Morality concerns
play role in funding cut for Florida cervical cancer
program

Activists in Florida say Florida governor Jeb Bush, the Republican brother of president George W. Bush, allowed moral concerns about premarital sex to shape his decision to cut $30,000 from the state's cervical cancer elimination task force, The Miami Herald reports. The money was cut from a seven-member task force charged with studying whether an experimental vaccine that aims to prevent sexually transmitted human papillomavirus infections, which has been linked with virtually all cases of cervical cancer, would be effective in curbing cancer cases. Since the vaccine aims to prevent infections, it would be given to children before they become sexually active.

Bush is accused by activists and some Democratic lawmakers of pulling the money from the program because he fears such a vaccine would encourage young people to engage in premarital sex. Religious groups in the state also oppose the vaccine for the same reasons, the Herald reports. State representative Anne Gannon, the Democrat who asked for the funds for the task force, says Bush's veto of the funding stemmed from his fear of criticism from right-wing and religious groups if he had supported the funding.

Bush's spokesman, Russell Schweiss, said the governor's veto of the funds was strictly a move to contain health costs in the state's budget, but Paul Hull of the Florida Division of the American Cancer Society says he finds it difficult to believe that $30,000 was a "budget buster" for the state. "We look at cervical cancer as a public health issue. It's not a moral issue," he told the Herald.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says HPV is the most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States, and notes that at least 80% of all sexually active women will be infected with the virus at some point in their lives. A recent study by the University of Texas found that 64% of parents would approve of giving their children an HPV-prevention vaccine if it were to become available. Most of the parents opposed to the vaccine cited moral or religious grounds, saying either that it would encourage their children to have sex or that their children will not be sexually active and would not need protection against HPV.