NC SB 260 Update- HPV Vaccine Researcher Blasts Marketing

NC lawmakers haven't learned from the Vioxx debacle. They have introduced legislation that will lend a great big helping hand to the Merck Pharma giant and encourage parents to let their children be used as guinea pigs.

I'm talking about Senate Bill 260, which is heading for the Senate floor soon. This bill will require schools to more or less advertise the Merck Gardasil vaccine for free, plus tell parents that this vaccine is appropriate for girls as young as 9.

While NC lawmakers fall for Merck's talking points, a lead researcher for the HPV vaccine cries foul:

Researcher blasts HPV marketing BY CINDY BEVINGTON
Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Diane M. Harper, a lead researcher in the development of the humanpapilloma virus vaccine, says giving the drug to 11-year-old girls "is a great big public health experiment."

LEBANON, N.H. - A lead researcher who spent 20 years developing the vaccine for humanpapilloma virus says the HPV vaccine is not for younger girls, and that it is "silly" for states to be mandating it for them.

Not only that, she says it's not been tested for effectiveness in younger girls, and administering the vaccine to girls as young as 9 may not even protect them at all. And, in the worst-case scenario, instead of serving to reduce the numbers of cervical cancers within 25 years, such a vaccination crusade actually could cause the numbers to go up.

"Giving it to 11-year-olds is a great big public health experiment," said Diane M. Harper, who is a scientist, physician, professor and the director of the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Research Group at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth Medical School in New Hampshire.

"It is silly to mandate vaccination of 11- to 12-year-old girls. There also is not enough evidence gathered on side effects to know that safety is not an issue."

This is pertinent given that North Carolina Senate Bill 260 that will serve as massive free advertisement and serve as endorsement of Merck's new genital wart vaccine, Gardasil.

The bill says

"Local boards of education shall ensure that schools provide parents and guardians with information about cervical cancer, cervical dysplasia, human papillomavirus, and the vaccines available to prevent these diseases. This information shall be provided at the beginning of the school year to parents of children entering grades five through 12.."

Given the shadow of corruption, of the culture of pay to play, that still darkens the image of the NCGA, this is not a good time to kowtow to a massive lobbying effort by a bloated and blatantly cynical corporation.

Nor is it responsible for state legislators to rely on the authority of the FDA, which, like FEMA and other government agencies, has been purged by the Bush administration and placed under the management of political loyalists with poor qualifications.

David Graham, the Vioxx whistle blower, in Congressional testimony last month has said that nothing has changed at the FDA.

HPV Mandates rejected by lawmakers in other states

The state of Georgia has discarded its GOP sponsored bill to mandate the Gardasil vaccine.

California Assembly member Ed Hernandez (D) on Tuesday withdrew consideration of a bill (AB 16) that would require all California girls entering the seventh grade to receive an HPV vaccine..
The measure was originally authored by Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore Sally Lieber (D), but she dropped the legislation because her family owned Merck stock.

Colorado just killed its bill to force education about the vaccine.

If NC Lawmakers are so serious about protecting girls from cervical cancer, or any sexually transmitted diseases, then let the state mandate education on safe sex beginning in the 5th grade,and additionally mandate annual pap smears (when the girls are old enough to have them).

The General Assembly should not aid and abet Merck in their billion dollar boon-doggle.