Perry Has Closer Ties to Merck Than He Admitted

Rick Perry scoffed Monday when Michele Bachmann accused him of issuing a statewide mandate for schoolgirls to be given a new HPV vaccine in order to fill the coffers of Merck – but in doing so he appears to have significantly downplayed his ties to the drug giant.

“It was a $5,000 contribution that I had received from them,” the Texas governor said during the GOP debate. “I raised about $30 million. And if you’re saying that I can be bought for $5,000, I’m offended.”

But after running the numbers, the Washington Post reports that Perry’s financial ties to the drug company total much more than the $5,000 that the GOP frontrunner cited.

Perry’s gubernatorial campaign has received nearly $30,000 from the drug giant since 2000, and most of it prior to his 2007 executive order mandating the vaccine, the Post reports, citing figures from the Center for Responsive Politics. Merck has also given more than $355,000 in donations to the Republican Governors Association since 2006, the year that Perry assumed a prominent role in the group. Perry served as the chairman of the RGA in 2008 and again this year leading up to his presidential bid.

The ties between Perry and Merck run deeper still, according to the report. Mike Toomey, Perry’s former chief of staff, was working as an Austin-based lobbyist for Merck at the time Perry bypassed the Texas state legislature and issued his executive order. Today, Toomey is one of the founders of the pro-Perry PAC Make Us Great Again, which can accept unlimited donations and plans to raise upwards of $55 million dollars to help Perry win the GOP nomination.

Here's a snippet of a keynote speech that Anita Perry gave at a women's health summit roughly two years before her husband signed the executive order (via the NYT):

"There is no reason why knowledge about HPV and cervical cancer cannot be as common as information about childhood immunizations and mammograms," she said, according to a transcript of the speech on the governor’s Web site. "We are fighting for the well-being of women all over the nation and setting a standard for cancer treatment that is unsurpassed. I am confident that through efforts like we’ve seen in Texas and the work at this conference, we will see the number of cervical cancer victims decrease."

Further proof of Anita Perry's involvement with the issue can be found in a cache of internal e-mails that Politico obtained last month through Public Information Act request. The Times explains:

Days after Mr. Perry issued the executive order, he forwarded an e-mail supportive of the vaccine to Mrs. Perry under the heading “fyi.” In a response, Mrs. Perry stated that a prominent Dallas Republican “told me at lunch today that she would help you with some conservative groups.” Mr. Perry then forwarded that e-mail to his deputy chief of staff, adding, “Fwd to the correct folks in the office.”

POST Tuesday, Sept. 13: Rick Perry scoffed Monday when Michele Bachmann accused him of issuing a statewide mandate for schoolgirls to be given a new HPV vaccine in order to fill the coffers of Merck – but in doing so he appears to have significantly downplayed his ties to the drug giant.

“It was a $5,000 contribution that I had received from them,” the Texas governor said during the GOP debate. “I raised about $30 million. And if you’re saying that I can be bought for $5,000, I’m offended.”

But after running the numbers, the Washington Post reports that Perry’s financial ties to the drug company total much more than the $5,000 that the GOP frontrunner cited.

Perry’s gubernatorial campaign has received nearly $30,000 from the drug giant since 2000, and most of it prior to his 2007 executive order mandating the vaccine, the Post reports, citing figures from the Center for Responsive Politics. Merck has also given more than $355,000 in donations to the Republican Governors Association since 2006, the year that Perry assumed a prominent role in the group. Perry served as the chairman of the RGA in 2008 and again this year leading up to his presidential bid.

The ties between Perry and Merck run deeper still, according to the report. Mike Toomey, Perry’s former chief of staff, was working as an Austin-based lobbyist for Merck at the time Perry bypassed the Texas state legislature and issued his executive order. Today, Toomey is one of the founders of the pro-Perry PAC Make Us Great Again, which can accept unlimited donations and plans to raise upwards of $55 million dollars to help Perry win the GOP nomination.