IF you are going to require our kids to attend a public school, where they could easily catch one of those crippling or fatal, easily passed through casual contact or contracted through common events like stepping on a rusty nail type of diseases, and there are safe and effective vaccines against those diseases, then vaccinate.
THAT is both a public good and the responsibility of those who mandated our children be in that situation.
Moreover, IIRC, those sorts of mandates at least went through the legislative process.
With Perry's EO, the legislative process was ignored until the legislators themselves rescinded the EO.
If a Governor is going to force something like that on us, there better first be bodies piling up in the street and people demanding he or she do something about it.
Is that the case with HPV?
“Yes, of course I support vaccinating school kids...”
including the mandates to make sure it happens?
“... against easily communicable diseases.”
Does that include HepB? on the Texas vaccination schedules, not easily communicable, but blood-borne.
As for HPV:
“there better first be bodies piling up in the street..”
Wikipedia says:
- 11,000 cases and 3,900 deaths in the U.S. in 2008. Cervical cancer has substantial mortality in resource-poor areas; worldwide, there are an estimated 490,000 cases and 270,000 deaths.
how easy to catch? ... “easily catch one of those crippling or fatal”
HPV is pretty darn communicable, not only via intercourse but other forms of intimate contacts, so much so that about a quarter of adults have the virus. The American Social Health Association reported estimates that about 75-80% of sexually active Americans will be infected with HPV at some point in their lifetime.
“Moreover, IIRC, those sorts of mandates at least went through the legislative process.”
Certainly, it was wrong of Perry to do this via EO and he admits that. But I explained previously the lege has given the Dept of Health authority to determine immunization rules and schedules, so not all mandates for immunizations came from the lege directly.