Posted on 02/11/2008 8:40:01 AM PST by pissant
Washington (CNSNews.com) - Texas Gov. Rick Perry has no regrets about his proposal requiring sixth grade girls to get a vaccine protecting them from a sexually transmitted disease, even though reports surfaced that some vaccine recipients suffered miscarriages while others had numbness or paralysis after the vaccine was administered.
A year ago, Perry, a Republican, signed an executive order making Texas the first state in the country to require girls entering the sixth grade to get a Gardasil vaccination to guard against Human Papillomavirus (HPV), a leading cause of cervical cancer. It didn't take long for the Texas Legislature to enact a veto-proof law overriding the order and prohibiting schools from requiring the vaccine.
Recent reports to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), many of them still unconfirmed, show that more than 3,000 adverse reactions to the vaccine have been reported. The reports are made through the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which is essentially raw data that the CDC and FDA must verify. (See earlier story)
"Any drug is going to have questions about it," Perry told Cybercast News Service Saturday. "We had questions about measles. We had questions about polio. We had questions about practically every vaccine that has ever been developed."
The vaccine, manufactured by Merck & Co., remains controversial. The most consistent adverse reaction reported after Gardasil shots were administered includes at least 13 cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), a disorder in which the immune system attacks nerves and can trigger numbness and paralysis.
Potential litigation is in the works, according to Chicago attorney John Driscoll.
The CDC responded to the reports this summer, saying that 13 cases of GBS are in proportion with the general population, with or without the Gardasil vaccination. Further, only two reported cases met the definition of GBS when further investigated, the CDC said.
Eight deaths were reported to the CDC and FDA, but only four of those deaths were confirmed as of the end of last year and they each occurred for reasons other than the Gardasil vaccine, a CDC spokesman said.
Since June 2006, when the FDA approved Gardasil, there have been 28 reported cases in which pregnant women miscarried after receiving the vaccine. But not all of those reports have been confirmed, according to the federal agencies. (See story)
Last year, three states -- Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia -- passed laws mandating that girls entering the sixth grade get the HPV vaccine, and that is what Perry attempted to do in Texas.
"The issue is saving young ladies' lives," Perry said in the interview. "Is this case important enough to have this vaccine available? I think it is. I'm a very pro-life governor. This is a pro-life issue for me."
After the FDA approved Gardasil, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended routine vaccinations for girls ages 11 and 12.
HPV infects 20 million people in the United States, and there are about 6.2 million new cases each year, according to the CDC. HPV is responsible for nearly 70 percent of cervical cancer cases.
But the American College of Pediatrics and the New England Journal of Medicine oppose making the vaccine mandatory.
A Merck spokeswoman told Cybercast News Service last year that all potential complications from Gardasil are listed on the package, and she stressed that reports coming into the government are raw data.
This would be a Huckabee/McCain style republican...
Requiring the vaccination CHILDREN for a disease that comes from sexual contact - in the name of preventing future cancer that is thought to be brought on by ONE variety of this particular disease....
If parents want to vaccinate their children - that is their business, but to require it is just wrong. What ever happened to teaching children about right and wrong? Oh - that would require some sense of responsibility and accountability. Do too much of that and we won’t have need for the government....
Why start at 6th grade ? Why not start at Kindergarten ? And as for the boys , why not hand out condoms to 5th graders (since traditionally boys become active earlier than girls) ?
On a totally unrelated topic, hasn’t the gov also endorsed Mccain ?
Yes, sad to say that this is where our Chief executive of Texas places his priorities. Meanwhile, we have ten times more Texas citizens being taken hostage and killed by Mexican drug gangs than 6th grade girls dieing from HPV.
The man’s a pandering fool and a protege of Bush. That says it all.
You're also a pathological liar, governor. You know the dispute isn't about the vaccine's being "available": it's about the vaccine's being required. And it's about the $$$ you got from the manufacturer, too.
Enthusiastically, to the point of admonishing Huckabee to give up and throw his support to McCain and "dictating" to his Texas constituents to "get behind McCain".
Perry is in his own little hair salon world.
First, he was behind Guliani. When he dropped out, he put his support behind McCain.
First, he was behind Guliani. When he dropped out, he put his support behind McCain.
Sorry ‘bout the double post. My mouse has a mind of it’s own sometimes.
“Folks, we have some real prizewinners in the GOP.”
That’s a polite way of putting it.
That used to be called bribery.
Geez, I’m tired of these GOP Fascists who want to use the power of the state for their personal brand of evangelical do-gooderism.
Now it’s called “campaign contributions,” although to be fair, it probably always was to some extent. I think most politicians are owned by someone; the trick is figuring out who!
Term limits would nice - that would make buying politicians more expensive.
But boy was I ever wrong and not just in a small way.
Perry like his predecessor El Presidente Bush has bent over backwards to pander to the Mexicans and to the left of center Democrats.
Perry in my estimation thought that by being a fringe conservative that he someday could be like Bush and run for president.
ping
Every death FROM the vaccine nullifies a death FROM the cancer.
Pap tests are still the best and will still be needed because the vaccine doesn't address ALL the causes of cervical cancer. So forcing women to get a vaccine that might kill them when there are safer ways of addressing cervical cancer, is really irresponsible.
If he’s so pro-life, what’s he doing to restrict abortions that kill thousands of baby girls and sometimes their mothers from the procedure. What a hypocrite!
Yes, he endorses McCain. The Texas governor’s race had no viable contestants, either. I am starting to see a pattern here.
Campaign contributions are legal, up to a certain amount. But unfortunately for the governor, bribery is not.
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