More than four years after he bypassed the Texas legislature and signed an order making Texas the first state to require school-age girls to be vaccinated with the Gardasil HPV vaccine, Rick Perry has gone on the record to say the controversial move was a mistake. The admission by the Texas governor and newly announced Republican presidential candidate comes as conservatives continue to worry that minors do not have the judgment needed to make an informed decision about the Merck vaccine, which has also been linked to controversy over side-effect reports and, more recently, embarassing production problems (look here and here). Moreover, some parents fretted vaccination might be interpreted as a green light for premarital sex.
