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By Herb Newborg

Vaccine Manufacturers Seek to Take Parental Consent Out of the Equation
As parents wake up to the dangers of childhood vaccines, the drug companies are devising novel methods of taking the parent out of the equation.

As parents wake up to the dangers of childhood vaccines, the drug companies are devising novel methods of taking the parent out of the equation. Two bills working their way through the New York State legislature would have mandated that schoolchildren receive a human papillomavirus vaccine, even without a parent's consent.

The bills don't specify the vaccine New York's children would receive. It also doesn't specify "girls". It's included in a long list of vaccines required for all children, presumably boys included.

Merck makes the HPV vaccine Gardasil, which recently was approved for marketing to boys in addition to girls. And GlaxoSmithKline recently got the FDA nod for its version of an HPV shot, Cervarix.

Plenty of parents won't like the idea of their children being vaccinated without their consent or even knowledge, as one bill specifies. But advocates say that requiring parental consent also requires teens to tell their parents they want an HPV vaccine, which could translate into teens forgoing the shot.

The Senate bill eliminating the need for parental consent appears to be on hold for now as language in the bill is being clarified and no other legislative action is currently under way, according to an email from New York State Senator Eric Schneiderman to Diane Harper, a clinical investigator at the Dartmouth Medical School who was a researcher for Merck’s Gardasil vaccine and has called for more complete warnings for parents.

Harper had stated previously: “Giving it to 11-year-olds is a great big public health experiment. 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… an important point is that, if women get the vaccine and then not get their Pap smears, or decide to get them infrequently, what will happen in the U.S. is that we will have an increase in cervical cancer, because the Pap screening does a very good job. That’s my main diatribe. We don’t need mandatory vaccinations for little girls. What we do need to ask, though, is how long does it last, and when do you need a booster?…To mandate now is simply to Merck’s benefit, and only to Merck’s benefit.”

The disclosure concerning the bill comes after controversy over the initiative, which would dovetail with a separate assembly bill requiring HPV vaccinations before children would be allowed to attend school. The overall effort drew protest in light of the ongoing debate over the safety and long-term effectiveness of Gardasil, as well as whether HPV vaccines may constitute a green light to teenage sex.

In a note to Schneiderman, Harper called the legislation “a silly idea,” and argued teenagers don’t have the “developmental maturity to make life-balancing decisions,” such as seeking HPV vaccination. “The decision to vaccinate must come from an informed decision that balances the benefits and risks of vaccination and Pap screening. Most adolescents will involve an adult (usually a parent) in this discussion. For many reasons, medical and ethical, it is not appropriate to have a school nurse give vaccinations without the parents’ explicit approval.”

That debate over mandating the HPV vaccine as a requirement for school attendance erupted into a political battle three years ago in Texas when Gov. Rick Perry signed an executive order making vaccination mandatory. Facing a firestorm of opposition, Perry saw the Legislature override his order.

The sponsor of the senate bill in New York, Liz Krueger, is a member of Women in Government, a Merck funded non-profit whose members include state legislators who are encouraged to introduce bills mandating its HPV vaccine. Texas Gov. Rick Perry's office also had strong ties to Women in Government which has been characterized as " Merck's non-profit front and direct channel to state-level legislators who are the key to enacting mandates" in this 2007 Center for Media and Democracy report.

Had the bill been enacted, in addition to the school mandates, it may have opened the door for campaigns such as the current campaign in the UK.

Just like enticing kids to consume sugar laden cereal with a prize in the box or including a toy in a Happy Meal devoid of any nutritional value, teenage girls as young as 16 in the UK are being "rewarded" with shopping vouchers worth around $70 for taking the full course of 3 vaccine doses. Parental consent is not required.