February 22, 2007

Three Dozen Lawmakers Spurn Vaccine
Maker after Taking Donations from PAC

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

Texans searching for potential motivation behind Governor Rick Perry's executive order on the HPV vaccine have pointed to the campaign cash that he accepted last year from the political action committee for the drug manufacturer that would be in position to reap a windfall if the mandate is ever carried out. But if Merck and Co. hoped to generate support for a mandatory immunization program with political donations, the money it gave to state lawmakers would be considered a waste.

While the Merck PAC donated $5,000 to Perry last year, the pharmaceutical firm's political committee contributed almost $18,000 to three dozen Texas legislators who are now co-sponsoring legislation to rescind the order that requires girls in Texas to receive the Gardisil vaccine before they begin the sixth grade.

Thirty-two House members and three state senators who took contributions from the Merck PAC in 2006 are listed as co-sponsors on legislation designed to nullify the vaccine mandate. Republican State Senator Glenn Hegar - the first lawmaker to file legislation opposing the mandatory vaccine - also received money from the Merck PAC last year.

Hegar's bill is identical to a measure that the House Public Health Committee endorsed Wednesday night in a 6-3 vote split mostly along party lines. Seven out of nine House members on the committee received political money from the Merck PAC including some who cast votes against HB 1098 by Republican State Rep. Dennis Bonnen of Angleton.and others who voted to send the measure to the House floor via the Calendars Committee.

Bonnen's bill to repeal the Perry vaccine order has 90 co-sponsors including 14 House Democrats. All but four of the House's 81 Republican members have signed on to help Bonnen push the legislation through the lower chamber. Fourteen out of the 19 state Senate Republicans in Texas are co-sponsoring SB 438 by Hegar. The list of House co-sponsors who received campaign money from Merck's PAC last year has 30 Republicans and two Democrats. House members who are co-sponsoring the bill to put an early end to the HPV vaccine mandate received a total of $13,750 in 2006 from the Merck PAC, according to Texas Ethics Commission records.

The drug company's PAC contributed to an additional 13 House members who have not put their names on the bill that takes aim at the Perry vaccination plan. Most of those are Democrats who believe the program that the governor ordered is necessary to protect girls in the state from cervical cancer, which can be caused by the human papillomavirus that the Gardisil vaccine is supposed to help eliminate.

Four legislators from the east wing of the Capitol - State Senators Kip Averitt of Waco, Kyle Janek of Houston, Jeff Wentworth of San Antonio and Hegar - accepted $1,000 each from the Merck PAC in 2006 and are co-sponsoring the measure to pull the plug on the mandatory vaccinations that Perry decreed. Eight additional state Senate members who received campaign funding from Merck's PAC last year either agree with Perry that the vaccine is needed to confront a serious health threat or have left their names off the Keffer bill for other reasons.

The Merck PAC gave most House members contributions of $250 and $500 while senators received $1,000 apiece. House Speaker Tom Craddick and Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst both had contributions of $2,500 from Merck last year while Perry received twice that amount. The governor has accepted a total of $21,000 from the Merck PAC in the past five years.

But the $5,000 that Perry received in 2006 has drawn more scrutiny up to this point than all of the other contributions that the Merck PAC made to candidates up and down the ballot last year. The Associated Press - as an example - reported Wednesday that Perry's staff at the Capitol had discussed the vaccine the same day that he received the Merck PAC money four months ago. The governor's office says the timing was only a coincidence.

As a consequence of the backlash in Texas, Merck announced earlier this week that it was suspending an aggressive lobby campaign that it had been waging in this state and others in support of mandatory HPV vaccines. In addition to the focus on campaign contributions, Perry has come under fire from conservatives and others opposed to the HPV mandate amid reports that his previous chief of staff is one of Merck's lobbyists in Austin.

Here are the lawmakers who are co-sponsoring legislation to cancel the executive order for mandatory HPV injections after taking campaign contributions from the Merck PAC in 2006:

Texas House

John Zerwas $500

Bill Callegari $250

Betty Brown $500

Larry Taylor $500

Phil King $250

John Davis $1,000

Carl Isett $500

Charlie Geren $500

Aaron Pena $250

Geanie Morrison $500

Jim Jackson $250

Corbin Van Arsdale $250

Leo Berman $250

David Swinford $500

Kirk England $250

Dan Flynn $250

Beverly Woolley $500

Susan King $250

Lois Kolkhorst $500

Line Harper-Brown $500

Jim Pitts $1,000

Bill Zedler $500

Larry Phillips $250

Vicki Truitt $500

Brian McCall $500

Kevin Bailey $250

Jim Murphy $250

Myra Crownover $250

Dan Branch $500

Rob Orr $250

Dianne Delisi $1,000

Joe Crabb $250

(Note: HB 1098 lead sponsor Dennis Bonnen received $500 from the Merck PAC in 2002)

Texas Senate

Jeff Wentworth $1,000

Glenn Hegar $1,000

Kip Averitt $1,000

Kyle Janek $1,000