"Underage girls, cancer and sex"...

...proved to be too volatile a combination for the Texas legislature, which voted to block Governor Rick Perry's efforts to make the state the first to require girls to be vaccinated against HPV, the human pappiloma virus, which is a main cause of cervical cancers in women. Add to that the legislators' feelings of disempowerment at what they felt was one-sided executive action (though Texans don't seem to have the same problem with overreaching executive power when it comes to the President), and you have a formula where politics overrides scientific knowledge.