If you haven’t yet seen the recent televised guffaw by Republican Presidential candidate Rick Perry, it is worth a look.

But there was an earlier televised debate where Gov. Perry was actually talking some sense.

He was defending an executive order he had signed in Texas mandating young women be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus (HPV) the most common sexually transmitted infection.

Michele Bachmann did her best to take him to task for this.

NPR ran a story this week about the growing support among medical professionals that both girls AND BOYS should get the vaccine for human papillomavirus.

This isn’t an entirely new idea; there have been calls for both-sex vaccination for years.

The renewed debate might have to do with the desire to base medical recommendations less on normative gender roles and more on public health pragmatism.

While to many people HPV is linked only with cervical cancer, there are a number of other maladies with which the virus is associated.

Many more people are at risk that was originally thought.

So what do you think? Was Perry right to push the vaccination as an issue of public health? If not, shouldn’t we still be concerned about this issue? Does it make more sense to recommend that both men and women be vaccinated?