TMA Supports HPV Vaccine For Boys

The Texas Medical Association's leadership body voted this weekend to support vaccinating not just young girls but young boys for the human papillomavirus. But organization officials were quick to note that the vote did not include making such vaccines mandatory, which Gov. Rick Perry tried to do for Texas schoolgirls in 2007.

At its annual meeting, the association's House of Delegates approved a resolution in support of vaccinating adolescent men and women between the ages of 9 and 26 for the sexually transmitted disease, which can be carried by both genders but is linked to cervical cancer in women. Pam Udall, director of media relations for the association, said the roughly 100-member body already supported the vaccine for girls but that the "new recommendation included boys as well, and that's why they discussed it."