- should be widely used. The panel's decision would establish whether private insurers and the government would cover the cost of such vaccinations. By recommending that Gardasil be universally administered to girls ages 11-12, the committee can facilitate widespread vaccination and enable all girls and women to protect themselves from a sexually transmitted infection that the CDC says 80% of American women will have by age 50.

Lunatic fringe, you say? Not anymore. Such beliefs are held by some Bush administration appointees. One of them -- Reginald Finger, a medical doctor and a member of the CDC committee -- is a believer in "just say no" as the preferred protection against HPV. Until last fall, Finger was a medical issues analyst for Focus on the Family, an ultraconservative group that advocates "abstinence until marriage and faithfulness after marriage as the best and primary practice in preventing HPV" and other sexually transmitted infections.