Perry Interviewed on FoxNews

Gov. Perry was interviewed yesterday on FoxNews. See the transcript here.

Perry continues to pretend as though the supposed "$350 million" Texas spends on cervical cancer every two years will just magically go away when Texas starts spending $35 million" on the Gardasil vaccine every two years.

Let's look at the numbers with a good dose of reality.

Texas spends $175 million every year on Medicaid costs to deal with cervical cancer.

How much of this will be eliminated by the $17.5 million per year on Gardasil?

Not one penny. Because the vaccine does absolutely nothing for a woman that has already been exposed to the HPV virus, something that typically happens years before any actual cervical cancer. Remember, the CDC indicates that most HPV infections go away without any symptoms or treatment. Only a very few go on to develop pre-cancerous lesions, and only a small percentage of those go on to actual cervical cancer.

But of the group that are vaccinated, won't this vaccine prevent HPV infections and thus prevent cervical cancer?

Only very slightly.

Merck's own packaging insert for Gardasil shows that the actual reduction rate of HPV infections ranged from about 12% to 32% as compared to a placebo. Read our prior post with information from the Medical Accountability Network (a group of doctors).

Their conclusions, from the government's data and Merck's data, is that in the age category approved for the vaccine (ages 9-26) there are 30-40 cervical cancer cases per 1 million women. Using Merck's 12% reduction number, that means there will then be 25-35 cases per year per million women. 37% of women diagnosed with cervical cancer will die from it, so Gardasil will save 1-2 deaths.

All at a cost of $360 million to vaccinate 1 million women ($360 for the 3-shot dose).