Women’s Health Care in Texas

I got my knickers in a twist today when I read an op-ed in the Austin American Statesman, from 5 Texas legislators(1) that 130,000 low-income Texas women will lose their health care on March 15, because Rick Perry won't accept Federal money meant for breast, cervical, & HIV screenings, and birth control.

Won't accept it because the medical care workers who do the screenings might possibly work for, or refer a patient to, a clinic (say, Planned Parenthood) that also provides abortions, a clinic that, BY STATE LAW, -- just like all clinics that provide abortions in Texas -- cannot accept any State funds for abortion services. In addition, no federal money under this program can be used to fund abortions.

The Federal government wants to give Texas this money for women’s health care, and it says Texas, by enacting a rule that makes accepting the Federal money a no-no, is in direct violation of Medicaid rules.

Perry essentially says, TOO MoFo BAD! Perry says he just can’t take that Federal money, that Texans love life too much -- the health of Texas women be damned!

Right next to the 5-Legislator article (our local daily paper is trying to be fair and balanced) is an op-ed by Rick Perry saying that the whole thing is Obama's fault because Obama cancelled the fund for the wellness program! Talk about SPIN. Well, maybe the legislators are too tactful to say it, but since my knickers are twisted, I will call it what it is: LYING.

As the 5 Texas legislators wrote: "The governor (Perry) will spin this as Washington's fault. But, let's examine the Governor's track record. Perry boasted on the campaign trail about eliminating two-thirds of the funding for women's health last (legislative) session. According to state health experts, this eliminates access to health care screenings and birth control for nearly 300,000 (women).” Then they added, “The (new) rule adopted by the health agency (on Feb.23) adds 130,000 more women to this number."

Perry says, “Because Texas refuses to fund abortion providers and their affiliates, (my emphasis) the federal government has announced that it will cancel the Women’s Health Program.” (again, my emphasis.) The program is not cancelled, it is alive and well in other states.

Perry’s actions and his lies to defend his actions are unacceptable to this Texan. In his article, Perry states, “Texas is an easy target for such attacks because we value life and have worked hard to preserve and protect its sanctity over the years.” If we value life so much, isn’t it fascinating that Texas leads the nation in the number of prisoners executed, the number of teen pregnancies, the number of uninsured citizens, #7 in the number of students who don’t finish high school(2), and is fourth in the Nation, after California, New York, and Florida in the number of homeless: homeless families, homeless veterans, and homeless mentally-ill people?(3)

How about the fact that from 2007 to 2010 (under Perry’s watch – remember all those jobs Perry says he created?), the number of minimum wage workers in Texas rose from 221,000 to 550,000, an increase of nearly 150 percent, and that the average salary of those jobs is $10,100 per year?(4) That is, $10,100 a year with no benefits, i.e., healthcare.

Yes, in Texas, we value the sanctity of life as long as that life is in a womb. When that fetus emerges as a human baby in Texas, if it is not born into a financially-secure family, its life becomes a lot less exciting to our Governor and our ruling party. By refusing this funding for Women’s Health Care, Rick Perry has made sure that that baby’s early life and childhood will be even harder. It takes a healthy Mother to provide for a healthy child. A Mother who will probably not want to become pregnant again for a while, but who has no access to birth control. That $10,100 a year, doesn’t stretch very far -- unless the $10,000 is coming from us Texans to pay for one month of Rick Perry’s rent, while he draws not only his salary, but also his retirement pay from the great State of Texas.

25% of Texas women currently are uninsured. (National average is 16.3%). The National Cancer Institute says that Texas has the third-highest rate of cervical cancer in the USA. Before Perry turned off the spigot, the Medicaid Women's Health program saved Texas taxpayers over $40 million dollars a year by helping keep women healthy, helping them space their children, and helping them detect diseases before they became more costly and deadly.(5)

Now who do these women turn to? They don’t have access to screenings, health care, or birth control. As the 5 legislators said in ending their op-ed article, “This isn’t about Texas versus Washington; this is about Perry versus low-income women.”

Are your knickers now twisted, too? I hope so.

(1) Elliott Naishtat, Dawnna Dukes, Eddie Rodriguez, Mark Strama, Donna Howard, Austin American Statesman, March 6, 2012

(2) http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2010/feb/05/bill-white/texas-has-43rd-best-graduation-rate-united-states/

(3) http://www.endhomelessness.org

(4) Bureau of Labor Statistics http://www.bls.gov/

(5) The Texas “Alternatives To Abortion” Program, March 2011 http://www.prochoicetexas.org/assets/files/alttoabortionbadpolicy311.

Vadalia's Response to Alberta Phillips' Feb. 26, 2007, Austin American Statesman Editorial Supporting Gov. Perry's Plan to Vaccinate Girls Against HPV

February 26, 2007

Dear Ms. Phillips:

You make some excellent points in favor of helping to improve women's health. However, there are several reasons why not only social conservatives, but we bleeding heart liberals, are opposed to Perry's order to vaccinate all 11-12 year-old Texas girls using Merck's new HPV vaccine.

The long-term may prove that Perry is absolutely correct, and that the benefits of the state providing this vaccine to all our "girls" outweigh anything negative. However, Perry absolutely gets a failing grade for the way he went about making his decision and presenting his "order." On Perry's report card, we can write, without compunction, "Perry did not work well with others."

Based on the 2006 elections when Perry was elected with support of only 39% of Texas voters, we can surmise that the majority of Texas voters do not believe that Perry has a mandate to be a "decider." If anything, the 2006 elections prove that the voting public want less "deciding" and more "participating." We are no longer willing to put our lives and the lives of our children and our grandchildren in the hands of "deciders."

Perry should have respected Texas' legislative leaders enough to discuss this issue with them. He should have been consulting with the medical community. He should have been talking with educators, and, especially, with women leaders. He should have been talking up the HPV problem with the media, encouraging them to help him get information about this virus, and its prevention, out to the public. Perry could have built a broad web of support and enthusiasm for this project. We all know why we need flu vaccine, tetanus vaccine, and polio vaccine. Who of us, prior to Perry's order, had heard of, or knew why we needed, this vaccine? Because we did not know why we needed this vaccine, legislators, political committee heads, the medical community, and those of us who are news-hounds, and yes, even Perry supporters, were broadsided by Perry's directive.

2006 elections show that voters don't trust politicians. We don't trust our government, either state or federal, the way our parents did - or even as we did prior to 9/11. A lot of us Texas voters do not trust Perry, or his motives. The entire HPV vaccine issue has the appearance of Perry's "jumping in bed" with Merck. The question going around is, "How does Perry benefit from this deal?" In fact, the tip of the iceberg jumped out of the water when the Associated Press writer, Liz Austin Peterson, reported on February 21, 2007, "A calendar for (Perry's) chief of staff Dierdre Delisi obtained under Texas' open records laws shows she met with the governor's budget director and three members of his office for an "HPV Vaccine for Children Briefing" on Oct. 16. That same day, Merck & Co.'s political action committee donated $5,000 to Perry and a total of $5,000 to eight state lawmakers."

After "thinking long and hard," Perry is hyper-concerned about women's health. In the meantime, according to the chair of the Texas Healthcare Trustees, Harold D. Samuels, in an Austin American-Statesman article December 20, 2006, "While there is much Texans can be proud of, we also lead the nation in the percentage of our residents who lack basic health care coverage. There are 5.6 million uninsured Texans, a statistic that is staggering, sobering and definitely not something to brag about." Might Texans ask, "Why the concern about the one, and not the other?"

Then there is the vaccine itself. We don't yet trust it. Why should we? The HPV vaccine, which was approved by the FDA in June, 2006, has no long-term history. Too many of us remember Thalidomide, prescribed in the 1950's for pregnant women's morning sickness, resulting in the birth of thousands of deformed babies. We remember Diethylstilbestrol (DES), a hormonal drug prescribed to women between 1940 and 1971 to prevent miscarriages, causing some of their daughters to develop cervical cancer.

Some Americans don't trust the FDA because, increasingly, this agency is seen as too political and too quick to approve medications based on cherry-picked research results. Recent examples are the antibiotic Ketek, approved by the FDA in 2004 to treat sinus and upper respiratory infections. Ketek, 2 years later, after 4 confirmed deaths and links to liver failure in a dozen patients, has been relabeled with a side-effect warning of sudden liver failure and EVEN death, for use as a back-up drug, only, for "community-acquired pneumonia."

Another recent investigation of the ADHD drugs, universally prescribed for our children to prevent "hyperactivity disorder," including Adderall, Concerta, Dexedrine, Ritalin, and Strattera, produced a warning that they can cause serious heart problems, psychotic behavior, and SUDDEN death. How many of our children have been stuffed with these pills for years?

Then there is the $13.5 million verdict against Merck, maker of the pain medication Vioxx, which was approved by the FDA in May 1999, and which was widely prescribed until September 2004, when the trail of heart attacks and strokes could no longer be ignored.

A quick Google search shows other drugs, with serious side effects, which are currently being investigated are Accutane, Bextra, Celebrex, Celexa, Cytotec, Femara, Fosamax, Ortho Evra, Paxil, Prozac, Seroquel and Trasylol. Do we dare trust a new, unproven HPV vaccine to be injected into our young children, for a virus to which they may never be exposed?

Then, there is this question: why vaccinate girls only? I think it is safe to say that it's mostly boys who are infecting girls with HPV. In some instances, boys are also infecting boys, so why not vaccinate boys instead, or boys also? Why just girls?

Finally, many of us would not dream of buying a car (or a computer, a TV, a camera, a stove, etc.) without doing thorough research to make sure it's the right product for us. Personally, I will not "pop a pill" without researching all the possible side-effects and interactions to determine whether I'd rather live with the symptoms I have, rather than the side-effects I might have. Why would I allow my child to be injected on the say-so of a man with no medical training, and no sign that he ever talked to the medical community about this? Why the rush to "git-HER-done!" (pun intended)

If the Governor had brought the legislators on board, respected the citizens, consulted the medical community, worked with the media - in other words, "worked well with others," more Texans might be delighted that the HPV vaccine was going to be provided, and there might be a ground-swell of enthusiasm with (to paraphrase your first paragraph): "Parents and state leaders standing and cheering Gov. Rick Perry for making a bold decision regarding girls' health. Instead the Republican governor is catching all kinds of hell..."

Follow up 29 August 2008: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/29/blaming-the-media-for-gardasil-hype/