Local researchers have found that mothers’ views about premarital sex don’t affect their decisions on whether their pre-teen or teenage daughters should get the vaccine against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer.
The survey, by a team at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, appears to refute the perception that mothers who opt against their daughters receiving the vaccine for the human papillomavirus do so because they oppose sex before marriage.

The study’s lead author Susan Rosenthal said, “This is a decision about parenting, vulnerability and vaccine attitudes, not sexuality…Mothers who haven’t had their daughter vaccinated yet most often ...