Haley Vetoes HPV Bill
The move would appear to be a reversal of her previous stand on the issue.
On Tuesday, Gov. Nikki Haley vetoed a bill that would have given all seventh-graders in the state a free vaccine of the Human Papilloma Virus or HPV, which has been linked to cervical cancer.
According to the bill, parents would have been given the ability to opt-out of the injection. The HPV virus is contracted primarily through sexual contact and critics of the vaccine have said that injecting middle-school aged girls with the virus would sexualize them at too young an age.
During the 2012 GOP Presidential Michele Bachmann inaccurately linked the vaccine to mental retardation.
But in a statement quoted in the Charleston Post and Courier (subscription required), Haley did not bring up any health concerns. The bill is a “precursor to another taxpayer-funded health care mandate,” she said.
The bill, sponsored by Bamberg Democrat Bakari Sellers, received bi-partisan support, passing 40-2 in the Senate during debate and 63-40 in the House.
While in the legislature in 2007, Haley co-sponsored a bill that would have mandated the vaccine.
In a statement to the media after the veto, Sellers said:
“With this veto, Nikki Haley has confirmed everyone’s suspicions that she puts her own selfish political ambitions ahead of the people of South Carolina. This bill had bi-partisan support and gives optional education and preventative vaccines to adolescents in an effort to thwart cervical cancer. This is a common sense approach to a very serious problem. To call this measure unnecessary is demeaning and insulting to the heroic women who fight this cancer everyday. I am deeply disappointed that politics once again has prevailed over women's health.”
The issue may not be dead, however, as the House and Senate have shown a willingness to override Haley's vetoes, as they did last year when she attempted to defund ETV.
Geneva Lawrence
8:05 pm on Tuesday, June 19, 2012
The HPV vaccine is mandatory before a female can attend a state college. USC for example.
Ken
8:48 pm on Tuesday, June 19, 2012
This woman's personal beliefs or ambitions are not based on what is good for the people of this state but on what she hopes will further her political career. I hope the people who voted for this nut are beginning to see this.
Dr. John
9:38 pm on Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Ken,
If you want to take your 7th grade daughter to her doctor and get the vaccine you are welcome to do it. If you think your daughter has a risk of contracting the disease by being sexually active then get her the vaccine. Just don't make me pay for it. The vaccine has not been outlawed. It is just not "free". Each dose costs about $125 and three doses are required ($375). For that much money we should develop a vaccine against liberalism.....it would be worth every penny..
Ken
9:44 pm on Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Why should people who want their daughter to go to college be forced to pay for this since it is mandatory? The state made this vaccine mandatory for a young woman to attend college, the state should have to pay for it.
Shawn Drury
9:47 pm on Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Dr. John, I'm curious...what about the girls who don't have someone who can afford the $375?
Ken
9:49 pm on Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Also, let me guess, you are also one of those staunch republicants who are against a national healthcare plan that would provide healthcare to those who cannot afford insurance.
Mary Anne Soupy
9:56 pm on Tuesday, June 19, 2012
What happens when a whole generation of young girls grows up to find that this vaccine has damaged their ability to become mothers or produces birth defects? The vaccine is still an unknown. Also, did anyone ask how much Sellers was paid by the drug company, which has been lobbying hard across the US to get tax payers to pay them for their drug. The drug company has spent millions trying to get this past state legislatures. Thank God for Nikki Haley.
Shawn Drury
10:55 pm on Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Mary Anne,
I'm not doctor and I'm not about to speak to the long-terms side effects of the HPV vaccine, the most common of which is Gardasil. I do know that the National Cancer Institute has said that if every girl was inoculated the instances of cervical cancer would be reduced by two-thirds.
I can speak to Mr. Sellers' campaign contributions since they are public information (http://apps.sc.gov/PublicReporting/IndividualReports.aspx). He has run for office three times since first being elected in 2006. He has received donations from a wide cross-section of industries including health care, retail, real estate, insurance and so on. This is not uncommon. He also received $250 from the drug company Pfizer in 2008. However, the maker of Gardasil is Merck.
If Gov. Haley expressed any concerns about the long-term side effects of the HPV vaccine either after she vetoed this bill or co-sponsored a similar bill in 2007, she, to my knowledge, has not made them public. Whatever the governor's motivations might be about HPV and the vaccine, long-terms side effects do not appear to be among the main reasons for Tuesday's veto.
Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts.
Robert Kelly
10:30 pm on Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Making this vaccine mandatory in order to attend a public higher education institution in this state is absurd, but if that is the case, then yes, the state should pay for the vaccine. If the intention is to protect the population at large, then let the state provide it. If it is for the individual, then it should not be mandatory.
Heather
2:48 am on Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Maybe the gov. knows about the toxicity levels in SC and decided that tax dollars should go for future ills from all the chemicals that are allowed to be made/burned/stored in the state. If I had a daughter I would have paid for her to have the vaccine just like we paid for our son to have a vaccine to avoid chicken pox. If you can prevent something WHY NOT do it?
Nancy Moore
6:21 am on Wednesday, June 20, 2012
"On Tuesday, Gov. Nikki Haley vetoed a bill that would have given all seventh-graders in the state a free vaccine of the Human Papilloma Virus or HPV, which has been linked to cervical cancer" "Free vaccine" REALLY!!!! Nothing is free!! When are people going to realize this tidbit of information.
Anne
11:15 am on Wednesday, June 20, 2012
According to the USC website, the only two vaccines listed are the MMR and the Meningitis Vaccine as being required. They probably strongly urge the HPV virus, because of the protection it provides for young women.
http://orientation.sc.edu/immunizations.htm
J. McCann
12:49 pm on Wednesday, June 20, 2012
I have read many of the comments posted and some of you have made good points, but the scariest thing of all is so many of you want a "nanny government" which makes decisions for you and dictates what you must do with your children, whether you approve or not. My children are adults now and make their own decisions, but I can't imagine the state and school system getting involved in something so personal. Yes, somethings should still be private!! The health care bill proposed by the current president is nothing but a nanny care bill which is not better than what we have already which definitely needs to be better managed. The working class is dwindling and we are the ones paying the bills for the people who think everything should be free for them. With 42 cents owed of every $1.00, the government deficit has to be addressed, yet the current President still keeps buying votes with our treasury by promising freebies .........FREEDOM IS NOT FREE! Someone pays!! Governor Haley....keep bringing those great jobs to South Carolina!!
JoSCh
1:13 pm on Wednesday, June 20, 2012
I have read ALL the comments posted and not one person said they wanted a "nanny government".
You can't imagine public schools getting involved in public health? Kids have had to have various vaccinations to attend public schools in all 50 states for decades.
The health care law (not bill) passed (not proposed) by all three components of the legislature (not just the executive) of the U.S. government is not nanny care. Its purpose is that people HAVE access to health care. You don't have to use it.
Yeah Haley, keep bringing those lowest wages in the union to SC. Way to go, you and your parties policies have U.S. Inc about a half a step above China! http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0647.pdf
STS
2:22 pm on Wednesday, June 20, 2012
The health Care law, PAACA has cost children their insurance across the land not helped. Since it mandated that an insurance carrier give a child a policy regardless of their health made carriers cancel all of the policies where nobody can insure a child under 18 unless they are on their parents policy. Guess they never thought that would happen! Oh by the way, everyone has healthcare in this country! You may not have health insurance but you have health care! There is a huge difference! Get your facts straight - and again NOTHING is FREE!
JoSCh
2:41 pm on Wednesday, June 20, 2012
You should provide data when you make outrageous statements. Otherwise people will just think you're a right wing nutjob tightening his foil helmet in his Obamabunker. And if what you say IS true, are you saying that the law is wrong, and not the insurance companies? Because a loophole or a technicality exists doesn't mean it should be used, does it?
I have health insurance and I don't have the health care doctors have prescribed.
I didn't say it provided access to healthcare, I said it's purpose was. I agree it's a crappy law, but because it puts people more interested in profit than they are in health in the middle. Mandating insurance only adds to the overhead of what is a basic and essential human right, health. We aren't wolves in a pack, most of us anyway.
I've got my facts straight. Why don't you gather a fact, just one, and bring it back to us.
Lots and lots of things are free.
Dr. Felix T. Katz
3:10 pm on Wednesday, June 20, 2012
"you may not have health insurance but you have health care" "NOTHING IS FREE" In order to have "health care" without health insurance means using the ER at a county hospital which is the MOST COSTLY health care available and you're right IT'S NOT FREE. We all pay for it.
Dr. Felix T. Katz
3:26 pm on Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Also; many women contract HPV from their husbands AFTER they are married. This is because the men are not aware that they are infected. Yes, the vaccine is available for boys/men as well and they should also be vaccinated. This is for the good of whole not the individual. Please get educated about this virus before more young men and women die needlessly!
Heather
4:08 pm on Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Pauline, South Carolina, I was in elementary school and we stood in lines while a nurse gave us all shots. This was late sixties early seventies. The state must have said do it because I know I saw my entire class get it and not one was left out. My parents did what the government said because most of the time they know whats best for the children who will in the future be voters like I am now. My parents loved Fritz Hollings btw.
DR Feelgood
6:50 pm on Wednesday, June 20, 2012
The vaccine has no causal associations with adverse events with the exception of syncope ( fainting) . The CDC monitors this through VAERS which is a passive system. The fact is.. this vaccine is controversial because of one issue ..SEX. Parents dont want to admit that their children are or will become sexually active. All should check the latest youth risk behavior survey which shows that SC youth are very engaged in sexual activity before the age of 13. The states tend to take the high road in mandating other vaccines for school entry such as TDAP The HPV vaccine prevents cancers in both sexes . Your daughters may not be sexually active but you cant ever guarantee that when they do choose a partner that the male has had the same standards. I will almost gurantee he wont be vaccinated because male immunization rates havent even reached 2 % for the country.This bill wasnt even mandatin the vaccine in schools It was trying to mandate HPV education. For a vcacine that has been shown to effectively prevent cancers there is so much opoostion based on uneducated fears , myths, assumptions, driven by antivaccine and poltical motives .as a parent, you had the opportunity to get the vaccine and you choose not to have your kids vaccinated,,what if they are one of 10,000 victims of cervical cancer or 5400 victims of anal cancer Their lifetime risk of acquiring HPV is 80%. http://www.cdc.gov/hpv/
Dr. Felix T. Katz
8:34 pm on Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Thank you Dr. Feelgood. Your information is right on,so well stated and so needed. The governor has,sadly, made a terrible decision for the youth of our state. It's curious that she was for this before she was against it. What changed? My heart goes out to those parents that cannot afford this vaccine for their children.
John H
10:37 pm on Wednesday, June 20, 2012
The PPACA will cover the HPV vaccine for those that do not currently have insurance along with many insurance carriers that already provide it and under the new law will continue. HSS may mandate that all will be covered anyway.
http://www.healthcare.gov/law/resources/regulations/prevention/recommendations.html.
If this goes back to the legislature and it is passed over the veto, won’t South Carolina taxpayers be paying for a service that will be covered by insurance at full implementation?
Just asking a question.