Will this cause a ruckus? The federal agency is launching a new web site urging pre-teens to receive the HPV vaccine, among others. The agency, which wants to promote immunization among youngsters against several diseases, will also print posters and checklists on the shots for doctors’ offices, according to a statement on its web site.

Heath officials are looking for ways to promote Gardasil, since HPV can lead to cervical cancer, and are relying on mandates, subsidies and recommendations, says Anne Schuchat, the director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “This is the first vaccine available to prevent cervical cancer,” she tells Bloomberg News. “Using it at 11 or 12 years of age is the best time for the vaccine to be given, because it’s before girls are sexually active.”

The CDC is only recommending vaccination, but the aggressive push may still generate criticism. Conservative groups oppose government mandates because they favor sexual abstinence. And Merck, which makes Gardasil, has alienated many parents with its overly aggressive marketing, which included backing a state legislative group, Women in Government, some of whose members introduced state bills calling for mandatory shots for teens and pre-teens.

And last February, Texas Governor Rick Perry issued the nation’s first mandate, but the state legislature blocked his order, but Perry backed down after reports of ties to Merck. Shortly afterward, Merck backed down on its lobbying effort.

The vaccine’s effectiveness has also been questioned in the medical community, including a series of widely publicized studies and essays in The New England Journal of Medicine. And the notion of mandatory vaccination has been challenged by a co-inventor of the vaccine, one of Merck’s clinical investigators publicly challenged and the head of the CDC’s advisory committee on immunization practices.

But Schuchat says the CDC looks at the safety, cost, and effectiveness of all vaccines before making recommendations, and insists the program is part of an overall effort to make sure more preteens get recommended shots, which are also available free through the agency’s Vaccines for Children’s program for low-income people. “We don’t want cost to be a barrier for people to get benefit from these vaccines,” she says.