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But I hesitate to call them cronies to the extent that they receive special treatment or a quid pro quo.

Nothing legally, morally, or ethically wrong with it...as long as no lines are crossed.

This whole thread is based on your stated premise that Merck, RGA, and Perry committed crimes. But you offer nothing at all other than innuendo.

Got any proof of wrong doing? Or just innuendo?

Hope this helps. I’m drawing from multiple sources. The last one I reviewed paints this scenario:

Back in 2007, Perry seemed on the leading edge of a national trend when he tried to make Texas the first state to require girls entering the sixth grade be vaccinated for the human papillomavirus, known as HPV. Parents would have had the option to opt out.

Not only was his order struck down, but no state has enforced such a mandate since then. Both Virginia and Washington, D.C. officially require some students to be vaccinated against HPV but the mandate isn’t enforced in Virginia. Over the past month, Perry has started apologizing for the order, saying he should have made the policy “opt-in” and pursued the issue through the Legislature.

During the debate, Bachmann mocked Perry’s efforts to walk back his order, saying “Little girls who have a negative reaction to this potentially dangerous drug don’t get a mulligan.”

The executive order, announced late on a Friday, was an unusual approach for Perry, who more often has pushed his agenda via the Legislature. Three months earlier, state Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, had filed a bill very similar to Perry’s order but Perry’s office never talked to her about it, she said.

The question of whether states should mandate Merck’s Gardasil has been a topic of debate around the country ever since the FDA approved it in 2006. Many doctors endorse the vaccine but some parents worry that their kids might interpret the inoculation as permission to be sexually promiscuous.

While Perry’s order came as a surprise, his position on the issue was not a secret. In September 2006, Chris Bell, Perry’s Democratic opponent, said the state should require all young women to get the vaccine. Perry’s campaign told the Star-Telegram at the time that Perry agreed as long as there was a way for parents to opt-out their children out.

That summer, Perry’s chief of staff Deirdre Delisi had been meeting with Merck lobbyists about Gardasil. In October, Merck’s political action committee donated $5,000 to Perry’s campaign the same day Delisi participated in another meeting with Merck officials. Further complicating Perry’s position was that Mike Toomey, Perry’s former chief of staff, was a Merck lobbyist.

The connections between Perry and the company, coincidental or not, added corruption allegations to critics’ arsenal. Though Perry defended himself against the $5,000 donation during the debate, he has received a total of $28,500 from Merck since 2006 and the Republican Governors Association, which Perry has chaired, received $377,500 from the company, according to Texans for Public Justice.

“That usually defined [Perry’s] motivation for just about everything,” Bell said. “You only had to follow the short money trail.”

The way some here are attacking Merck they sound like democraps. Big Pharma, Big Oil, blah blah blah. Gardisol protects against the most common cause of cervical cancer. My daughter had her girls given the vaccine on the recommendation of her girls doctor and on the recommendation of her uncle a pediatric surgeon. It is effective against these strains if given before a female becomes sexually active. A women could be a virgin on her wedding night but if she doesn't marry a virgin her spouse could unknowingly be a carrier of the virus. I agree Perry should have taken it to the legislature and not through EO. I cannot take Bachmann seriously after her crazy wild eyed behavior on the stage the other night. She had every right to criticize the EO but she jumped the shark with her crazy accusation.