Article: Merck Can't Get Its Way, But For How Long?

I'm skeptical.

The pharmaceutical giant Merck said it has withdrawn its lobbying efforts to make its cervical cancer vaccine manditory for young girls, due to numerous objections from a few zealous parents who oppose it.

Claiming that their lobbying has fired up objecions across the county, and that those objections could undermine acceptance of the vaccine sounds like a extremely lame excuse.

Merck's lobbying is questionable and on a par with insider trading, because their campaign began even before the vaccine received FDA approval. So convinced was Texas Gov. Rick Perry that he signed an executive order requiring schoolgirls to be vaccinated.

While Perry might have already signed an executive order, another twenty states have taken the same type of legislation under advisement. States can legislate until their pens run dry, but they can't force anyone to accept medical treatment of any kind regardless of the reason, therefore making objections moot.

Statement by Dr. Richard M. Haupt, executive director of medical affairs, Merck Vaccine Division, that Merck's vaccination campaign was "counterproductive" at this time is highly suspicious.

"They (Merck) believe the timing for the school requirements is not right. Our goal is to prevent cervical cancer. Our goal is to reach as many females as possible. Right now, school requirements and Merck's involvement in that are being viewed as a distraction to that goal," Haupt said.

Of course, he didn't say anything like Merck & Company, Inc. is doing something creative like say -- designing the vaccine for women of all ages. That alone could shut up the moralistic nuts who think that -- like dispensing condoms in schools -- giving their young daughters the vaccine is a free pass to having teenage sex. For those who wait until they're eighteen to have sex, they can also wait to get the vaccine if there were one that worked at any age.

The only answer to Merck withdrawing their lobbying efforts has to be that somehow objections to manditory innoculations as a requirement for fifth grade girls matriculating to the sixth grade had a negative effect on Merck's bottom line.

Since when did pharmaceutical companies get a conscience and care in the least about public opinion unless it hurts them in their big pockets?

The pharmaceutical companies don't give a damn that the public is insensed by being held hostage to their outrageously high prices, while foreign governments buy those exact same drugs at a fraction of the gouging-Americans prices.

The reason they sell their drugs to foreign countries at a much reduced price is because those countries refuse to be extorted into paying higher prices, and we make up the difference.

They could have cared less about public outrage when we found out they strong-armed Congress into allowing them to write the disasterous prescription drug bill.

The pharmaceutical companies are so full of it when the stare at us through gleaming dark brown eyes from their posh boardroom and say they care about us and our health while thousands of Americans are choosing between pills or pot roast; medicine or mortgage; drugs or a dessert treat; medication or mechanic; pills or a plush toy for baby.

They certainly didn't give a rat's ass about the public when they knowingly unleashed critically unsafe drugs on an unsuspecting public. They'd still be selling Vioxx if a few people hadn't "inconviently" died.

Anything Merck or any other drug company says should taken with a healthy dose of skeptcism.