Governor needled for his order to require anti-cancer drug for schoolchildren
- Feb 6, 2007 - 7
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You would think the announcement of the first vaccine designed to prevent a deadly form of cancer would be welcome news, but the announcement that a Merck & Company drug that targets a sexually transmitted disease is being required for Texas schoolchildren is receiving mixed reviews.
Texas governor Rick Perry bypassed the state’s legislature in issuing an executive order February 2 that requires elementary school-age girls to receive the Gardasil vaccine.
The action rankled many who believe the requirement tramples parents’ rights and might just encourage premarital sex.
The governor took a step that should have been taken by the people’s elected representatives, the legislature, said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
“I’m shocked that Rick Perry would do this, and without the approval of the state’s legislature,” Land said February 3 during his weekly Richard Land Live! program. Perry, a conservative Christian, opposes abortion and embryonic stem cell research.
Effective with the start of the 2008-2009 school year in Texas, girls entering the sixth grade will be required to receive Gardasil, a vaccine produced by Merck & Company and approved by the Federal Drug Administration on June 8, 2006. The vaccine protects patients from certain strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV), the most common sexually transmitted disease. Some strains of HPV can cause cervical cancer.
Would you have your child receive this vaccine? Why or why not?
Texas currently requires students to receive inoculations for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella, Hepatitis A, and Hepatitis B.
Like most states, Texas allows parents to opt out of the requirement to have their daughter vaccinated with the anti-HPV drug, or any other inoculation, if they have religious or philosophical objections.
Land indicated it was a difficult issue. “While I certainly disapprove of premarital sex, and I don’t want the government to do anything that would encourage that kind of behavior, I don’t want premarital sexual intercourse to be a death sentence,” he said.
“Providing the HPV vaccine doesn’t promote sexual promiscuity anymore than providing the Hepatitis B vaccine promotes drug use,” the Texas governor said in a February 5 statement reported by the Dallas Morning News. “If the medical community developed a vaccine for lung cancer, would the same critics oppose it claiming it would encourage smoking?”
The American Cancer Society estimates that nearly 10,000 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2006; approximately 4,000 died from the disease in the same year. HPV is also a suspect in invasive oral cancers.
Land admitted he and his wife would have to seriously ponder the advisability of allowing their daughters to receive the vaccine if they were younger.
“If my daughter makes a wrong decision, if I can somehow protect her from that becoming a death sentence, then I would sit down with my wife and talk about it,” he said. Yet Land continued, ages 11-12 seem “awfully young” to be taking this vaccine.
Land wondered aloud if children in Texas will be able to get the vaccine without their parents’ knowledge. He expressed concern over anything that comes between children and their parents.
“The idea that a governor is going to require this for a whole state even with a parental opt-out seems to me to seriously endanger the parent-child bond,” said Land, calling the governor’s order an “unwarranted intrusion by the governor into a role parents should play in these choices.”
He said he would be more comfortable with the governor’s decision if the vaccinations were offered free with parental involvement.
Tell us what you think about this mandate by the governor.
A spokesman for Concerned Women for America said Perry’s decision “forces little girls to be shot with a sex virus vaccine” and is an “outrageous assault on girls and their parents.”
At least eighteen states are considering legislation to require the Gardasil vaccine for school-age girls. Michigan rejected similar legislation in January. The typical cost for the three-shot series is $360.
The governor insisted the program is no different than the massive federal government campaign that provided inoculations against polio for all schoolchildren in the 1950s and 1960s.
“I look at this no different than vaccinating our children for polio,” Perry said, according to news reports. “If there are diseases in our society that are going to cost us large amounts of money, it just makes good economic sense, not to mention the health and well-being of these individuals, to have those vaccines available.”
The governor’s action has prompted some to question if he was listening to special interests and not the state’s citizenry.
According to a Chicago Tribune report, pharmaceutical company Merck is pouring large amounts of cash into a nationwide effort to convince state legislatures to include Gardasil as one of the many vaccinations schoolchildren must have. The newspaper notes that one of Merck’s lobbyists in Texas is the governor’s former chief of staff.
“This has a certain odor to it that is not pleasant,” Land said.
The governor’s press secretary suggested that while the governor was not bowing to pressure from Merck, he probably felt some pressure from the state’s First Lady, Anita Perry, who the Dallas Morning News said was a nurse and a “robust spokeswoman for women’s health issues.”
Several Republican lawmakers in Texas planned to file legislation overruling the governor’s order; one legislator said she planned to ask the state’s attorney general if Perry’s decision was legal.
Merck’s name has been in the news for uncertainty surrounding some of its products. The company voluntarily recalled its arthritis medication Vioxx after widespread reports of patients suffering serious heart problems while taking the drug. Concerns also are being raised over Merck’s medication Fosamox, designed to treat osteoporosis and other bone diseases.
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Related News
- Doctors say Perry’s vaccine mandate for girls is premature – Houston Chronicle
- TX governor orders HPV vaccine for schoolgirls – Chicago Tribune
- TX First State to Require HPV Vaccine – Associated Content
- Merck Lobbies For HPV Vaccine Law – Fox News
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