How kind of Merck.

They've been kind enough "stop its nationwide lobbying for states to require that young girls be immunized against a virus that causes cervical cancer."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...AR2007022001335.html

I guess this says it all.

the mandate is a form of force,,it should be up to the parents and the teen not the govenrment or pharma to decide what is best for said child..

They hope to prevent 7000 cases of cancer by giving this series of 3 shots to how many girls?

On the premise that the youth of American are putting off child bearing until the 30's or later, how long will it be before we find that these shots may have altered these girl's ability to mother a healthy child?

What do we do after 20 years of these shots being given to every female in the country?

It may be a breakthrough, it may be a time bomb.

I am glad I do not have a daughter.

The only reason they felt the pressure to stop lobbying for the vaccine (and not for smoking bans) is that two powerful groups opposed it: Religious conservatives, who are afraid the vaccine will encourage young girls to have sex - and the anti-vaccine crowd, who are mostly educated, affluent liberals. If only we had such groups going to bat for us against big pharma...

I wonder what the governor of Texas is going to do now that Merck has backed off...will he rescind his executive order?

"State Sen. Janet D. Howell (D-Fairfax), who pushed for the bill, said she is comfortable with the public health benefits of mandating Gardasil."

Just where does it end?

How many mandated vaccines are there already and what if pharmaceutical companies comes up with a couple hundred different ones for many of the different risk factors for heart disease?

Then there are all the other diseases known to man. And what about something like poison ivy or acne?

I wonder how many vaccines this bitch would be comfortable with mandating?

Odd.

All of your posts are fine, but the central point that I thought all of you would immediately catch on to was missed.

My apologies. I should have just stated my point outright.

The issue I was trying to point out is that Big Pharma has, pretty much, just admitted that it calls the shots as to what is going to be on or off the public health agenda.

Why should Merck's lobbying have any relevance in the debate if our lawmakers want to fulfill the duty they were elected to perform?

Aren't they capable of endorsing or condemning legislation on its merits?

It seems very obvious that Big Pharma went to lawmakers and told the lawmakers "Hey! We've got an idea! Make the case that HPV Vaccine should be mandatory! That will make us gazillions!"

I'll also invite all of you to look at who is paying for most of the advertising on your nightly news. It's all pharmaceutical ads.

Government and the media are largely employees of Big Pharma.

Last year, our federal government paid out 10 Billion for Big Pharma to produce a Bird Flu vaccine. The Bird Flu that The Nightly News touted to the public for months. The same Nightly News that gets its advertising revenues from Big Pharma.

And what ever happened to the bird flu anyway? It was, as you say, touted for months on end as the new disaster, and the media had a feeding frenzy. Then-poof!-nothing.

I paid close attention to the Bird Flu during the frenzy because I knew it was all a charade and I wanted to see when it would die down.

It died down shortly after Big Pharma got its 10 billion. It's still in the news, but not to the extent it was weeks ago. They keep it alive so they can bring it up again and cash in again. New strains, etc.

I actually had the pleasure of reporting Bird Flu progress to my co-workers as the frenzy progressed to its eventual sunset. It was fun watching them go from saying "Yeah, I'm really afraid! That bird flu is really scary" to saying "Bah! What a scam!"

quote:

Originally posted by WinstonSmith:
Odd.

All of your posts are fine, but the central point that I thought all of you would immediately catch on to was missed.

My apologies. I should have just stated my point outright.

No. I'm sure it was obvious to all. That's why we went off on tangents. LOL

I think it came out with the Texas mandate story that the governor was in cahoots with the pharma company.