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Update at the bottom
First Report June 20, 2012: S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley vetoed legislation that aimed to allow 7th grade girls to get a free HPV vaccine shot, preventing the spread of a sexually transmitted virus that can cause cervical cancer, genital warts, and some less common cancers.
Haley criticized the bill as not going far enough to block HPV as the shot was not mandatory, and also said the bill was another "taxpayer funded healthcare mandate".
Many more reports abound but one of the better I've seen is by The Post and Courier (read at their paywall website or at The Anderson Independent Mail).
Update 6/20 @ 1:00p.m.: The Huffington Post has picked up on this story and has quoted State Rep. Bakari Sellers (D-Bamberg, S.C.), one of the sponsors of the vetoed bill.
Huff Po writes that, "Sellers blasted Haley by calling her decision one that "puts her own selfish political ambitions ahead of the people of South Carolina."
Additionally, Sellers said in a statement:
"This bill had bipartisan 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.”
Hop on over to The Huffington Post for their full write-up on the vetoing of the HPV vaccine bill.
Update June 27th: The S.C. House failed Tuesday, June 26th to override Gov. Haley's veto on the HPV vaccine bill.
The House’s 54-47 vote killed the bill, which called for informational brochures on the vaccine for human papillomavirus, known as HPV, to be provided to parents of sixth-graders. Parents could choose to have their seventh-graders receive the vaccine. The bill specifies those provisions depend on funding.
Hop on over to TSN to read their full write-up.
