Posted on 02/23/2007 8:08:06 AM PST by Froufrou
Gov. Rick Perry's chief of staff met with key aides about a new vaccine to prevent cervical cancer on the same day its manufacturer donated money to his campaign, documents obtained by The Associated Press show.
Texas became the first state to require the vaccine against human papillomavirus earlier this month when Perry issued an executive order requiring it for girls entering sixth grade. Lawmakers are considering overriding the measure.
A calendar for chief of staff Deirdre Delisi obtained under Texas' open records laws shows she met with the governor's budget director and three members of his office for an "HPV Vaccine for Children Briefing" on Oct. 16. That same day, Merck & Co.'s political action committee donated $5,000 to Perry and a total of $5,000 to eight state lawmakers.
Perry spokesman Robert Black said the timing of the meeting and the donation was a coincidence. "There was no discussion of any kind of mandates," Black said.
The documents obtained Wednesday by The AP provide new detail about the relationship between the governor's office and Merck, which makes the only HPV vaccine on the market.
Perry's mandate has inflamed conservatives, who say it contradicts Texas' abstinence-only sexual education policies and intrudes too far into families' lives. Though there is a provision in state law that allows parents to opt out of the vaccine, opponents say the shots are too new and too costly to force on young girls.
Merck had waged a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to get state legislatures to require 11- and 12-year-old girls to get the three-dose vaccine against the virus that can cause cervical cancer as a requirement for school attendance. But it announced Tuesday it was suspending those efforts after its motives were questioned. The New Jersey company stands to make billions if Gardasil is required nationwide.
Critics had previously questioned Perry's ties to the company. Mike Toomey, Perry's former chief of staff and Delisi's predecessor, lobbies for Merck. And the governor accepted a total of $6,000 from Merck during his re-election campaign, including $1,000 in December 2005.
According to Delisi's calendar, she met with Toomey three times in the six months before the order was issued. One meeting happened in August, on the same day two other Perry staffers met with a different Merck lobbyist for a "Merck HPV Vaccine update." The other meetings came just after the November election and just before the legislative session began in January.
Black initially said he did not know what the two discussed, but later said the November and January meetings involved another company Toomey lobbies for. He also said the pair have been friends for years, and that Toomey has many clients other than Merck. He insisted that the governor did not decide to issue the mandate until well after the November election.
Late Wednesday, Black issued a statement: "The Associated Press has tried to create a conspiracy where none exists, and they have offered not one shred of evidence to their baseless accusations that the governor's office has done anything wrong."
Merck spokesman Ray Kerins, reached after business hours, said he could not immediately comment but would look into the matter. Calls seeking comment were made to a home number for Delisi and an office number for Toomey, but were not immediately returned.
Cathie Adams, president of the conservative Texas Eagle Forum, said Black's explanation of the timing of the campaign contribution didn't sound right.
"We have too many coincidences," she said. "I think that the voters of Texas would find that very hard to swallow."
Bills have been introduced in about 20 states to require the vaccine, but they have struggled. Some parents' groups and doctors particularly object because the vaccine protects against a sexually transmitted disease. Vaccines mandated for school attendance usually are for diseases easily spread through casual contact, such as measles and mumps.
A bill has passed the Virginia Legislature, but a spokesman for Gov. Timothy Kaine said he wants to review a provision that lets parents opt out before he says if he will sign it.
And we are surprised? Merck has also announced that they will no longer be lobbying for their vaccine.
It's worse that we thought, though. The link to this article stated they donated $50K. I count only $45,000, but any way you slice it, that's bargain to pay for Texas' little girls to guinea pig. You should see the asinine letter his office sent me!
Perry ping.
Bribing authorities to mandate a particular treatment is apparently more cost effective than advertising and/or using drug-reps...
Houston PING
This doesn't surprise me at all.
I sent a scathing email and have yet to get a reply. And this was the day after the announcement was made about vaccine requirements.
Too bad.
Sold his 'birthright' for a mess of pottage.
But isn't $5k apiece pretty much chicken-feed to those guys? They probably spend that on a couple of lunches.
....could he?
The State mandate is not that big a deal when you consider that the Feds already force all the Medicaid States to buy the vaccine under the Vaccines for Children program, beginning at least 30 days after the vaccine was recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Girls and young women up to age 19 who are insured by Medicaid or uninsured are eligible to choose to get the HPV vaccine without cost to them.
My gut says that the fuss and bother is politics and selling papers.
What they didn't expect would be that more of the Medicaid moms and dads will now be more aware of the vaccines when they go in.
"Girls and young women up to age 19 who are insured by Medicaid or uninsured are eligible to choose to get the HPV vaccine without cost to them."
"Choose" being the operative word. Do you not see that these girls are allowed to "opt-in" whereas the rest have to "opt-out?" It's not universal treatment of the group.
The letter written to me by Dede Keith in his office actually had the collosal nerve to offer "facts" so that I might educate myself! She also used "STD" and "cervical cancer" interchangably! As if they are one and the same.
These people haven't a clue what's going on.
I want to know who the hell these other 8 state lawmakers are!!!
Yes, it will be much easier for the state-funded girls to get and to afford the vaccine, if it's not mandated.
However, if it works, the private insurers will notice just in a couple of years that the vaccinated girls save them money - one abnormal pap will cost much more than the 3 doses of the vaccine.
Then, we will all be much more than encouraged.
One of the reasons I'm in favor of the vaccine is my knowledge of several women whom I believe when they tell me that they had not had sex until their wedding night. They each caught genital herpes - which shows up pretty fast - that night.
The slower, less obvious infections are even more likely to be passed from one to the other and then to the chaste bride or groom.
For those of us with young girls that pay for their health insurance, hopefully we will know the real facts about this vaccine by the time our insurance agrees to cover the cost.
This just doesn't seem to be the "deal breaker" that everyone makes it out to be.
Of course, I'm an M.D., and we like our vaccines - but I'd advise most kids to avoid the meningitis vaccines, because of their history of Guillen-Barre syndrome. And I've always objected to the Chicken Pox vaccine.
What surprises and disappoints me is that no one who is all fussy about this vaccine at the Capitol hearings and especially the guys writing bills to cut the Governor off at the knees is doing anything about the other mandated vaccines, especially chicken pox. Or the fact that it's so hard to opt out of any of them.
I respect your opinion, but I don't believe the trials have been extensive enough, nor am I convinced that the 2 strains of HPV that this vaccine prevents are "the" most likely ones of the 30 to turn into cervical cancer.
I understand why Merck wanted a rush on the product but I don't understand why the government couldn't wait one year to see whether GSK will have an even better product. I'm thinking that if a girl had the Gardasil vaccine she won't be able to get the GSK vaccine [forgot what it's called.]
Am I wrong on that?
Part of the risk for pre-cancerous changes is the co-infection with other strains. And quite a few of the younger girls and boys with HPV have more than one strain. The mixed infections are the ones that were more likely to be harder to clear and to cause the changes in less than 2 years, also.
I hear there's a vaccine that covers 8 viruses in the pipeline.
I don't see any reason why the booster or a subsequent vaccine couldn't be another mix.
We sure ought to be using the vaccine hoopla to teach the fallacy of "safer sex," though.
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