A fitting tribute to military
Several dozen veterans and active military members in uniform packed the House floor Wednesday for military appreciation day.
“We live in the land of the free because of the brave,” Sen. Brandon Shaffer, D-Longmont, said in one of several rousing speeches.
There was plenty of humor too.
After Shaffer put on his uniform Wednesday morning, his 2-year-old daughter told him, “Daddy, you’re cute.”
“It really kind of scared me because now I think she’s going to date sailors,” he said.
Sen. Mike Kopp, R-Littleton, was among those who no longer fits into his uniform.
“It occurred to me that I apparently used to run more than I do now,” he said.
HPV vaccination requirement fought
The American College of Pediatricians on Wednesday came out in strong opposition to mandates that teen girls be vaccinated for the human papilloma virus as a requirement for public school attendance.
A bill is pending to impose such a requirement on girls 12 and older, unless their parents specifically opt out.
One of the bill’s sponsors, House Minority Leader Mike May, R-Parker, said he had not seen the pediatric group’s objectives but said that the bill is not a mandate.
The objective, he said, is to educate parents.
The proposal would require that 11-year-old girls and their parents be given information about the vaccination.
Colorado is one of about a dozen states with some sort of proposal tying vaccinations to school attendance.
“HPV is spread only by intercourse. Keeping children out of school because they have not been vaccinated with the HPV vaccine is a serious, precedent- setting action,” the group’s statement said. “It replaces parental medical decision-making with government regulation which should be reserved for the improvement of the general public health. HPV cannot innocently be ‘caught’ in a classroom as measles or other vaccine preventable diseases can.”
