Merck Suspends Lobbying for Vaccine Mandates

Merck & Co. is immediately suspending its lobbying efforts for state legislatures to make the Gardasil STD vaccine a requirement for school attendance.

It's good to see Merck responding to public opinion in this way.

Texas Governor Rick Perry, who may have seriously damaged his standing with conservatives due to his unilateral mandate that girls receive the vaccination in order to attend school, continues to defend his decision. He says he believes "with all his heart" he made the right decision and he doesn't understand "why we as a people would not take this opportunity to use this vaccine ... to the benefit of our children."

Because, Governor Perry, you're not running a dictatorship, and you don't get to tell parents how to raise their children. It's one thing to offer the vaccine to the children of consenting parents who "opt in," another thing entirely to require their children to use it or sign papers "opting out."

Vaccinations for diseases which can be easily transmitted in the classroom are a reasonable requirement for attending school. But if we allow Governor Perry and others to decide for parents what must be done to "protect life" -- one of the Governor's defenses -- parents will eventually find the state making other medical decisions for children (this is already an issue in some areas vis-a-vis birth control), mandating what they may or may not eat, and who knows what else.

I have previously related my own experience pushing for parental consent before our local school conducted medical examinations for scoliosis. Once again, the cause may be noble, "for the children," but the state's attempt to usurp parenting, rather than actively working to partner with informed and consenting parents, is never appropriate.

I believe this is a very, very significant issue in terms of our society's relentless creep into Nanny State-ism. The time to insist on freedom is now.

Update: According to an article in The Washington Times, it's statistically useless to vaccinate 11- to 13-year-old girls, as the vaccine may "wear off" within five years, and most women don't contract the cancer-causing STD it protects against until they're in their 30s. "Requiring Gardasil for sixth-grade girls, as nearly all the legislation does, would not prevent the overwhelming majority of cervical cancer cases in the U.S."

This article is highly informative and certainly causes one to wonder why so many people are in such a rush to order young schoolgirls to have this vaccination. In the case of Texas, Governor Perry's former chief of staff acting as Merck's lobbyist may be one answer. Follow the money?