Rick Perry's drug scandal

[Conan71]

No doctor I have been to has mandated that I take the drug they got money from.

Or so you think.

Drug companies have huge marketing budgets.  Believe me, your doctor's judgement when it comes to what to prescribe when there are various options is tainted.

[Hoss]

Or so you think.

Drug companies have huge marketing budgets.  Believe me, your doctor's judgement when it comes to what to prescribe when there are various options is tainted.

The difference is that you can go to a different doctor if you don't like it.  While you could move to a different state, that's a little apples/oranges IMO.

[Conan71]

The difference is that you can go to a different doctor if you don't like it.  While you could move to a different state, that's a little apples/oranges IMO.

I'm not trying to draw a comparison between the two.  Simply pointing to the underhanded tactics of drug companies.  They buy doctors, they buy politicians, and they buy favor with the FDA.

Even Recyclemichael's beloved Obama takes filthy drug money:

"Obama, who is not included in the analysis because he is no longer in Congress, received more than $2 million from the insurance and pharmaceutical sectors during his record-breaking presidential campaign."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/07/AR2009030701748.html

"Pharmaceutical industry execs have contributed more than three times as much to the Obama campaign as they have to McCain's, according to a Bloomberg News report citing data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

Sen. Obama has received $450,094 in donations from industry execs and employees, compared with $132,575 received by Sen. McCain -- even though 52% of industry donations have gone to Republicans in this cycle and industry donors overwhelmingly supported President Bush in the last presidential election, giving him nearly twice as much as they did John Kerry."

http://www.mmm-online.com/pharma-donors-favor-obama/article/115479/

[AquaMan]

I wonder if Rick has read this....www.bottomlinesecrets.com/index/article_list.html?pub=btom&yr=2011&subj=14

Among other things, at least 21% of prescriptions written by American doctors are written for medical conditions that the drugs have not been proven to treat.

From Harvard Medical School: "They also found that the drug companies used marketing schemes to influence doctors, including "direct financial incentives"...."self-serving presentations" of the scientific literature about the drug...sponsorships of teaching and research...and free drug samples.

I other words, doctors were essentially being bribed and duped by drug companies to prescribe drugs off-label.

There's more but these seemed appropriate.

[RecycleMichael]

Even Recyclemichael's beloved Obama...

Your exacerbation is showing. You don't like the message so you accuse me of taking money to post it then try to insult me by saying I love Obama. I  will remind you that I didn't support Obama during the primary and clearly do not see him as beloved in my eyes. The real issue is that when your candidate of choice has something nasty written about him, you choose to not address it but instead try to say that others are guilty of the same poor ethical choices.

Even if that red herring strategy worked, it wouldn't be the same. You point out that Obama accepted campaign money from drug companies (yet 69% of the drug industry campaign contributions went to republicans last year), and Governor Perry actually issued an executive order to pay the companies back a billion dollars by mandating controversial vaccinations to eleven year old girls. It ain't the same.

How can Perry campaign against government involvement in our lives when he is guilty of doing that very thing to children?

[RecycleMichael]

Michelle Bachman and Rick Santorum brought up Perry's drug scandal tonight.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-pn-perry-bachmann-hpv-20110912,0,1368324.story

Sensing vulnerability, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum went after Rick Perry—hard—on his order, while governor of Texas, to force young girls to be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus. In doing so, they sparked the sharpest exchange of the debate so far. During the CNN/Tea Party Express debate in Tampa, Bachmann also accused Perry of favoring a large pharmaceutical company, Merck, in pushing the program. Perry said he made a mistake is issuing an executive order forcing the vaccinations, but he said he erred on the side of trying to prevent a deadly cancer.

"What was driving me obviously was making a difference in young people's lives," Perry said. "Cervical cancer is a terrible way to die." But Bachmann would have none of it. "Little girls don't get a mulligan. They don't get a do-over," she said. "This is big government run amok," Santorum added. "This is a bad policy and shouldn't have been done."

"At the end of the day, you may criticize me about the way that I went about it," Perry said. "But I am always going to err on the side of life." Bachmann noted that a former chief of staff for Perry became one of Merck's top lobbyists in Texas and suggested that Perry steered the vaccination contract to the company in exchange for a campaign check. "Was this about life or was it about million of dollars and potential billions for a drug company?" Bachmann demanded.

Perry said that Merck's donation amounted to $5,000. "If you're saying I can be bought by $5,000, I'm offended," he growled. "I'm offended by all the little girls who didn't have a choice," Bachmann snapped back, in the debate's testiest moment to date. "What we were about was trying to save young people in Texas," Perry replied, clearly on the defensive.

[Conan71]

Your exacerbation is showing. You don't like the message so you accuse me of taking money to post it then try to insult me by saying I love Obama. I  will remind you that I didn't support Obama during the primary and clearly do not see him as beloved in my eyes. The real issue is that when your candidate of choice has something nasty written about him, you choose to not address it but instead try to say that others are guilty of the same poor ethical choices.

Even if that red herring strategy worked, it wouldn't be the same. You point out that Obama accepted campaign money from drug companies (yet 69% of the drug industry campaign contributions went to republicans last year), and Governor Perry actually issued an executive order to pay the companies back a billion dollars by mandating controversial vaccinations to eleven year old girls. It ain't the same.

How can Perry campaign against government involvement in our lives when he is guilty of doing that very thing to children?

Are you calling me an exacerbator?  

I never do that alone...damn it!  For what it's worth, you supported Hillarity until she was defeated in the primaries and you've supported President Obama ever since.

I have no interest in Perry as a candidate, to be perfectly honest.  I just find it curious you posted a hit piece on him and titled it as a drug scandal as if he'd snorted cocaine off a hooker's belly in room 535 at the downtown Houston Marriott on June 7, 2007 on or about 6:37 pm.  Not that I have firsthand knowledge of that, mind you.

Obama receiving drug money is no red herring.  It's very important to understand who all had a seat at the table when the most sweeping reform of our nation's health care policies went into effect, especially when you try to twist this story into some sort of sordid cattle call for 11 year old females at the behest of Gov. Perry.

[RecycleMichael]

 I just find it curious you posted a hit piece on him and titled it as a drug scandal as if he'd snorted cocaine off a hooker's belly in room 535 at the downtown Houston Marriott on June 7, 2007 on or about 6:37 pm.  Not that I have firsthand knowledge of that, mind you.

I gotta party with you, dude.

The drug companies are the biggest spenders in buying Washington. Obama recieved money, but the drug money goes to every candidate. Look at this USA today story...
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/drugs/2005-04-25-drug-lobby-cover_x.htm

Here is a story from the last election...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aRCVqfSQ43Eo&refer=home

Obama, 47, also fares better than McCain among donors in the pharmaceutical industry. While drug-company executives and employees have given 52 percent of the industry's money for the 2008 elections to Republicans, Obama has received more than three times as much as McCain, $450,094 to $132,575. Four years ago, donations to Bush almost doubled Kerry's, $516,839 to $280,688.

Bush received more money from drug companies than Obama did. It sounds to me that the drug industry lobby tries to buy both sides and does a good job of picking winners. That money wasn't completely tied to sweeping health care reforms. If anything, they gave less this time.

[cannon_fodder]

Medical lobbies of all kinds are over represented on all sides.  Why do you think healthcare is so messed up?  They want government money with as little government control as possble.

As for the vaccine.  Why is it creating contraversy?  Surely an 11 y/o girl will someday have sex and benefit from the vaccine.  Mandating it can cause problems, but why people dislike suggesting the vaccine is insane.

[Townsend]

Bachman probably shouldn't have claimed mental retardation as a side effect.  Maybe she'll claim she was forced to have the injection and will give that as the reason she is the way she is.

Other than that, I'm to understand that Rick Perry likes to force young girls to do things against their will?

That and lighting volunteers on fire...pretty messed up for a guy in high office.

[RecycleMichael]

Mandating it can cause problems...

That is the only issue with me. It seemed wrong to suddenly mandate such a drug. The fact that his chief of staff went to work for this company and the governor made it mandatory is the scandal.

Perry also lied about only getting $5,000 from Merck as well. Now we find out that it was really almost $30,000 and that Merck gave $380,000 to the Republican Governor's Association while Perry was the group's chairman. Not surprisingly, that same group has donated at least $4 million to his campaign.

This is a very slimy scandal in my book. For him to tell Michelle Bachman that he was offended that she thought he could be bought for 5K was such a low moment now that the truth has come out. Perry has been caught in a lie and this scandal ain't going away. I predict it will sink his campaign.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/perry-has-deep-financial-ties-to-maker-of-hpv-vaccine/2011/09/13/gIQAVKKqPK_story.html

[Conan71]

That is the only issue with me. It seemed wrong to suddenly mandate such a drug. The fact that his chief of staff went to work for this company and the governor made it mandatory is the scandal.

Perry also lied about only getting $5,000 from Merck as well. Now we find out that it was really almost $30,000 and that Merck gave $380,000 to the Republican Governor's Association while Perry was the group's chairman. Not surprisingly, that same group has donated at least $4 million to his campaign.

This is a very slimy scandal in my book. For him to tell Michelle Bachman that he was offended that she thought he could be bought for 5K was such a low moment now that the truth has come out. Perry has been caught in a lie and this scandal ain't going away. I predict it will sink his campaign.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/perry-has-deep-financial-ties-to-maker-of-hpv-vaccine/2011/09/13/gIQAVKKqPK_story.html

Might simply be a quibble over others identifying total contributions since 2000 and how much Merck gave to the campaign for the term in which Perry came up with the mandate.

He's also come out and admitted he made a mistake in mandating the vaccinations.  How long was this program in place?  A few months?

CF hit the nail on the head, drug companies don't support political candidates out of altruism.  Think how much less we'd spend on drugs and medical procedures if lobbying money, campaign contributions and marketing budgets were slashed even just in half by drug pushers.

[nathanm]

CF hit the nail on the head, drug companies don't support political candidates out of altruism.  Think how much less we'd spend on drugs and medical procedures if lobbying money, campaign contributions and marketing budgets were slashed even just in half by drug pushers.

You're getting dangerously close to teh soshulism.

[Conan71]

You're getting dangerously close to teh soshulism.

Just as long as I don't catch teh ghey

[Hoss]

Just as long as I don't catch teh ghey

You know Bachmann's husband can cure that, right?