Perry orders anti-cancer vaccine for schoolgirls

Houston Chronicle/AP ^ | Feb. 2, 2007 | LIZ AUSTIN PETERSON

[YCTHouston]

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry ordered today that schoolgirls in Texas must be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, making Texas the first state to require the shots.

The girls will have to get Merck & Co.'s new vaccine against strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, that are responsible for most cases of cervical cancer.

Merck is bankrolling efforts to pass laws in state legislatures across the country mandating it Gardasil vaccine for girls as young as 11 or 12. It doubled its lobbying budget in Texas and has funneled money through Women in Government, an advocacy group made up of female state legislators around the country.

Details of the order were not immediately available, but the governor's office confirmed to The Associated Press that he was signing the order and he would comment Friday afternoon.

Perry has several ties to Merck and Women in Government. One of the drug company's three lobbyists in Texas is Mike Toomey, his former chief of staff. His current chief of staff's mother-in-law, Texas Republican state Rep. Dianne White Delisi, is a state director for Women in Government.

Toomey was expected to be able to woo conservative legislators concerned about the requirement stepping on parent's rights and about signaling tacit approval of sexual activity to young girls. Delisi, as head of the House public health committee, which likely would have considered legislation filed by a Democratic member, also would have helped ease conservative opposition.

Perry also received $6,000 from Merck's political action committee during his re-election campaign.

It wasn't immediately clear how long the order would last and whether the legislation was still necessary. However it could have been difficult to muster support from lawmakers who champion abstinence education and parents' rights.

Perry, a conservative Christian who opposes abortion rights and stem-cell research using embryonic cells, counts on the religious right for his political base.

But he has said the cervical cancer vaccine is no different than the one that protects children against polio.

"If there are diseases in our society that are going to cost us large amounts of money, it just makes good economic sense, not to mention the health and well being of these individuals to have those vaccines available," he said.

Texas allows parents to opt out of inoculations by filing an affidavit stating that he or she objected to the vaccine for religious or philosophical reasons.

Even with such provisions, however, conservative groups say mandates take away parents' rights to be the primary medical decision maker for their children.

The federal government approved Gardasil in June, and a government advisory panel has recommended that all girls get the shots at 11 and 12, before they are likely to be sexually active.

The New Jersey-based drug company could generate billions in sales if Gardasil — at $360 for the three-shot regimen — were made mandatory across the country. Most insurance companies now cover the vaccine, which has been shown to have no serious side effects.

Merck spokeswoman Janet Skidmore would not say how much the company is spending on lobbyists or how much it has donated to Women in Government. Susan Crosby, the group's president, also declined to specify how much the drug company gave.

A top official from Merck's vaccine division sits on Women in Government's business council, and many of the bills around the country have been introduced by members of Women in Government.

[medscribe]

Did you ever take basic anatomy?!?

[medscribe]

You want a 20-year study?! If we took that approach to scientific and medicinal discovery, aspirin would still not be approved for human use.

[MamaTexan]

It looks like a girls chances of being raped have fallen to about 1:1,000. If she's raped, there's a chance the rapist has the virus.

So if we take the number of women/amount of cervical cancer cases stats from post #588 (1/15,000) and compare them to the chances of being raped (1/1000), it means a girl is 15 times more likely to be raped than to get cervical cancer from an HPV virus.

That being the case, when are they going to start handgun training courses in schools to prevent this 'epidemic'?

:-)

[metmom]

Well, then, you wouldn't have a problem with him banning all tobacco and alcohol, even in medicines, would you?

Or maybe making nicotine patches mandatory because some kids might smoke and get addicted to nicotine and develop all kinds of smoking related cancers, which are far more a risk faced that the cervical cancer this vaccine is supposed to prevent.

In true liberal style, you've choosen to ignore what people are saying. No one is complaining about making the vaccine available or getting it if one chooses, but that point is making it mandatory, bypassing normal legislative process, the government interfering with out personal lives and decisions, kind of like *Brave New World*.

This is supposed to be a representative republic, where the elected leaders REPRESENT what the people want, not a dictatorship where they issue dictums that the unwashed masses, who are too ignorant to think for themselves or know what's best for themselves, are expected to capitulate to.

Now, because this has come up so frequently, before you even mention the *opt out* part (which is a joke in reality); Have you ever taken a child to the doctor or pediatricians and tried to opt out of a vaccine?

And what would be wrong with encouraging people to get it and making it an opt in program? Not easy enough to get a list of dissenters for the government to track? Can't charge anyone with child abuse or neglect or endangering the welfare of a child and yank the kids and put them in foster care?

It's a free country. It needs to stay that way.

[metmom]

You want a 20-year study?! If we took that approach to scientific and medicinal discovery, aspirin would still not be approved for human use.

Vioxx

[metmom]

Good solution. That'll cut the transmission by rape way down.

[doc30]

15% sounds a lot more realistic just in passing the common sense test. Thanks for checking into this.

I was thinking about that after I posted the 15% figure. That 15% is for current infections. THat is a lot of people actively infected. Active infections typically last for about 6-8 months. If you extrapolate that across the entire population, you get three groups: currently infected, formerly infected and never infected. If 15% of the population is actively infected, they will move to the formerly infected category. That, I believe, is where the MSM figure of 80% comes from. That would be total number of people exposed: currently infected plus formerly infected. The HPV doesn't cause cancer in only the currently infected. It's damage is chronic and the formerly infected women are still at risk. That's why immunizing as many people as possible in order to eliminate those virus strains as disease vectors.

[doc30]

And does the risk that someone might make a bad decision really justify the government stepping in and dictating to people what they are to do and how they are to live their lives? For what? To protect them from themselves? Who's going to protect us from the government? And what if it turns out that there are unforeseen complications that result? What then? Guess who gets to live with THOSE consequences, and it isn't the governor who issued the order.

Logically, if the government has the power to restrict what you can put in your body, the government has the power to dictate must be put in your body. For the vaccine to be effective in controling cervical cancer, as many people as possible must be vaccinated. So when it comes to public health issues, I fully support and endorse mass vaccinations. If you don't want it, you have to jump through hoops not to get it and that's the way the laws for mandatory vaccinations are, including this one.

[MamaTexan]

Good solution. That'll cut the transmission by rape way down.

LOL!

I thought it would be a simple yet elegant way too slow down a viral transmission.

That said, I can't believe the amount of people who will swallow the 'nanny government knows whats best for me' hook, line and sinker without even checking the facts for themselves.

It'll be a cold day in you-know-where before my girls get injected with something because Governor Goodhair thinks it's a good idea.

Just watch....this unnecessary and unproven 'vaccine' (for a virus that can't even pass statistical muster well enough to be labeled an 'epidemic', IMHO) will be related to all kinds of immunological and reproductive problems.

I just wish I knew as much about the chemicals in these vaccinations when my children were younger.....I know at least one of them would be much better off if I had.

[hummingbird]

This corporate whore Rick Perry (who claims he wants to be the Republican VP candidate in 2008 by the way)

That's exactly what I've been wondering. Do you know where I can get the reference for him wanting to be VP?

In my mind, I've already teamed him with McCain and the fella' from North Carolina.

[Muzzle_em]

I'm certain with enough "digging" one would find that Perry owns a lot of stock in Merck.
It is ALWAYS about money!
ALWAYS.

[medscribe]

Vioxx happened because patients and their docs disregarded the APRPOVED prescribing information and began popping pills like they were aspirin. Same thing happened with the Fen/Phen hysteria back in the 90s. Never underestimate the stupidity of the general public.

[Muzzle_em]

Isn't this vaccine for HPV?
Boys do get HPV.

[metmom]

I don't recall even flu vaccines being made mandatory during an epidemic and the death rate from flu complications would kill more during an epidemic than this virus allegedly does with cervical cancer.


Why this then? Any female is far more likely to die from ANYTHING else than this; things that are much more easily dealt with in terms of prevention. Something about this whole thing is very fishy.

No way this justifies the kind of governmental interference that is happening.

[Dov in Houston]

bmp

[metmom]

Isn't this vaccine for HPV?
Boys do get HPV.

---

See, by vaccinating the boys, too, there's a chance that it would eliminate it from the entire population (like small pox, maybe, sort of,...) anyway, if it were eradicated, there would be no need for the vaccine anymore. By innoculating only HALF the population, that ensures that the disease will always be around, thus requiring a constant supply of vaccine.

How convenient.

[metmom]

Logically, if the government has the power to restrict what you can put in your body, the government has the power to dictate must be put in your body.

Maybe. But who said the government has that power? Where did it get it?

I do not want you or anyone else telling me what I have to do just because you think you are right. That is the stuff dictatorships are made of; people thinking they have power over others and have the right to tell them how to live because they think they know more, or are better, or whatever, than everybody else... All for their own good, of course.

You don't even know me. Where do you get off acting like you're so concerned about what happens to me? If you think this vaccine is a good idea, then get it for yourself and your family. Then you'll be protected and have nothing to worry about and don't have to go around minding other people's business for them.

I have the right to make my own health decisions and if I want to take the risk, that's my business.

You are not God. I don't answer to you. The governor is not God. I don't answer to him.

[MamaTexan]

Why this then? Any female is far more likely to die from ANYTHING else than this; things that are much more easily dealt with in terms of prevention. Something about this whole thing is very fishy.

Texas has instituted several recent procedures to morph school nurses into health care providers, thus eradicating the need for parental involvement in the child's health-care an inching us toward a national health care system.

All of this is directly in line with the United Nations Healthy People 2010 goals, which IMHO, is more about tracking and recording people's health issues than making them healthier.

------

Ironically, political figures such as governors and legislators are NOT licensed to practice medicine, so where does someone with NO medical authority get the ability to mandate vaccinations?

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Not to mention that the following words do NOT appear in the Texas Constitution:
"Executive Order"
"vaccination"
"mandate"

So where is Perry getting his so-called 'authority' from, exactly?

[gopheraj]

Parents should not have to go begging to the government simply to exercise a basic right about the upbringing of their children. EXACTLY!!!

[WV Mountain Mama]

I have opted out of the Prevnar vaccine for my kids. All I did was sign a paper at the pediatrician's office stating that it was refused by me.