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You ask why Perry mandated the Gardasil vaccine for voluntary behavior. The answer is that insurance companies wouldn’t pay for the $380 vaccine unless it was mandatory. The vaccine had been shown to be nearly 100% effective. To give access to the vaccine to those who couldn’t afford it for the price of a copay, he went with an Executive Order to make it mandatory. Ultimately, the voters, through their representatives, exercised their will by overturning the EO.

It's for the children! Politics and personal agendas had nothing to do with it.

I understand you REALLY LIKE Rick Perry. But don't misrepresent the facts.

from realclearpolitics.com/ Tom Bevan / June 4, 2011

"In January 2007, Gardasil was put on the "recommended" immunization schedule issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control. Merck immediately mounted a massive lobbying effort of state legislatures around the country to get Gardasil added to their respective lists of state-mandated vaccines...
But in Texas, Gov. Perry chose to bypass the legislature and on Feb. 2, 2007, he issued an executive order making Texas the first state in the country requiring all sixth-grade girls to receive the three-shot vaccination series (which cost about $120 per shot)...
The controversy over Perry's decision deepened as it came to light that his former chief of staff was a lobbyist for Merck and that his chief of staff's mother-in-law, Rep. Dianne White Delisi, was the state director of an advocacy group bankrolled by Merck to push legislatures across the country to put forward bills mandating the Gardasil vaccine for preteen girls...
In response, the sponsor of HB 1098, Republican state Rep. Dennis Bonnen, blasted Perry for "using cancer victims as his backdrop for an issue that he has grossly misjudged..."
"Just because you don't want to offer up 165,000 11-year-old girls to be Merck's study group doesn't mean you don't care about women's health, doesn't mean you don't care about young girls," Bonnen added..."
And, in fact, two years later the National Vaccine Information Center issued a report raising serious questions over the harmful side effects of the drug. A few months after that, an editorial on Gardasil in the Journal of the American Medical Association declared that "serious questions regarding the overall effectiveness of the vaccine" needed to be answered and that more long-term studies were called for.

(Courtesy ping to shield for citing information he provided on another thread.)

I understand you REALLY LIKE Rick Perry. But don't misrepresent the facts.

Whether or not I support Perry is not the issue. Misinformation and one-sided information is. This vanity is wholly one-sided in its presentation of Perry's records/decisions. FReepers cannot make an informed decision without having balanced information about the issues presented herein. I did not misrepresent any facts.

(which cost about $120 per shot)

The Gardasil vaccine is a series of three shots at $120 each for a total of $360.

... an editorial on Gardasil in the Journal of the American Medical Association declared that "serious questions regarding the overall effectiveness of the vaccine"

Gardasil was believed to be a way to stop certain types of cancer among young women. Studies appearing in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2007 found that Gardasil was nearly 100 percent effective in preventing precancerous cervical lesions caused by the the strains that Gardasil protects against. Gardasil’s effectiveness increased when given to girls and young women before they become sexually active. Gardasil was found to be extremely effective in preventing several (but not all) of the strains of HPV known to cause cervical cancer and genital warts.

The CDC has been following Gardasil since its licensing and some current facts follow.

"As of June 22, 2011, approximately 35 million doses of Gardasil® have been distributed in the U.S. and the safety monitoring system (VAERS) received a total of 18,727 reports of adverse events following Gardasil® vaccination. As with all VAERS reports, serious events may or may not have been caused by the vaccine.”
“Of the total number of VAERS reports following Gardasil®, 92% were considered to be non-serious, and 8% were considered serious. Out of 35,000,000 doses distributed, there were 1,498 occasions of serious complications; that equates to a .0000428 chance that a dose will cause a serious adverse reaction.

The controversy over Perry's decision deepened as it came to light that his former chief of staff was a lobbyist for Merck and that his chief of staff's mother-in-law, Rep. Dianne White Delisi, was the state director of an advocacy group bankrolled by Merck to push legislatures across the country to put forward bills mandating the Gardasil vaccine for preteen girls ...

In Gardasil, Merck believed that they had a credible, FDA-approved, CDC recommended, fact-based case for vaccinating young women and lobbied state officials to do so.

Perry maintains that the justification for his executive order making the shot mandatory was twofold:

that the vaccine offered a chance to save lives that might have otherwise been taken away by cervical cancer
that insurance companies wouldn’t cover the $360 cost of the vaccine ($120 for each of a 3-shot regimen) when it was simply an optional “recommended” vaccine. That put it out of the reach for most low-income Texans.

While you did not specifically mention Merck's contribution to Perry's re-election campaign, grey_whiskers did. The following provides some perspective about that aspect of the Gardasil issue.

Merck contributed a grand total of $6,000 to Perry’s reelection campaign. That Merck contribution amounted to .00025 of the $24 million dollar campaign funds that he received that year - hardly enough to buy Governor Perry's influence with an Executive Order.

I’ve received some FReepmails asking me if I would vaccinate my own children with Gardasil. So, I’ll address that here for those who asked.

As a Christian, conservative Texan with a pre-teen daughter, I was angry about Perry’s 2007 Executive Order. My daughter’s pediatrician recommend Gardasil in 2007. I ignored his recommendation for four years.

My daughter is now 15. I had her vaccinated with the first dose of Gardasil last month. For four years I reviewed the Gardasil studies and CDC reports of its side effects. The benefits far out weigh the risks, IMO. She did not have any negative reactions to Gardasil.

Yes, I preach abstinence to her. She is a very conservative young lady who gives her liberal teachers hell in the classroom when they spew liberal talking points. She plans to practice abstinence. But if she has a lapse in judgment, as teenagers are apt to do, I will have done my best to protect her from HPV and cervical cancer.

My son is 10. When he reaches the recommended age, I will also have him vaccinated because the studies now show that Gardasil is effective in preventing oral, throat, penile, and anal cancer caused by HPV. Does that mean I endorse promiscuous or homosexual behavior? No way.