A team of researchers has discovered that mothers' conceptions regarding sex before marriage don't influence their decisions on whether their young daughters should use the HPV vaccine in order to avoid cervical cancer.

The study, which was carried out by researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and funded by Merck (the vaccine's maker) and the National Institutes of Health, is due to appear in the September Journal of Adolescent Health.

Overall, the findings disprove the view saying that mothers who decide on their daughters getting vaccinated for HPV do so since they are against premarital sex.

"This is a decision about parenting, vulnerability and vaccine attitudes, not sexuality," stated Susan Rosenthal, a UTMB pediatric psychologist and the leader of the research. "Mothers who haven't had their daughter vaccinated yet most often said they want more time to learn about the vaccine," she added.

Researchers also found that mothers who expected their daughters to wait until marriage to be sexually active were as likely to have them get the Gardasil vaccine as mothers who didn’t expect their daughters to be virgins when they get married.

To conduct the survey, 150 mothers with varied socioeconomic status and ethnicity participated.

Gardasil is being advertised as a means to protect against cervical cancer by vaccinating against the human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted virus that causes the disease. The vaccine was licensed in 2006 for use in girls and women aged 9 to 26.

However, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends it for 11 and 12-year-old girls, because nearly all of them haven’t begun their sex lives, and therefore haven’t been exposed to the virus. For that reason, Gardasil will offer them maximum protection.