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TTC-69 Public Hearing
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DR. ZERWAS SPEAKS OUT AGAINST SUGGESTED MANDATE OF HPV VACCINE
For Immediate Release
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Austin – In this golden age of modern medicine, mankind has seen tremendous improvements in the quality of our health care, and there is no question many of these hopeful advances are due to the use of specific vaccines. Therefore, I appreciate and applaud most efforts to treat preventable disease through the use of these remarkable medicines.
However, Governor Perry's mandating the vaccination of 11 year-old girls against the Human Papillomavirus (HPV), a sexually-transmitted disease, to me represents a radical and unwise shift away from the state’s current policies for vaccinating children.
To start, though HPV does present some serious health risks for women if left untreated, it does not present the same level of public health hazard as do the measles, mumps, rubella, and whooping cough. There is a reason why vaccines for these other illnesses are mandated: they are contagious diseases that can be transmitted by virtue of an infected child walking in a classroom and breathing. As in real estate, location matters here because the HPV cannot be transmitted without sexual activity – and, therefore, does not constitute a public health threat to Texas’ schoolchildren while in the classroom.
It follows, then, that I cannot support extending the mandated childhood immunization program as preferred by the Governor. Such a prescription, in my view, will only serve to undermine public trust in the existing, and badly needed, childhood immunization efforts.
As the only practicing physician in the Texas House, I think the Hippocratic Oath – which holds that a doctor should “first do no harm” – might also be extended to this executive order. While I respect the intentions behind the Governor’s actions, I also oppose the mandated social and moral ramifications this ill-advised order administers.
Contact: Brad Westmoreland
512-463-0657
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