If It Was a Snake, It Would Have Bit Him

Governor Rick Perry today trotted out Heather Burcham, a 31-year old Houston woman dying of cervical cancer, to promote his plan to force-inject thousands of young Texas girls with Gardasil, the cervical cancer vaccine marketed by pharmaceutical giant and Perry patron Merck.

First, let me say this: Ms. Burcham's illness is a tragedy, and I am loathe to exploit it any more than Rick Perry already has. From a news story about her in the American-Statesman, I gather Ms. Burcham -- who taught in Mexico and was a pre-school teacher in Houston until sickness forced her to quit -- is probably someone I would like.

So here's the deal, according to Ross Ramsey's Texas Weekly (subscription required):

She said she went undiagnosed for four years by four different doctors who told her she had another, unrelated disease. By the time the physicians figured out what was going on, she had a stage four cancer than has spread into her lungs, one kidney and pancreas.
Burcham said doctors assumed she was too young to have cervical cancer and missed the cancer even after an operation. They didn't do a biopsy, thinking her age ruled out the cancer. They told her, she said, that she had endometriosis and needed a hysterectomy.

According to the Dallas Morning News:

Ms. Burcham ... believes doctors dropped the ball. They never talked to her about HPV – a disease she associated with promiscuity – and never considered someone her age might have it or cervical cancer.

The American-Statesman article adds that, "during one trip to an emergency room, she was told to seek psychiatric help." Ms. Burcham wants to spend the remainder of her life educating people about cervical cancer and how it can be prevented by, naturally, Gardasil.

The sad part is this: since Rick Perry is proposing the vaccine for 11-12 year-olds, Ms. Burcham is only, say, 20 years too late for the mandatory vaccine to do her any good. But the incompetence, obliqueness, and ineptitude of the various doctors that mistreated her have all occurred in the last four years -- since we "reformed" our medical malpractice laws in 2003 with the passage of H.B. 4 and Prop 12. Rick Perry could have done something about that, but he did not. In fact, he actively worked to immunize those doctors from responsibility for their actions.

According to Ramsey, the media at least fumbled with this contradiction, but got nowhere:

Burcham said she's not interested in suing any of the doctors, given the short time she has left. A spokesman for Perry — asked whether the state plans to investigate to see whether Burcham's doctors should be punished or have their licenses revoked, said they hadn't asked Burcham for the names of the physicians who misdiagnosed her.

Sadly, Heather Burcham will die, probably some time soon and certainly before her time. Even more sadly, Rick Perry probably believes in the Gardasil vaccine as sincerely as he believes in immunizing doctors who repeatedly misdiagnose and mistreat patients.

By the way, I am no expert on House Bill 4, but I think it has provisions in it that immunize drug manufacturers from liability for their product's labeling, directions, etc., if certain minimum FDA standards are met. In other words, if Gardasil turns out to be a fiasco on the order of Vioxx, Merck may still get a free ride.