Rick Perry and Gardisil

Here are excerpts from Peskytruth who takes on the litany of Rick Perry negatives for the purpose of "keeping it real" and trying to make sure that we don't go into a RINO witch hunt frenzy. I think that is commendable. But I will begin with his first point on Gardisil:

Gardasil is a drug developed by Merck & Co.. It is supposed to prevent cervical cancer caused by the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved it in June of 2006 and subsequently recommended vaccination in females aged 11 and 12, before they become sexual active. Since it is not effective against an existing infection, it must be given before a sexually-transmitted HPV infection occurs. 

Most people are not aware that the FDA is a corrupt organization led by former Pharma executives. If you are depending on the FDA to protect you from untested pharmaceuticals, you are living in a fairy land. In fact, the FDA violated its own protocols in approving Gardisil and the one of the formost researchers on this vaccine says that making it mandatory will do nothing to HPV infection rates. The bottom line is still the bottom line. If the government ever starts talking about the "public good" know that they're about to screw you.

Governor Perry issued an Executive Order (EO) (RP#65, February, 2007) which mandated that all Texas girls be vaccinated prior to their admission to the sixth grade. Parents were allowed to opt out of the mandate by filling out an affidavit. 

You are allowed to opt out of all vaccinations with an affidavit. So there is no need to grovel in thanks at the feet of lord Perry for "allowing" you to do so. The government immunization program works under color of law. However, most parents are not going to question a new vaccine requirement and are not aware of opt-out procedures. They're still trusting that the government immunization program is about public health and not money.

Perry was rebuked by both houses of the Texas legislature which overturned his EO by a veto-proof margin. Seeing the writing on the wall, Perry did not sign the law. He subsequently rescinded RP#65 with another EO (RP#74) and the issue is now dead in Texas. At least 18 other states (notably New York and Michigan) were considering similar actions with Gardasil, but none were actually implemented. Here is a link to additional data on other state’s decisions, from a 2007 article in Time Magazine Health.
Perry’s negatives related to the Gardasil issue were: 

• issuing the EO requiring vaccinations for young girls. Even though a parent could opt-out (for religious or philosophical reasons), refusing the child’s shot, people were upset that the EOrequired inoculation. Had the vaccination been voluntary, there would have been no question. 

• Perry’s former chief of staff (2002-2004) was a lobbyist for Merck at the time and is thought to have had undue influence on Perry on behalf of Merck’s drug. 

• Merck contributed a grand total of $6,000 to Perry’s reelection campaign. While it is unseemly in its timing, $6,000 is barely enough money to get noticed, much less to buy the support of a governor, least of all a “high roller” like Perry’s critics claim he is. That Merck contribution amounted to .00025 of the $24 million dollar campaign funds that he received that year.

There are still some who are convinced that Merck contributed more than a paltry $6,000 to Perry. They are simply wrong. Merck gave two checks, one for $1,000 and another for $5,000 to Perry in the 2006 election timeframe (in 2008, they contributed a whopping $2,500). Here is a source to view all of Perry’s contributions: ProPublica. In fact, Merck has only contributed $23,500 to Perry over a 1998-2010 span, not exactly George Soros money. For comparison, from 2000-2006 Merck gave $2,460,000 to state politicians across 40 states.

For me, I don't care how much money Merck gave to Perry, that's not the point. The point is we have a politician making unqualified medical decisions for  a large population. I didn't know that when we elect state governors that they would be socially engineering us into taking particular medicines.  Small and limited government my behind.

The other side of the story:
Gardasil was believed to be a way to stop certain types of cancer among young women. Studies appearing in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2007 found that Gardasil was nearly 100 percent effective in preventing precancerous cervical lesions caused by the the strains that Gardasil protects against. Gardasil’s effectiveness increased when given to girls and young women before they become sexually active. Gardasil was found to be extremely effective in preventing several (but not all) of the strains of HPV known to cause cervical cancer and genital warts.
Some critics maintain that Gardasil has a record of “very serious safety issues.” That obvious attempt to further tarnish Perry’s image by intimating that not only did he do the bidding of Merck in ordering the vaccinations, he did so without considering the possible serious side effects. There is little doubt that Governor Perry knew a great deal more about Gardasil at the time than those critics do now. The CDC has been following Gardasil since its licensing and some current facts follow. Taken from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website:
“Since licensure, CDC and FDA have been closely monitoring the safety of HPV vaccines. “As of June 22, 2011, approximately 35 million doses of Gardasil^® have been distributed in the U.S. and the safety monitoring system (VAERS) received a total of 18,727 reports of adverse events following Gardasil^® vaccination. As with all VAERS reports, serious events may or may not have been caused by the vaccine.”“Of the total  number of VAERS reports following Gardasil^®, 92%  were considered to be non-serious, and 8% were considered serious. Out of 35,000,000 doses distributed, there were 1,498 occasions of serious complications; that equates to a .0000428 chance that a dose will cause a serious adverse reaction.” Hardly enough to consider the vaccine “a very serious safety issue” as claimed by some critics. Apparently, they are too lazy to “do a little research.”As of June, 2011, the CDC says: “Based on all of the information we have today, CDC recommends HPV vaccination for the prevention of most types of cervical cancer. As with all approved vaccines, CDC and FDA will continue to closely monitor the safety of HPV vaccines.”Check out the CDC’s statements about Gardasil  for yourself. And specifically check out the Summary at the end for the CDC’s conclusion about Gardasil’s effectiveness.

Check out the CDC's statements for myself, huh? Why in the world would anyone believe what the CDC, another government agency would have to say about anything?  Would it interest you to know that current and former FDA Commissioners, CDC consultants and executives, and the Surgeon Generals have been or are on the board of directors or have been or are Vice Presidents of the following corporations: Merck, Astra-Zeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Schering-Plough, Searle, AmeriSource, Medco Health Solutions, and there are many more. Also, don't forget the insurance angle as I found these corporations listed with this same bunch: Prudential, Cigna, and Metlife.  I'm just wondering out loud -- in a country of 300 million people why do the same few seem to get these board and VP jobs in addition to influential government jobs, which I put in an area on my map of the FDA/CDC/Surgeon General map that won't cooperate with me today.

In Gardasil, Merck believed that they had a credible, FDA-approved, CDC recommended, fact-backed case for vaccinating young women and lobbied state officials to do so. Were they trying to make money on the drug? Without a doubt, that’s what a business does.
Perry maintains that the justification for his executive order making the shot mandatory was twofold: 1) that the vaccine offered a chance to save lives that might have otherwise been taken away by cervical cancer and, 2) that insurance companies wouldn’t cover the $360 cost of the vaccine ($120 for each of a 3-shot regimen) when it was simply an optional “recommended” vaccine. That put it out of the reach for most low-income Texans. This from the Time Magazine article (linked above), “Some pediatricians and gynecologists are refusing to stock Gardasil because many insurance companies reimburse so little for the vaccine, which costs $360 for the three required doses.”
When Perry mandated Gardasil, it would have become part of a school-related vaccine package which was then covered by insurance for simply the cost of a co-pay.

And there is where Merck gets a whole lot of money because the insurance or Medicaid will cover it.

An update: from Perry’s Speech in New Hampshire at the Home of New Hampshire Deputy Speaker Pam Tucker (8/13/2011):
When a voter in New Hampshire confronted Perry on the Gardasil issue, here’s what he said, “I signed an executive order that allowed for an opt-out, but the fact of the matter is I didn’t do my research well enough to understand that we needed to have a substantial conversation with our citizenry,” he said. “I hate cancer. Let me tell you, as a son who has a mother and father who are both cancer survivors.”Perry said he’d invested governmet resources in cancer cures, adding, “I hate cancer. And this HPV, we were seeing young ladies die at the early age. What we should have done was a program that frankly should have allowed them to opt in, or some type of program like that, but here’s what I learned — when you get too far out in front of the parade they will let you know. And that’s exactly what our legislature did.”A cynic may not buy his explanation, but Obama would never admit to a mistake at all.
Agree or disagree, at least he listened to the people and backed off. 

Um, yeah he only made this statement after announcing his presidential candidacy, in other words, when he absolutely had to.  Yeah, he backed off when the Texas legislature had a veto-proof majority against this thing. What if their majority hadn't been veto-proof? We'll never know, but when he has the coveted job of Federal Reserve Cartel teleprompter reader, he won't have to admit to mistakes either.  Obama never had an executive job like governor to make these types of mistakes, but I can assure you he would say anything to meet his objectives.  I also loves how he turns it around back to his personal hatred of cancer because his parents had cancer. Classic narcissist.

It would seem to me that the author of Peskytruth is not in the same place some of the rest of us are at in regard to the paradigm through which we see the world. He actually is seeing the world as it is advertised in the media with government agencies such as the CDC and FDA actually doing their job in an independent fashion. For those of us who have been following the money and connections between corporations, government and nonprofits, its as clear as day what is going on. We see how collectivists and globalists have used the Hegel's Dialectic to advance themselves forward. We understand that the same coterie keeps cropping up over and over when it comes to legislation and regulations that curtail individual freedom. I'm sure that the author of Peskytruth would see us as wearing tinfoil hats, but by now, I know an Establishment candidate when I see one. The fact still remains that Rick Perry is a Bold Faced Liar.