Posted on 06/19/2011 1:02:01 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
When Gov. Rick Perry issued an executive order in 2007 requiring all Texas girls to receive a vaccine against the human papillomavirus before entering the sixth grade, lawmakers balked and blocked it.
Critics said the vaccine, Merck & Co.'s Gardasil, was too new to declare safe. Some said too that Perry's order would infringe on parental rights or give girls a false sense of security, leading them to be sexually active too young.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, one of Perry's opponents in the GOP gubernatorial primary, frequently slams Perry's stilled order.
Perry has stood by his action, most recently casting it as having created an optional vaccination requirement.
"That piece of legislation was not mandatory, in the sense of when you can say no, something's not mandatory," he said during the second Republican gubernatorial debate Jan. 29.
A just-say-no gubernatorial order? We decided to check.
What we found: On Feb. 2, 2007, Perry issued an executive order — not a piece of legislation, as he said — requiring the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to adopt rules mandating all girls entering sixth grade to receive a vaccination against the types of HPV, a sexually-transmitted virus, that causes most cases of cervical cancer and genital warts.
The order included an opt-out "in order to protect the right of parents to be the final authority on their children's health care." Perry ordered the Department of State Health Services to allow parents dissenting for philosophical or religious reasons to request a conscientious objection affidavit form. That form, which has been available since 2003, enables parents to enroll their children in public school even if they lack state-required immunizations. It's automatically granted as long as parents provide all required information.
According to the Department of State Health Service's 2008-09 immunization report, which uses data from kindergarten and seventh-grade students at 1,300 independent school districts and 800 private schools, 0.28 percent of the students filed conscientious objection forms.
Parents must renew exemption affidavits every two years to maintain their validity, according to Allison Lowery, assistant press officer at the Texas Department of State Health Services.
We thought the opt-out form for public-school students proved Perry correct until we learned that not all private schools accept the affidavit. That means some private schools may not allow their students to exempt themselves from any state-required vaccinations. Some 15 percent of more than 1 million Texas girls in fifth through 12th grade in 2008 were enrolled in private schools, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
According to a 2006 Texas Attorney General's opinion: "A private school that does not accept state tax funds is not required to accept for enrollment a child who has received an exemption from the immunizations required by the Texas Health and Safety Code."
In its policy for Catholic schools, the Catholic Diocese of Austin states: "Immunizations are not in conflict with the Catholic faith. Conscientious objections or waivers, which may be permissible for enrollment in public schools, do not qualify as an exception to this policy." Catholic schools in the diocese do accept medical exemptions, meaning if the immunization could somehow harm the child, it's not required to enroll.
We wondered if the diocese's policy in favor of requiring state-mandated immunizations would have extended to refusing the opt-out form for girls subject to the HPV vaccination.
Perry aides may have had the same question. According to internal e-mails published online by Hutchison's campaign (also obtained by the Austin American-Statesman under Texas open records laws in 2007), Brandon LeBlanc, then the governor's community affairs public liaison, wrote Feb. 6, 2007: "I don't have an answer for the questions I'm getting regarding private schools. Apparently Catholic schools in particular will require all state vaccines, but won't except (sic) the exemptions. My first inclination, assuming this is true, is that this is for the parents and the schools to sort out. Is there a better answer to this 'problem'?"
Nora Belcher, then assistant director at the Governor's Office of Budget, Planning and Policy, replied: "I believe in the short term your answer is the correct one, plus, enrolling in Catholic school is a CHOICE (for parents, anyway)."
In February 2007, the Roman Catholic Bishops of Texas came close to saying they wouldn't require the vaccine, issuing a statement recommending that "civil authorities should leave this decision to parents."
But would parochial schools absolutely have left that particular vaccination decision to parents? Margaret McGettrick, director of education at the Texas Catholic Conference, the statewide association of the Roman Catholic diocese in Texas, recently said the superintendents, bishops and accreditation commission at the association responsible for setting school policies never formulated policy specific to the HPV vaccine.
McGettrick said "it's a non-issue for us" because the HPV vaccine was never added to the state's list of required immunizations once lawmakers froze the order until the starting date of the 2011 regular legislative session.
Allison Castle, Perry's press secretary, said: "We consider (the order) null and void and (Perry) will not pursue it in the future."
En breve: Perry did issue an order requiring schoolgirls receive the HPV vaccine. In arguing that his order was not a mandate, Perry points to the Conscientious Objection to Immunization form that lets parents of public school students decline immunizations without consequence. The burden to file and refile the notarized forms on time falls on the parents.
However, our research determined that it's not certain the opt-out would have been accepted for the 15 percent of Texas girls attending private schools. Also unknown: Whether every Catholic school would have allowed students subject to Perry's order to abstain from the three HPV shots in the vaccination series.
Ultimately, the governor issued an order for the Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner to "adopt rules that mandate the age appropriate vaccination of all female children for HPV prior to admission to the sixth grade."
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a mandate is "a clear instruction, authorization or direction." Perry says the executive order wasn't mandatory, which, according to Webster, means "demanded or required."
But that's what Perry's order did: it set up a requirement. Just because there's a loophole — a way to "say no," in the governor's parlance — doesn't mean the requirement doesn't exist. Physical education classes are also mandatory to graduate high school, but if you have any number of health conditions, you can skip the timed mile.
We rate Perry's claim Barely True.
Take time to read the article so you can judge for yourself.
The "true-o-meter" conclusion rests on too much conjecture for me.
I understand the HPV vaccine program was always an "opt-out" program.
An “optional vaccination requirement”...
An optional requirement? Is that like dry wetness?
He signed the executive order, and now he wants to backpedal.
This man does not deserve our votes.
I sincerely hope and pray that Governor Perry will admit he was mistaken in his judgment on this issue. He truly was. The Vaccine itself was not fully proven. And, add to it the ties his staff had to Merck?
Explain where the above posted article supports your position.
I am just as bothered by his “stance”.
But, could you please educate me on which politician deserves your vote based on the criteria you set regarding “backpedaling”?
That has been brought up.
Please help me explain to the thread what was illegal.
Was anyone brought up on charges or was nothing illegal involved?
That has been brought up.
Please help me explain to the thread what was illegal.
Was anyone brought up on charges or was nothing illegal involved?
At the least it does not look like Perry researched the ramifications of his action very well, and it’s ironic that the schools at which the most trouble with this ethically and morally problematic vaccine would have arisen were private institutions which are often religious. Why didn’t Perry bring all this up when the initial brouhaha arose?
I am not making an arugment about illegality. It is a simple matter of poor judgment.
Hope that Governor Perry would just say so and this issue will disappear.
Obviously it was.
“Perry ordered the Department of State Health Services to allow parents dissenting for philosophical or religious reasons to request a conscientious objection affidavit form. That form, which has been available since 2003, enables parents to enroll their children in public school even if they lack state-required immunizations. It’s automatically granted as long as parents provide all required information.”
Why should the parents have to go through this trouble? The govt. should have to jump hoops, not the parents.
I’ve read that the vaccine was for girls as young as nine years of age.
The funny thing about Rick is that at first glance at a press photo I can’t tell him from Mitt-happens until I study it for a second.
Can’t vouch for the source — but fwiw:
Feb 23, 2011: “Gov. Rick Perry is apparently fed up with questions surrounding his executive order requiring Texan pre-teen girls to be vaccinated for human pappilomavirus, a variety of viruses that cause most cases of cervical cancer: On Thursday, pressed with questions about the mandate while trying to promote a plan to sell the state lottery and use the proceeds to fund cancer research, Perry snapped at reporters. “I wish you all would quit splitting hairs, frankly, and get focused on are we going to be working together to find the cure for cancers,” he said when asked when he decided to issue the executive order. “No, I can’t tell you when.”
The vaccination order has drawn fire from several angles from day one: some opponents say it would encourage young girls to be sexually active, others wonder about the safety of the relatively new Gardasil vaccine and some have questioned Perry’s ties with Merck, the vaccine’s maker: Perry’s former chief of staff lobbies for Merck, and AP-obtained records show that Perry’s staff was meeting with Merck representatives for months before the company donated thousands of dollars to the governor’s re-election campaign last year. Merck has been lobbying state governments to require the Gardasil vaccine for young women — it stopped earlier this week — but Perry spokesman Robert Black said the meetings last year were about the possibility of providing the vaccine to women on Medicaid. “There was no discussion of any kind of mandates,” Black told the AP. Perry pointed out that the $5,000 his campaign received from Merck was a fraction of the $24 million he raised, but observers said the amount isn’t the problem. “Whoever’s setting up that meeting, they ought to be chewed out, you know, for not looking at everything and saying, ‘Now wait a minute, could this cause any questions down the road?” said state Rep. Jodie Laubenberg (R-Rockwall).
Perry told reporters yesterday that the possibility of preventing cervical cancer in some women was his main goal in issuing the order earlier this month. “When a company comes to me and says we have a cure for cancer, for me not to say, ‘Please come into my office and let’s hear your story for the people of the state of Texas, for young ladies who are dying of cancer,’ would be the height of irresponsibility,” he said. “Whether or not they contributed to my campaign, I would suggest to you, are some of those weeds that we are trying to cut our way through.” On Wednesday, a state House committee OK’d a bill that would rescind the vaccination order; a similar bill is in committee in the Senate. Perry said he’s not sure whether he would veto the legislation if it reached his desk: “I highly respect the legislative process that we have, and so I would respectfully tell you that we will let it play its way out.” [end text]
http://houstonist.com/2007/02/23/perry_to_world.php
Americans shouldn't be required to "opt out" of something as draconian as forced vaccinations for minor children.
Being given the opportunity to opt in would be the American way.
Rick Perry got it wrong, and all the back-peddling and double talk in the world can't change that.
Big screw up for those who believe in small government, liberty, and parental rights.
One of the biggest issues brought up in this article for me is that he called an executive order legislation.
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