The uproar caused by Texas Governor Rick Perry’s Executive Order mandating the HPV vaccine (Gardasil) for 6th grade girls caused the drug manufacturer Merck to announce it will no longer lobby states to make the vaccine mandatory for school attendance.
In Virginia, the bill to order the mandatory vaccination of young girls passed the State Senate unanimously. One must wonder whether the members of the General assembly who voted for the HPV Vaccine legislation should be willing to have their wives and daughters take this untested drug, first.
Merck has made modest donations to Virginia politicians over the years. In 2006, Merck directly donated only about $13,150. Their donations were split 2:1 in favor of Republicans; for an itemized list of Merck’s 2006 donations, click here. In the last 10 years Merck has made 323 donations totaling $196,859 (click here).
What’s more interesting, however, are the registered lobbyists that represent Merck in Virginia. Merck lists the following registered lobbyists:
Nolen, Christopher R
Finnegan, Kevin M
Pratt, Mark C
Jones, Reginald N
Lombard, Joy M
Bowen, Sandra D
Each one of these individuals, with the exception of Kevin M Finnegan who shows a Bethesda, MD address and may be a direct Merck employee as his email address is given as kevin_finnegan@merck.com, is affiliated with Williams Mullen Strategies, PO Box 1320, Richmond VA 23218.
And this is where it gets interesting, because Williams Mullen is listed in VPAP.org as representing numerous clients before the General Assembly. He is shown having donated $95,186 in 2006 and $781,412 over the last ten years. Unfortunately, there is no itemization of the donations by client, but presumably a significant amount came from Merck. (The individual lobbyists registered as representing Merck have made minor contributions over the years, by comparison.)
In a nutshell one could surmise that Merck created a demand for an unproven–and in all likelihood unneeded–vaccine, lobbied the legislators, and after making some significant contributions to the war-chests of several state politicians, got a bill that pretty much guarantees a market for their drug. Now that’s doing business the American way!
One must also wonder how pro-life legislators will explain this vote to their constituents back home.
