Saturday, February 10, 2007

Parental rights slowly being eroded

Nathan, at Church and State has an article on Texas Governor Rick Perry's issuance of a mandatory vaccination for the HVP in young elementary girls before they can attend school this fall. This is a sexually transmitted disease that can cause cervical cancer in women.

Perry passed over the legislative process and has taken away parental rights to decide on whether their daughters will receive this vaccination or not. Merck distributes this drug, which costs $360 or more for 3 shots, and many insurances will not pay the price.

Perry is being asked to rescind the order for the mandatory vaccination for HVP. Perry likens it to polio, which is not the case. One gets HVP by having sex with someone who has HVP and not protecting themselves.

Today, state sen. Jane Nelson, Chairperson of the Senate's Health and Human Service Committee, said, cited by Houston Chronicle, that lawmakers should have been given an a chance to hear what the doctors, scientists and parents have to say about the HPV vaccine before the state implemented such a statewide mandate. She was quoted as saying: "This is not an emergency" and "it needs to be discussed and debated."

Nelson, a Perry' close political ally, was not alone. State Reps. Jim Keffer and Dan Flynn were cited as saying that their phone lines were jammed by phone calls from parents who complained about Perry's order. All these noted state regulators are republican, so is Perry.

Perry says to vaccinate the girls early will save the government money. But, the truth is, to vaccinate all girls of that age every year would cost $126 million dollars a year, and to treat them would cost only $8 million dollars a year.

HPV can be largely avoided by adjusting your lifestyle, according to Josef Mercola, a physician who promotes natural health , who called Merck's HPV vaccine worthless. For instance, one can exercise abstinence to avoid contracting HPV.

Protecting oneself should be paramount in our life. A promiscuous lifestyle will get you more sexually-transmitted diseases than HVP.

Linked at Conservative Cat

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4 Comments:

Anonymous said...

I assume Barb,that the considerate Governor will do likewise to other cancer causing things and ban that lucrative cigarette business from Texas -return all that free tax money he makes off of smokes and save far more lives that that silly game he's playing

Barbara said...

We'll probably have to wait on that answer, DL.

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately Barbara has not undertaken the necessary research to post such a comment. "One gets HVP by having sex with someone who has HVP and not protecting themselves" While yes, this is one way a person could contract HVP, it is also contracted by simple contact. While wearing a condom, it still is passed. I feel that vaccinating young girls before they become sexually active is the best way of preventing this possibly deadly virus. And to say that abstinence is the answer, lets be honest here, that just isn't going to stop this problem.

Barbara said...

Apparently Anonymous didn't read the article I posted that sentence from:

"One gets HPV because he chooses to have sex with someone who happens to have HPV. But in the case of HPV, one can get infected involuntarily."