Perry orders anti-cancer vaccine for schoolgirls

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.

It takes an incredible head of hair to contain that hold that much arrogance in.

It's my understanding the his legal justification for the Royal command is Chapter 38(b) of the Health & Safety Code.

How ironic that that statue concerns head lice, as he has hair...and is a louse.

After multiple unanswered requests about all the 70%-80% numbers I decided to do a little research of my own into it.

The 80% figure is claimed by Merck in its product marketting and repeated on a "Frequently Asked Questions" brochure by the Center for Disease Control. I tried to follow the sources stated in their literature and it eventually leads back to a study that seems to be the 80% figure's source.

It's from a 1986 study in a Scandanavian epidemiology journal taken from 1,000 22 year old women who visited a single gynecology clinic in the town of Kuopio, Finland in 1985. The author of the study found an active HPV infection rate of 7%. Not 70% but 7%. Using that 7% figure he then made a severely overinflated guesstimate that the lifetime HPV infection risk was 79%, which Merck subsequently rounded up to 80%. I posted some of the details and the article citations here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1780480/posts?page=106#106

More people die from the flu each year than they do from cervical cancer. More people die from from the flu each year than people who're just plain diagnosed with cervical cancer. If a woman has a regular pap smear, it can be caught, without the need for a vaccine that can give young women seizures and hasn't been tested extensively enough so that we know what to expect 10 years down the road. If the governor of Texas wants to protect people using vaccines, why isn't he pushing othe vaccines?

Such as what? Here in NJ and where most colder temp areas the pnemonia and flu vaccines very much so are pushed on people. In fact many years it's pushed so much there is a shortage. I doubt Texas is indifferent to that trend. BTW, a normal pap will not show HPV, that test, at this point, has to be requested or perhaps certain gyns are now only starting to add them to their own routine of annual tests because of the awareness from the vaccine campaign, but it does not show up on a routine pap. And BTW as a medical professional I just cannot go with your logic, just because something is not the MAIN or number 1 killer of women does not mean that subsequent diseases should not have efforts to prevent them from occuring. That said, I do not believe in a mandate, however a strong recommendation from the surgeon general, I fully support.

The state isn't saying, "You need to have this or you'll be kicked out of school." It's saying, "You should get this but we won't keep your child out of school if he or she doesn't get it." There's a big difference. The American Pediactric Center has opposed this mandate because it's potentially dangerous and not much is known about it. They don't even know if it will prevent cancer. They actually admit it won't prevent all cervical cancer and tell people in the insert to still get tested for it after having the vaccine. The test for it is being added by many GYNs. If a woman has a regular (meaning, anual, not, routine. I'm sorry if that was confusing) pap smear, it can be caught.

I'm not saying there should be no effort. I would love it if this vaccine turned out to be safe and effective. But we don't know that yet. My logic isn't "Since it isn't the main killer it shouldn't have efforts made to prevent them," it's, "Why aren't the other killers having efforts made too, why is it just this one, when there are even worse things out there?"

If this wasn't a mandate, I wouldn't be opposed. But it is a mandate. I don't want it pulled off the market. I just don't think that girls should be turned into lab rats with an undertested vaccine against the wills of themselves and their parents.

I think what is being lost here is the fact that it's a vaccine for HPV not cancer. It so happens that cervical cancer CAN be prevented because of this vaccine.I could go back and forth with you, but I think it's pointless. You keep saying "it can be caught"- once you are diagnose with HPV, that is a lifetime disease and there is no cure, you just have to learn to live with your disease and attempt to prevent flare ups, etc. So the way you are using the term "it can be caught" is misleading IMO because once you have the disease, it's not going away, unless I am misintepreting what you are appempting to say. I agree about not wantng it to be a mandate, howeverif chances shows there are little risks and the HPV virus can be prevented in some istances, I am all for a vaccine with parents and young women making an informed decision. As I said in a previous post, a number of my colleagues have turned out + for this and these are professional women with children ( I am taking offense to the poster who is saying over and over that the government is calling your daughter a whore" nonsense, it's ignorant), so a preventative measure for something that is tunring out to be fairly common is not necessarily a negative stance, IMO.

It's not cureable but it's treatable. I do keep saying it can be caught. Because it can, and it can be treated. I'm not trying to say it will go away, I'm trying to say that a vaccine which hasn't been tested extensively enough, doesn't prevent all cervical cancer and strains of HPV, and isn't transmittable without sex (as I understand it, some forms of HPV are, but these particular strains aren't) shouldn't be mandated. It's 4 strains out of 100. You still need to get tested for cervical cancer from other strains, and you're still at risk for getting HPV. There's no telling how long the vaccine will last, either, since they didn't study that for more than 5 years. It will NOT prevent all cervical cancer, even Merck says you need to keep getting pap smears for dangerous HPV, even though they market it as an anti-cancer vaccine. I suppose anti-STD vaccine doesn't sound as appealing.

If it turns out to be safe, I think it should be a choice. I think it should be a choice now, even. I don't think it should be pulled from the market, like I said. Basically, I'm agreeing with you, so I don't know why we're arguing, except that my research shows that it's risky enough that I'll avoid it until more is known about it. I haven't seen anyone say it should be pulled from the market. I've seen people say they wouldn't take it, and they'd recommend against taking it, but I haven't seen people say that no one should be allowed to choose this vaccine. Maybe I missed it, though. What people are against is the fact that an anti-STD vaccine is being mandated, especially when it hasn't been tested very much.

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