HPV vaccine...Forcefully coming to a 11 year old near you

Well, as part of my long standing rant about the politics surrounding the HPV vaccine Gardasil.

BTW: Doesn't that name sound kind of like super sperm killing douche? The ad would read:" Use Gardasil to remove every last trace of him..."

So Merck has now managed to get bills put together in 20 states (that is 2/5 of all of the states in America) to require mandatory vaccination of 11 and/or 12 year old girls or the girls will not be promoted to the next (7th) grade.

The first state that has put this through? (By executive order - I do hope the ACLU is busy filing a motion). The Lone Star State!

Some interesting things to consider:
1) HPV is a little different than measles or mumps or any of the other illnesses that we have childhood vaccincations - cervical infection with HPV requires a "delivery agent".
2) The vaccine is under a tight patent schedule - Merck needs to recoup its "losses" during development - and are you ready for this, the vaccine costs $360 bucks for a total of three shots over 6 months. Yes, children - the vaccine "costs" $360 bucks.
3) The mandatory vaccincation bills are written with an "opt out" clause which is different for every state (and some states, like Florida, have no opt out clause). This clause is written to get around the vaccine-haters.
4) There are no plans, as of yet, to vaccinate boys. You might be wondering why, since they are the "delivery agent" - Merck doesn't have vaccination of boys approved by the FDA, yet. Look for that revenue stream to start up when the current clinical trials end.
5) Merck has no plans to distribute the vaccine to the developing world. In America, cervical cancer represents less than 1% of the total cancers (by occurrence) each year. In many areas of the developing world, cervical cancer is number two or three in terms of occurrence.
6) Merck is busily bribing every lawmaker using lobbyists as front organizations to quickly write this legislation into law. Note that Smith Kline Beecham also has an HPV vaccine - but it is still in development, so Merck can have the market to itself.

I find it a bit troubling that this story is sliding by in the press. With Anna Nicole Smith dying, things are going to be in a bit of an uproar for the next few days - and I am sure some other pressing pop-culture event will be bubbling up next week as well.

But I really find it troubling that this vaccination, at an extremely high price, is being forced onto people without proper and thorough consideration at the state level of the financial impacts. And who will pick up the tab for this little $360 dollar gift? You got it - you and me and the rest of the tax payers. And who will the largesse go to in the short term? Again you guessed it, the very well-to-do.

So the tax payers are being whored by their own representatives at the state level to provide a steady revenue stream for Merck (using the long arm of the law) so it won't become a take-over target (this quarter) on Wall Street.