Texas Governor in battle with Vaccine critics

Gov. Rick Perry angrily defended his embattled order to vaccinate all Texas school girls against the virus that causes cervical cancer, saying it would have been irresponsible to ignore Merck & Co.'s ideas for requiring the shots statewide.

Perry, touring cancer centers around the state to tout his proposal to sell the Texas lottery to a private company to raise money for cancer research, fended off questions about his relationship with Merck, the vaccine's manufacturer, which this week suspended its state-by-state lobbying campaign for laws requiring its Gardasil vaccine.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Perry's chief of staff had met with key aides about the vaccine on Oct. 16, the same day Merck's political action committee donated $5,000 to his campaign.

Perry said critics are getting lost on the campaign contributions, which he said were just a small share of the $24 million he raised and had no effect on his decision.

"When a company comes to me and says we have a cure for cancer, for me not to say, 'Please come into my office and let's hear your story for the people of the state of Texas, for young ladies who are dying of cancer,' would be the height of irresponsibility," Perry said. "Whether or not they contributed to my campaign, I would suggest to you, are some of those weeds that we are trying to cut our way through."

Pressed on when he decided to issue the executive order requiring the vaccination, Perry snapped: "I wish you all would quit splitting hairs, frankly, and get focused on are we going to be working together to find the cure for cancers. No, I can't tell you when."

Perry chief of staff Deirdre Delisi's calendar and other documents obtained by the AP show Perry's office began meeting with Merck lobbyists about the vaccine as early as mid-August, months before social conservatives - who are most outraged by the order - helped re-elect him in November.

Perry spokesman Robert Black said Delisi had asked budget director Mike Morrissey to update her on the cost of providing the newly FDA-approved HPV vaccine free to young women on Medicaid.

"There was no discussion of any kind of mandates," Black said.

Some Republican lawmakers said Thursday they were uncomfortable with the timing.
"It might be a good idea to carefully review those contributions before you start trying to enact different legislation or create executive orders," said state Rep. Linda Harper Brown, R-Irving. "It's really a question of integrity ... whether or not his decisions were based on the contribution."

State Rep. Jodie Laubenberg, R-Rockwall, said Perry's staff failed him. "Whoever's setting up that meeting, they ought to be chewed out, you know, for not looking at everything and saying, 'Now wait a minute, could this cause any questions down the road?" The order the governor issued earlier this month directed the Texas Health and Human Services to adopt rules requiring the shots for girls entering sixth grade as of September 2008. The vaccine protects girls and women against the HPV strains that cause most cases of cervical cancer.

The mandate inflamed conservatives, who say it contradicts Texas' abstinence-only sexual education policies and intrudes into families' lives. They also say the shots are too new and too expensive to force on young girls.

The House public health committee voted 6-to-3 Wednesday to override Perry's order and sent the bill - co-sponsored by nearly two-thirds of state representatives, to the full House. Perry said Thursday he had not yet decided whether to veto the bill if it reaches his desk. "I highly respect the legislative process that we have, and so I would respectfully tell you that we will let it play its way out," he said. "But do you think we would be having the debate today on HPV if I had said, 'Let's pass some legislation?'"

But Brown said that's just what he should have said. "The unfortunate situation in this instance is that the governor was trying to usurp the power of the Legislature and prevent the debate and that's the real issue here," she said.

Critics have previously questioned Perry's ties to Merck. Mike Toomey, Perry's former chief of staff and Delisi's predecessor, now lobbies for the drug company. And the governor accepted a total of $6,000 from Merck during his re-election campaign, including $1,000 in December 2005.

According to Delisi's calendar, she met with Toomey three times in the six months before Perry's order. One meeting happened in August, the same day two other Perry staffers met with a different Merck lobbyist for a "Merck HPV Vaccine update." The other meetings came just after the November election and just before the legislative session began in January.
Black said the November and January meetings involved State Farm Insurance Co. He said the pair have been friends for years and pointed out that Toomey has many clients other than Merck. He also insisted that the governor did not decide to issue the mandate until well after the election.

Merck spokesman Ray Kerins said Thursday the pharmaceutical company was still researching AP's questions about the meetings and the contributions. Delisi and Toomey did not return calls seeking comment.

Merck has waged a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to get state legislatures to require 11- and 12-year-old girls to get the three-dose vaccine as a requirement for school attendance. But it announced Tuesday it was suspending those efforts.

The drug company had mainly funneled money through Women in Government, a bipartisan group of female state lawmakers. Many of the group's members have sponsored legislation in other states that would require the vaccine for schoolgirls
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One member of Women in Government is Texas state Rep. Dianne White Delisi, Deirdre Delisi's mother-in-law. Despite her ties to the group, the elder Delisi has opposed Perry's order and voted for the bill aimed at overriding it.