House committee passes bill to rescind mandate for HPV vaccine

Measure has broad legislative support.

The House Committee on Public Health approved a bill Wednesday that would rescind Gov. Rick Perry's executive order mandating that sixth-grade girls be vaccinated against human papillomavirus, which can cause cervical cancer.

The vote was 6-3.

Supporting the measure were Committee Chairwoman Dianne White Delisi, R-Temple, and Reps. Vicki Truitt, R-Keller, Jodie Laubenberg, R-Parker, Jim Jackson, R-Carrollton, and Susan King, R-Abilene.

Voting no were three Democrats: Reps. Ellen Cohen of Bellaire, Garnet Coleman of Houston and Veronica Gonzales of McAllen.

The bill now goes to the full, 150-member House, where it has 91 co-sponsors.

Additionally, 26 of 31 senators have signed a letter asking Perry to rescind his executive order, signaling the bill's likely passage out of the Legislature.

Perry's spokesman Robert Black would not say whether the governor planned to veto the bill.

But the author of the bill, Rep. Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, said he hopes to get 100 votes in the House to send a message to the governor that the bill is veto-proof.

"We do not know the long-term effectiveness and the long-term negative impact that could happen to our 11-year-old girls in this state if they are forced to have this vaccination," Bonnen said. "Parents and doctors need to sit down together and decide if this is the right vaccination for each individual girl."

The FDA approved the vaccine, Gardasil, in June.

Coleman and Gonzales said they objected to Bonnen's bill because, instead of simply rescinding the governor's order, it specifically says that being vaccinated against HPV cannot be a condition for school entry.

Gonzales, who said she is a "strong proponent of the vaccine," said she doesn't think that "as a Legislature, we should be saying that the commissioner of health's hands are tied to mandate a vaccine if it's found to be necessary."

But Delisi said she didn't want school principals to be in the position of denying school entry to girls who had not been vaccinated. Her philosophy is "recommend and educate, not mandate," she said.

Delisi indicated that other HPV-related bills, such as a proposal by Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, that would require the HPV vaccine a full year ahead of the governor's September 2008 start date, would not see action in her committee.

When asked whether the other HPV-related bills have a future, she said: "I think this takes care of it."

Farrar said Delisi's decision to not consider other HPV bills was "more a political, knee-jerk reaction instead of good public health policy."

Farrar said that only a mandated vaccine would inoculate enough people to eradicate the cancer-causing strains of HPV.

The committee also unanimously passed a bill that would create an HPV education program with existing state funds.

The governor issued the executive order Feb. 2 making Texas the first state to mandate the vaccine.

cmaclaggan@statesman.com; 445-3548