Perry's new stand on HPV vaccine

Gov. Rick Perry has taken flak for his 2007 attempt to require girls to be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, the most commonly sexually transmitted disease and the principal cause of cervical cancer. At the risk of angering fellow conservatives, Perry has always insisted he did the right thing.


That unapologetic approach changed this weekend.


A few hours after unveiling his campaign for president, Perry began walking back from one of the most controversial decisions of his more-than-10-year reign as Texas governor. Speaking to voters at a backyard party in New Hampshire, Perry said he was ill-informed when he issued his executive order, in February 2007, mandating the HPV vaccine for all girls entering sixth grade, unless their parents completed a conscientious-objection affidavit form. The vaccine, Merck & Co.’s Gardasil, would have protected against the forms of HPV that cause about 70 percent of all cervical cancer, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control.


"I signed an executive order that allowed for an opt-out, but the fact of the matter is that I didn’t do my research well enough to understand that we needed to have a substantial conversation with our citizenry," Perry said at the Manchester, N.H., event in response to an audience question about the HPV controversy, according to ABC News’ The Note. "But here’s what I learned: When you get too far out in front of the parade, they will let you know, and that’s exactly what our Legislature did, and I saluted it and I said, 'Roger that, I hear you loud and clear.' And they didn’t want to do it and we don’t, so enough said.”


Instead of making the vaccine mandatory, "what we should of done was a program that frankly allowed them to opt in or some type of program like that," Perry told the New Hampshire gathering.


With Perry’s declaration Saturday that he is entering the contest for the Republican presidential nomination, his lengthy record — Perry has been an elected official for almost 26 years — will come under intense new scrutiny. As the longest-serving governor in the country and the longest ever in Texas, Perry has a substantial history of political activity and has taken positions on a host of potentially controversial issues.


The new comments about the HPV decision amount to an acknowledgment that Perry has to deal early with controversies that could otherwise dog him in his primary fight against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Tea Party darling who is running strong in first-test Iowa, and Mitt Romney, a well-funded candidate with strong establishment backing and the ex-governor of New Hampshire’s neighbor, Massachusetts.


In recent weeks Perry has also sought to clarify his 10th Amendment-friendly statements on other hot-button issues. A few weeks before jumping into the race, Perry said in Aspen, Colo., that gay marriage should be left up to the individual states. Gay marriage in New York?


“That’s their business,” Perry said. Later, in Houston, Perry said he would allow states to set abortion policy if Roe v. Wade were to be overturned some day as he hopes.


The statements prompted criticism among Christian conservatives. Perry also took a pounding from former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, a struggling GOP presidential candidate and social conservative, who criticized his laissez-faire approach. Perry has since begun stressing the need for federal constitutional bans on both gay marriage and abortion.


The governor had come under sharp criticism immediately after issuing the executive order on Feb. 2, 2007, to make the HPV vaccine mandatory. The conservative Eagle Forum and top Republicans in the Legislature were caught off guard and, in the words of one of them, “stunned” after Perry used an executive order to make the vaccine mandatory. Many lawmakers accused the governor of usurping parental rights and said the vaccine would encourage girls to be sexually promiscuous. At the time, Perry rejected their arguments.


With that in mind, the Texas Tribune's Jay Root does a deeper dive on Perry's comments at last weekend's New Hampshire house party about a controversial decision he made as governor that could ring poorly with conservatives - a mandatory vaccination for girls to prevent the HPV virus.


What he said Saturday was, "I signed an executive order that allowed for an opt-out, but the fact of the matter is that I didn’t do my research well enough to understand that we needed to have a substantial conversation with our citizenry. But here’s what I learned: When you get too far out in front of the parade, they will let you know, and that’s exactly what our Legislature did, and I saluted it and I said, 'Roger that, I hear you loud and clear.' And they didn’t want to do it and we don’t.