Rick Perry,HPV vaccine, and preventing girl's cancer,good deed?Bad deed?

So no one has brought this up yet, so I thought I'd might,cause I'm curious about the issue. On my facebook page, a friend who is a liberal ,and a guy,reposted from another guy,about why the heck were they focusing on cancer in the GOP debate, when you've got crumbling bridges,schools that need to be updated. Bigger things then cancer. I thought his being liberal.and being male, got in the way, of the larger issue. Ironic, cause I don't see the larger issue at times, but if women are only going to be the ones who suffer from this,I thought there was some blinders on. Cause honestly, isn't cancer a big thing and the old cliche of the children are our future, a big thing? But why is this an issue? I don't claim to know everything, but you got people that need to be vaccinated,you're administering a drug to ward a cancer off, is it just this GOP idea of big government looking over your shoulder, that's why this is controversial? Or is it the cronyism of Merck, and not wanting to use women as test subjects? Why is this so controversial? Questions, comments, objections?

There are several reasons that this is an issue. Some people are upset because of some and not others, but these are reasons that I'm aware of...

1) HPV is an STD (which can cause cancer) and the girls getting the vaccine are quite young.

2) More government interference telling people what to do/replacing parental decision making.

3) He bypassed the legislature and used an executive order to force it into law.

4) He is financially connected to the company that profits off of this legislation.

5) Religious people think that it will cause the girls to be more sexually active.

6) Some question the safety of the vaccine.

I'm against "mandatory" vaccination in all cases, for all vaccines, so I can understand why people are upset about this one.

Before anyone asks, I have a BS in Health and am starting an MPH program (specialty of epidemiology) in January, so it isn't that I don't know any better...

It was a completely sensible thing to do in the interest of harm reduction, no one cares about other mandatory vaccines for the most part. The real reason the GOP candidates were upset is because HPV is sexually transmitted and they took it as Perry giving every girl in Texas a license to be a slut. It's just your typical American conservative anti-sex, anti-woman crap.

Originally Posted by Snakecharmer

I'm against "mandatory" vaccination in all cases, for all vaccines, so I can understand why people are upset about this one.

Before anyone asks, I have a BS in Health and am starting an MPH program (specialty of epidemiology) in January, so it isn't that I don't know any better..

I don't have a BS in health so would you mind explaining to me how not mandating vaccines wouldn't be a disaster and why, despite all evidence that mandatory vaccinations improve the health and wellness of a population dramatically, they're a bad thing? If it's just some "big government" type objection I don't even know what to say...

Originally Posted by Shahada

I don't have a BS in health so would you mind explaining to me how not mandating vaccines wouldn't be a disaster and why, despite all evidence that mandatory vaccinations improve the health and wellness of a population dramatically, they're a bad thing? If it's just some "big government" type objection I don't even know what to say...

It is not a "big government" type thing. The problem is that you can't pick and choose which vaccines you want your child to have (in the US, at least). I don't want my son to have the varicella vaccine, but I'm okay with the DPT shot. But...it is all or nothing - they won't let us take some and not the others.

I could go on and on about the problems with some vaccines (not all, but some), but I really don't feel like it...I've had this debate before and it never ends well.