Bill would require girls to be immunized against HPV.

Byline: Kate Folmar

SACRAMENTO _ When authorities approved a vaccine last summer that prevents most cervical cancers, experts cheered it as a breakthrough in fighting a disease that kills 3,700 American women each year.

Now, a Bay Area lawmaker wants to make sure California girls get that vaccine, which guards against certain strains of human papilloma virus, known as HPV, that can cause cervical cancer. Assemblywoman Sally Lieber has introduced legislation that would require girls to be immunized against HPV before they enter the sixth grade.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that parents get the vaccine for their daughters, ideally when they're aged 11 and 12. But the proposal to mandate vaccination in California, AB 16, is causing quite a stir because HPV is transmitted only through sexual contact.

Mark Mangin of San Jose, Calif., saw his sister die, at age 32, from a different kind of cancer, ovarian, a decade ago. So when he saw a television ad for the new vaccine Gardasil, Mangin wrote his wife a Post-it note reminder to research it.

Mangin said they may talk to their family doctor about whether their three daughters,…