Rick Perry’s 2007 HPV Vaccine Decision Haunts Him at Debate
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Texas Gov. Rick Perry was hit both on and off the debate stage Monday night with accusations of engaging in “crony capitalism” when he issued a 2007 executive order requiring sixth grade girls receive a vaccine to protect against HPV, which causes cervical cancer.
“I’m a mom and I’m a mom of three children and to have them make 12-year old girls be forced to have a government injection through an executive order is just flat out wrong. That should never be done. That is a violation of a liberty interest,” Rep. Michele Bachmann said.
Bachmann claimed there was a conflict of interest in Perry’s decision to require teenage girls receive the HPV vaccine because his former chief of staff, Mike Toomey, who now runs the pro-Perry SuperPAC “Make Us Great Again,” was a lobbyist for Merck, the drug company which manufactures the HPV vaccine called Gardasil.
“We cannot forget that in the midst of this executive order there was a big drug company that made millions of dollars because of this mandate we can’t deny that. What I’m saying is that it’s wrong for a drug company because the governor’s former chief of staff was the chief lobbyist for this drug company,” Bachmann said. “The drug company gave thousands of dollars in political donations to the governor and this is just flat out wrong. The question is — is it about life or was it about millions of dollars and potentially billions for a drug company.”
Even Sarah Palin, who is still considering a run for the White House, chimed in on Perry’s decision, calling it the perfect example of “crony capitalism” and praised Bachmann for attacking the Texas governor on the issue.
“That’s crony capitalism. That’s part of the problem that we have in this country is that people are afraid even within our own party to call one another out on that,” Palin said on “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.”
“I was governor of Alaska at the time that that issue comes down and I told our Health and Human Services Department Alaska was not going to mandate immunizations for our teenage daughters ,and there had to have been something to that whole issue because it just didn’t sound like Governor Perry,” Palin continued. “Governor Perry was you know the proverbial anti-government type of maverick there in Texas, and yet on this issue he decided that he was going to know better than a parent was going to know in terms of what the health care or health benefit would be for their teenage daughter and so I knew there was something to it.”
On the campaign trail and at tonight’s debate, Perry reiterated his regret for instituting the executive order, which was later repealed by the Texas state legislature, saying he should have engaged the state legislature in the decision making process and argued he only had one goal in mind – preventing cancer.
“At the end of the day this was about trying to stop a cancer and giving the parental option to opt out of that,” Perry said. “You may criticize me about the way I went about it, but at the end of the day, I am always going to err on the side of life and that’s what this was about.”
Perry took issue with Bachmann’s accusation that his decision was spurred by the prospect of cash pouring into his campaign fund from the drug company.
“It was a $5,000 contribution that I had received from them,” Perry said. “I raised about 30 million dollars, and if you’re saying that I can be bought for 5,000, I’m offended.”
“I’m offended for all the little girls and parents who didn’t have a choice,” Bachmann responded.
Perry cited a $5,000 campaign donation from Merck, but according to records from the Merck PAC, Perry has received nearly $30,000 in donations from the drug company over his decade as governor of Texas. The $5,000 Perry referred to was merely the Merck donation from 2006, one year before he established the executive order.
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He made a mistake and admits it, what else do you want from hi m? That’s a lot more than our President will do, he makes a huge mistake with stimulus, bailouts, etc. and just wants to repeat it. Now that’s stupid & haunting.
Posted by: Freedom | September 13, 2011, 12:08 am 12:08 am
So a $5,000 donation from the drug company had easily bought Rick Perry ton sign that executive order…..So cheap !
Posted by: skponggol | September 13, 2011, 12:13 am 12:13 am
Does Bachmann stand by her statement that “there was a big drug company that made millions of dollars because of this mandate?”
According to the ABC news Aug 18th article, “The legislature quickly overturned [the] order, preventing it from being enacted”
Bachmann should realize that since the mandate was never put into action, the drug company never made a dime from it. I wonder how she and Palin would answer the underlying question, “Would you encourage people to get this vaccine before they are likely to contract the disease (spread by sex), or would you prefer people get more cancer instead of the vaccine?”
Just another example of Bachmann insulating herself from reality.
DTC
Posted by: Doug C | September 13, 2011, 4:52 am 4:52 am
When getting health insurance I usually go through “Penny Health” website. The reason for this approach is because I get more personalized service and assistance. Once I went though ehealthinsurance and it offered no customer support.
Posted by: graceporras | September 13, 2011, 7:41 am 7:41 am
re: HPV Virus and Vaccination
I am a mother of a daughter who graduated high school in 2002 when nothing was known to the general public about HPV and there was no vaccine. My daughter went off to college and her first sex partner ever gave her HPV and he did not even know he had it and of course they did not stay together. I cannot begin to tell you how horrible this has been for her and us and I thank God we have medical insurance for her and good doctors. Since 2002 she has had countless surgeries, procedures and has to be examined every 3 months. HPV is a horrible virus and should be taken seriously. I can assure you as a mother of a daughter who was NOT sexually active until she went to college had I known all the facts and info I know now I would have absolutely made sure she had the vaccine as a teenager. I would tell any mother of a daughter or son to make sure you teenagers get this vaccine. It should be made mandatory like all other vaccines because not enough parents/people have taken the time to learn or understand how this can impact young teenagers/adults. My daughter will have to live with this the rest of her life, she will be lucky if her cervix will carry a pregnancy and as soon as she has her children (if possible) she will need to have a hystorectomy to possibly prevent cervical cancer.
Posted by: denver | September 13, 2011, 7:42 am 7:42 am
Not really.
As he said, he made a mistake, the mandate was found to be an overreach of government, and that was that.
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | September 13, 2011, 10:51 am 10:51 am
“Thou who has no sins shall cast the first stone”. There are some stone throwers without any sins or they just do not have gut to admit and face it.
I admire a man who accepted what he did was not to the best interest of the people that he governs.
Unlike Obama, Perry did not waste a trillion dollars with the Stimulus package. Unlike Perry, Oabma has no gut to accept and be accountable for his failure and unlike Perry, Obama did not learn from his failure, he comes back for another Stimulus Brother package of 400 billions . Obama’ s plan is still NO-SHOVEL-READY-JOBS.
Posted by: acdc2012 | September 13, 2011, 12:03 pm 12:03 pm
It’s a non issue as there a an “Opt -out” for Parents to sign to not give their children the vaccine. For liberal news media I will explain this – an “Opt-out” means that they don’t have to give their children the vaccine. This is a non-issue and Gov. Perry should have nothing more to explain about it.
Posted by: Bob | September 13, 2011, 1:34 pm 1:34 pm
Perry’s pledge to never raise taxes had a reckoning this year, when his budget faced a $27-billion shortfall. With taxes not an option, Texas cut deeply into health care and so deeply into education, some 49,000 teachers are being fired.
Posted by: John | September 13, 2011, 3:29 pm 3:29 pm
Rick Perry’s failures
Office of the Texas Comptroller
2nd Teen Birth Rate
1st Toxic and Cancerous Manufacturing Emissions
1st Percentage of Uninsured Children
1st Number of Executions
1st Number of Gun Shows
2nd Rate of Incarceration
5th Total Crime Rate
1st Number of Registered Machine Guns
7th Poverty Rate2nd Percentage of Population that Goes Hungry
3rd Percentage of Population that Is Malnourished
45th Per Capita Spending on Public Health
46th Mental Health
49th Water Quality
50th High School Graduation Rates
46th Average Hourly Rate
43rd Income Distribution Inequality
Republicans answer to Unemployment – Lower Minimum Wages.
Posted by: John | September 13, 2011, 3:30 pm 3:30 pm
Texas faces a projected $25 billion deficit in 16 months (2013). Last week Rick Perry applied for FEMA support for the forest fires 3.5 million acres. Rick Perry had to use $14 billion from the federal government to balance the budget. Don’t let this tea party screwball fool you.
Posted by: John | September 13, 2011, 3:34 pm 3:34 pm
Perry had the dumbest smirk on his face when this issue was brought up, lol! He was feeling real crunchy.
Posted by: justayreal74 | September 13, 2011, 4:31 pm 4:31 pm
@ACDC2012…it was a Republican debate, the only ones that were throwing stones were “REPUBLICANS”.
Posted by: justayreal74 | September 13, 2011, 4:33 pm 4:33 pm
Freedom, When it comes to Presidents who make stupid mistakes and refuse to ever admit to any, Obama is not the first to come to mind. Bush made a career of it. I suppose you were complaining after Bush’s bailout? No way. And if Obama had NOT done the bailouts and stimulus, you’d be the first to criticize him for letting financial institutions collapse. “Duh…Obama bad.” Repeat every day no matter what he does.
Posted by: Pat | September 15, 2011, 3:23 pm 3:23 pm
Medicine is a topic inseparable from “witch doctoring” in many fundamentalists view. Health is the sign of blessing and endorsement by God and prayer is the only answer to illness. Medicine and witchery is all evil meddling in dark murky (not easily understood) forces. Others panic at misfortune and suddenly need someone and something to blame for anything wrong in their lives – particularly to sue and feel they got something basic from the dark evil forces out to get them and their loved ones. And they laugh at folk who confine such plots and entertainment to Star Wars.
Perry was overpaid. Everyone knows a US Congressman can be bought for the price of lunch on any issue no matter how dangerous. For $30K you should be able to bribe every world leader and get world peace for a month. OK I think $30K spread over years is a wee bit cheap for an issue Perry had to know would be a least controversial.
I think his mistake to which he admits is that he did not realize how controversial nor how many nuts Texas has to bring out of the woodwork on such an issue. Quite the time waster topic for a future Presidential candidate and for such small gain (there are hundreds of unconquered diseases that kill).
Is it too late for Perry to agree that kids aren’t human until they can vote and thus parents should free to decide their fate until that time free of any criminal charge of negligence or even murder?
On the other hand this is a readily communicable disease and thus a PUBLIC Epidemic issue regardless of hoped for moral behaviors. True the primary purpose of this drug is NOT eradication but reduction in impact if caught. Nevertheless some reduction in public spread is included so it is a public choice and not just a personal matter. But better dead than privacy of fundamentalist religious practice interfered with right? – just as some argue maybe we should accept terrorism as merely the ultimate embrace of religious freedom.
Posted by: well-duh | September 17, 2011, 2:43 am 2:43 am
Aged information…although not poor submit. :)
Posted by: iPhone 5 News | October 4, 2011, 12:13 pm 12:13 pm