News

By Peter J. Smith

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 18, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Gardasil, Merck’s questionable new vaccine against cervical cancer is expected to rake in at least a billion dollars in profits from sales, which will leave the pharmaceutical giant with more cash to donate to abortion giant Planned Parenthood.

Merck has a long history of supporting abortion and Gardasil profits could turn into a financial boost for Planned Parenthood, especially as US states and Canadian provinces begin either to encourage or require HPV vaccination for girls as young as 9.

“You’re going to increase their profits, which mean it’s going to increase the amount [for Planned Parenthood],” said Douglas Scott, President of Life Decisions International (LDI), a group that has a boycott list of organizations that give financial support to the abortion movement. Scott told LifeSiteNews.com that although PP has “more money than they can count” or approximately $480 million in the bank, “You still don’t want Planned Parenthood to get any more money to do any more damage than its already doing.”

However, Scott added that Merck’s endorsement is even more important to the abortion provider than its slice of the Gardasil profits.

“What they want is the corporate stamp of approval, the (cream of the) crop endorsement. They want to be able to tell people, ‘Merck supports us; we’re a legitimate organization,’” Scott stated. “Any sort of a connection between Planned Parenthood and any corporation only benefits Planned Parenthood on the public relations side, which is a lot more important and more devastating.”

Merck waged a heavy campaign earlier in the year advertising Gardasil as a vaccine for cervical cancer caused by the human papilloma virus (HPV) to convince states to mandate vaccination against cervical cancer. However the vaccine only prevents some, not all, of HPV forms contracted through promiscuous sexual activity. The campaign would edge out a competing HPV vaccine, Glaxo Smith Kline’s Cervarix, which is incompatible with Gardasil and hits the market in January 2008.

Judicial Watch, a government watchdog organization, has uncovered least 11 deaths from Gardasil injections, from a partial release of information from the US Food and Drug Administration. In early October the US Government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) listed at least 3,779 adverse effects of which 52 were deemed “life threatening” and 119 required hospitalization. JW has filed a lawsuit demanding full release of the information from the FDA.

  See related coverage by LifeSiteNews.com:

US Death Toll Associated with HPV Vaccine Jumps to 11 with 3779 Adverse Reactions Reported
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/mar/07032106.html”>https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/mar/07032106.html