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
The Merck scandal was what caused him to back down on the issue.
Texans were highly outraged that this was done by executive order and didn’t go through the legislature. The legality of that was questioned.
In our eyes, the whole thing was hinkey.