An article in the Sunday, February 11 edition of the Washington Post says that 17 states may now be poised to mandate and legislate law that would require all girls, some as young as sixth graders, to receive the human papillomavirus vaccine. HPV has been connected to certain forms of cervical cancer, but what gives me cause for alarm is the way that pharmaceutical giant Merck is pushing federal and state lawmakers to enact such mandatory vaccinations, and I’m very concerned at the way the Gardasil vaccine seems to have been pushed thru the FDA approval process.

Some of us are old enough to remember the smallpox vaccines we received as children, we still bear the scars on our upper arms where the gun was placed against our skin and we were injected with the vaccine, and still others might remember receiving the oral polio vaccination in school, often administered by the school nurse in neat little plastic vials. I also remember being screened for scoliosis. The girls all lined up on one side of the room behind a curtain away from the boys and we had to take our shirts off, bend over, and have our spines checked for any abnormalities; so using the public school system to administer public health treatments isn’t anything new, but that was then, and this is now, and what concerns me is the profit motive.

According to WaPo:

Merck, which posted revenues of $22.6 billion last year, stands to earn hundreds of millions of dollars annually on Gardasil, according to Wall Street estimates. And the public, research shows, stands to reap the benefits of the first vaccine against cancer. It is one of those moments in the public discourse, say several advocates for the mandatory vaccine, in which the interests of a deep-pocketed private company converge with the public good.

I don’t mean to suggest that Merck shouldn’t make money on such a vaccine, but I begin to take notice when the state is assisting in those profits by making the vaccine mandatory. Do we really know enough about Gardasil? I’m all for anything which could help prevent cervical cancer, or any kind of cancer women are at risk for, but perhaps this is moving too fast.

Also according to WaPo:

In Texas, Gov. Rick Perry (R) was criticized last week for issuing an executive order that made his state the first to mandate the vaccine for sixth-grade girls. Perry has also been accused of being influenced by his former chief of staff, Mike Toomey, who is now a lobbyist for Merck.

Unfortunately in our world today we have to question the motives of everything. Gone are the days where we can trust that our government has our best interests at heart, and when it comes to women’s health, this is a subject I’m quite passionate about.

Prior to my database crash, I wrote a post about discovering a condom in my son’s wallet, and at the time, I also wrote some things about HPV and the Gardasil vaccine. From that post:

Which brings us to the next example of scary marketing executives preying on our sexuality to try and make a buck, HPV. I’m sure many of you have seen the Tell Someone commercial which is about telling a woman you know to go get herself checked by her ob/gyn for HPV, which is a virus that can cause certain types of cervical cancer. All good and important information, except that the commercial is produced by pharmaceutical giant Merck, which also makes, coincidentally, the HPV vaccine.

HPV is scary and every one of us should get checked and we absolutely should talk to our ob/gyn about getting the vaccine, but am I just being too cynical about all this or is this just healthy skepticism?

I’m all for getting information out there, especially as it relates to our health/sexual health issues. It’s something I’m deeply passionate about, and as any of my girlfriends will attest, I’ve nagged them all to go get checked, but if my nagging helps save a life, I’ll nag them all day long, and all of you too, but I really hate being a shill for an evil drug company, and I hate that they use scare tactics like this and that they make clever commercials at the expense of our health.

I’m still all for getting information out there, but I think we need to ask more questions before we accept mandatory vaccinations of our daughters.