Catholic News Agency
By Kevin J. Jones
September 9, 2011
Sacramento, Calif., Sep 7, 2011 / 04:58 pm (CNA).- California Gov. Jerry Brown should veto a bill allowing 12-year-olds to consent to STD vaccinations or treatment without their parents’ knowledge, bill opponents say. They warn that the bill violates parents’ rights and could give pharmaceutical companies $360 per child vaccinated, at taxpayer expense.
“This legislation is going to disenfranchise parents, and taxpayers are going to subsidize that disenfranchisement,” said Kevin Snider, lead attorney for the California-based Pacific Justice Institute.
The California Senate passed the bill on a 22-17 vote on Aug. 31.
Snider said his organization was “very disappointed” by the vote. He urged the state’s citizens to write Gov. Brown and highlight the costs of providing treatments to young people like the Merck corporation’s Gardasil HPV vaccine or the GlaxoSmithKline company’s Cervarix vaccine.
“This will cost taxpayers money,” he told CNA on Sept. 2.
“They expect the taxpayers to pay for it. The bill will be split 50-50 between the state and federal funds.”
A five to ten percent immunization rate for HPV among the state’s 923,000 eligible minors would result in administrative costs ranging from $1.2 million to $2.5 million, an analysis from the California Senate Appropriations Committee said.
However, the bill also includes language that says parents’ insurance will not be responsible for the costs. This would allow minors’ vaccinations to be funded through the federal Vaccines for Children Program. Using the committee’s immunization rate estimate, this would provide $16.6 million to $33.2 million to the vaccine manufacturers.
Backers of the bill say it will help contain the spread of human papillomavirus strains which can cause deadly cervical cancer in women. They say waiving the consent requirements will help vaccinate homeless youth and young people unable or reluctant to obtain parental consent.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, about 12,000 women get cervical cancer each year in the U.S. and almost all cases are HPV-associated. The virus may also cause several thousand other U.S. cancer cases each year.
Opponents of the vaccine say that it is unlikely that minors will complete the three-part vaccination process without parental guidance, even though the bill allows minors as young as 12 years old to consent to the shots.
Brown is going to pass the legislation to allow youngsters to choose to get vaccinated without parental consent. Each course of vaccinations will provide Merck with around 1100 in profit. The bill was written by Merck lawyers, and the purpose of the legislation is to provide increased profit to the company. Merck has turned the California State Legislature into a profit center…a place were sweet heart deals for the taxpayers money are made. How dare the legislature decide to give away our tax receipts to Merck, without our consent?
I’d rather they just gave the money to them, and forget about the who vaccine part of the deal. It would be better to just cut Merck a check for half the amount they expect to get from the vaccinations, skip the whole vaccination part of the scam, and we’d be alot better off. They’ve got us over a barrel, they’ve shown they can pass this kind of bill regardless of what the public wants…so lets just give in to them, and settle for less. Pay them off to go away.