Friday, February 02, 2007

Best Friends: Merck and Rick Perry

We all know shady things happen in American politics, but they're usually hidden well enough not to attract too much attention. Okay, that first sentence may not pass the laugh test, but read on...

It looks like Governor Rick Perry of Texas decided to throw caution to the wind. Reading between the lines in an article on Yahoo titled Texas Requiring Cervical Cancer Vaccine for Girls, you can't help but form the opinion that Merck bought an executive order. What would cause Governor Perry to side-step regular legislative process in the state? Why shouldn't the state representatives vote on the measure?

Beyond the executive order, even the title of the article shows the massive influence being exerted by Merck. This isn't a Cervical Cancer Vaccine...it's an HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) Vaccine, and only a vaccine for a subset of the strains of HPV at that. Some easy googling reveals nobody thinks this is a silver bullet. In fact, one site remarked that it might prevent 70% of all cases of Cervical Cancer.

Before you get the wrong opinion, I think the availability of this vaccine is wonderful. I'm certain 2-3 of my relatives would have benefited from this vaccine if it had been available years ago, but why does the government think they need to make the choice for them?

As the article states, the vaccine has been "shown" to be safe. How will Governor Perry feel when the first major side-effects start showing up in his state? How many deaths will result? Before you manage to say "FDA blah, blah, blah", tell me this. How many of the currently mandatory vaccines are 100% safe?

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2 Comments:

At 5:30 PM, Blogger Alcinda (Cindy) Moore said...

I posted on this subject last week.

Perry has ties to Merck and Women in Government. One of the drug company’s three lobbyists in Texas is Mike Toomey, Perry’s 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.

The governor also received $6,000 from Merck’s political action committee during his re-election campaign.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16975112/

 
At 5:05 PM, Blogger Hap Moorii said...

Thanks for the additional information, Cindy. I happened to catch a Today Show segment on this situation this morning, and it's amazing to me that they will gloss over the Governor's actions simply because they like the idea of the vaccine. And, why on earth does anybody think it's safe based on the studies done so far? Everyday we seem to be bombarded with some drug or vaccine showing adverse side effects that didn't show up during FDA approval. It's the height of wreckless arrogance to claim this thing is safe based on the data accumulated so far no matter how thorough.

 

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