A Stitch in Haste

Texas governor Rick Perry has mandated compulsory vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV) among prepubescent girls:

By issuing an executive order, Perry apparently sidesteps opposition in the Legislature from conservatives and parents' rights groups who fear such a requirement would condone premarital sex and interfere with the way parents raise their children.

Beginning in September 2008, girls entering the sixth grade — meaning, generally, girls ages 11 and 12 — will have to get Gardasil, Merck & Co.'s new vaccine against strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV.
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"The HPV vaccine provides us with an incredible opportunity to effectively target and prevent cervical cancer," Perry said in announcing the order.

"If there are diseases in our society that are going to cost us large amounts of money, it just makes good economic sense, not to mention the health and well-being of these individuals to have those vaccines available," he said.

This is, of course, utter nonsense.

There is a very simple distinction between HPV / cervical cancer and the traditional childhood diseases such as measles, mumps or polio that we target for universal mandatory vaccination — HPV is not casually contagious; neither is cervical cancer.

Or, in the language of economists, there are objectively identifiable, and substantial, positive externalities to universal vaccination against traditional childhood diseases. No such externalities exist in the case of HPV and cervical cancer.

(Incidentally, the connection between HPV and cervical cancer is itself barely measurable. Furthermore, HPV infection is neither lethal nor debilitating; it is, in fact, generally asymptomatic. This is, for the most part, a faux crisis concocted by Merck to scare people into wanting its vaccine.)

It's unfortunate, meanwhile, that the opponents of compulsory HPV vaccination are not those who oppose the "compulsory" part, but rather the "vaccination" part (i.e., radical conservatives who irrationally conclude that vaccination will somehow catalyze teenage promiscuity).

If you follow Governor Perry's reasoning (which, ironically, sounds a lot like Paul Krugman's reasoning), then you must conclude that it would be also a proper function of government to require parents to force feed vitamins to their children, or to impose mandatory infant male circumcision. There is no cognizable difference.

After that can come mandatory daily viewings of Sesame Street, or violin lessons, or summer camp. For "the health and well-being of these individuals."

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Governor Perry mentioned "good economic sense" — especially for Merck and its conflict-infected lobbyists:

Merck has doubled its spending on lobbyists in Texas this year, to between $150,000 and $250,000, as lawmakers consider the vaccine bill for girls entering the sixth grade.

Also, the drugmaker has hired one of the state's most powerful lobbyists, Mike Toomey, who once served as Republican Gov. Rick Perry's chief of staff and can influence conservatives who see him as one of their own.

Mind-boggling. How skillful a hustler does Perry have to be to issue this executive order with a straight face?

All politicians are, by definition, moral defectives. So too, apparently, are their former chiefs of staff. And shame on Merck for their unbrazen and unethical rent-seeking.

(Latter links via Medpundit.)

UPDATE: Merck has suspended its lobbying efforts for mandatory vaccination laws, apparently in response to the public outcry after the Perry incident.