A bill to end Virginia’s requirement that girls receive a cancer-preventing vaccine — except when their parents object — was approved Tuesday in a Senate subcommittee.
Like every other General Assembly vote on Del. Kathy Byron’s human papillomavirus bill, its fate was decided on party lines. The panel’s three Republicans supported it, while two Democrats voted no.
Byron, R-Campbell County, sponsored the bill every year since 2008, arguing the state should not have a voice in whether girls receive the vaccine.
Her House Bill 1112 has a better chance this year of reaching the Senate floor, where Republicans usually control partisan issues.
The HPV vaccine prevents cervical cancer, a sexually transmitted disease, people on both sides acknowledged.
It also can prevent oral papillomavirus, which is starting to show up in boys and girls, said Sen. Frank Northam, D-Norfolk, a pediatrician.
Virginia is the only state with an HPV requirement, although California adopted a law last fall allowing 12-year-old girls to choose to receive the vaccine without parental consent.
The HPV vaccine was an issue in Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential bid last year.
Byron’s bill attracted two supporting groups and four opposing groups during the subcommittee hearing.
Representatives of the Family Foundation and Virginia Assembly of Independent Baptists spoke in favor of the bill, saying parents and doctors should decide whether to administer the vaccination.
Opponents included the Virginia Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Academy of Family Physicians, Planned Parenthood and the Medical Society of Virginia.
“We don’t regard this as a mandate” said Hunter Jamerson, speaking for the family physicians, because many parent opted against it.
Byron told the committee a Virginia law passed in 2007, requiring the vaccine for 12-year-old girls unless parents opt out in writing, puts the state’s “seal of approval” on the drug.
“This bill would repeal it and put it off our books and back onto parents to be able to make those decisions,” Byron said.
Opponents said not all families have pediatricians to advise them.
Jessica Honke of Planned Parenthood said since 2008, more than 65,000 girls “have accessed the HPV vaccine through the state immunization program.”
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