Posted on 03/09/2007 4:56:35 AM PST by Calpernia
A week ago today, Texas became the first state to require school-age girls to be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted virus that has been shown to cause cervical cancer.
Governor Rick Perry inked an executive order mandating that most girls, starting in September 2008, get the vaccination against the human papillomavirus (HPV) before entering sixth grade. The highly-publicized move spurred two New Jersey lawmakers to respond.
Assemblymen Mike Doherty and Rick Merkt have introduced legislation that would preclude the government from dictating that children enrolled in schools receive vaccinations against the objections of their parents. In Texas young girls, some as young as 11 years old, must receive an MPV vaccination as a pre-condition for attending school.
Doherty says, "This bill will ensure that the government cannot impose its will, and its health care agenda, on the children of New Jersey under penalty of not admitting them to New Jersey schools……no child should be refused an education if his or her parents object to government-mandated vaccinations." He explains, "Parents have a voice-the primary voice-on decisions related to the health care of their children and this bill will ensure that they are not stripped of those rights."
"I am deeply concerned that the State of New Jersey presumes that it knows better than parents, what medical care their children need," says Merkt, "This bill is intended to assure the proper chain of responsibility in making medical decisions for minor children, namely their parents."
The bill does provide for the safety and well-being of the general population by empowering the State Commissioner of Education to restrict the attendance of children to schools if an outbreak or threatened outbreak of a disease for which they were not vaccinated occurs.
In Texas, conservative groups are criticizing the executive order noting that the governor had accepted campaign contributions from the vaccine's manufacturer, New Jersey-based Merck & Company. The Los Angeles Times reports that Governor Perry's spokeswoman Krista Moody says "suggestions Perry approved the vaccines as a favor to political contributors were absurd - and that suggestions the vaccination plan represented an endorsement of underage sex were even more so."
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