Good for him

Texas governor remains firm on cancer vaccine

Governor Perry signed an executive order requiring the vaccine against HPV, a sexually-transmitted disease that causes 70% of cases of cervical cancer, be given to sixth-grade girls for them to attend school. These kinds of requirements are how we ensure good public health. I suppose like most other vaccines, parents will be able to refuse on religious graounds. The controversy arises because 1) it's a vaccine against a sexually-transmitted disease and some yahoos think that will encourage sexual activity among young people and 2) there's only one pharmaceutical company that produces the vaccine and so there are issues over giving them a government-mandated monopoly of sorts, and it (Merck) gave a whopping $6000 to the governor's re-election bid (out of $24 million)--I don' t know about you, but I don't think that would prejudice me into making a decision. Yes, I think those issues are important to consider. But--in the end, what matters is that we have a chance of assuring that this generation of 12-year-olds will be much less likely to die from cervical cancer, right?