Nature Medicine | Spoonful of Medicine

SNL imagines HPV-vaccine-administering doll

Meet Lil’ Poundcake, “the first doll approved to administer the human papillomavirus vaccination to girls under ten”.

If she sounds like the bizarre-twisted creation of a comic’s mind, she is. A skit in this weekend’s Saturday Night Live — no doubt in response to the recent controversy over human papillomavirus immunization stirred by a Republican presidential debate in the US — imagines this doll, which will definitely not be the must-have gift this Christmas . “Lil’ Poundcake protects against HPV with a series of three injections over a period of six months AND she’s got her own phone.” Creepy!

Comments

  1. Elizabeth Moon said:

    Sadly, some viewers and readers will take this as evidence of a real conspiracy to force inoculation of innocent little girls. Such a notion fits their pre-existing paranoia about government and science.

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