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(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.

You make legitimate points in your posts.

Yet the fact remains that Perry as governor embraced the idea of the state taking control of a child's body. Of course they believed they were doing the right thing. The people behind Obamacare think the same thing. Similar reasoning is used for both. The Gardasil"opt-out" was meaningless. The correct way to do it would have been an "opt-in." He basically gave the state, not parents, all control of the issue. Isn't that why we bash liberals?

The cornerstone of American life is individual liberty. Rick Perry, for just a moment, forgot that fact. Yes, he has walked back his decision. But it's troubling that he at one time mandated allowing the state to hijack the personal healthcare decisions of Texas citizens. His EO bypassed the elected legislature. One of Malkin's posters commented that if a Democrat governor had done this, a lot of pro-Perry people would have had a huge problem with it. I agree.

The vaccine was untested at the time this occurred, and it will still take years to study its long-term effects. I don't have children, but if I did, they would never get anywhere near Gardasil.