Huntsman donates $1 million to prevent cervical cancer

When the Utah Legislature refused to spend money on a vaccine against cervical cancer, billionaire industrialist Jon M. Huntsman grabbed his checkbook.

Huntsman and his wife Karen made it known Wednesday that they were donating $1 million for a public-awareness campaign and vaccines to fight the human papillomavirus in young women.

The parents of Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman "are all about prevention," Janet Bingham, president of the Huntsman Cancer Foundation, said at a news conference. "I've never seen someone so happy to write a $1 million check."

The Huntsmans planned to announce the donation personally but were tending to a family member's illness, she said.

Huntsman is chief executive of the chemicals conglomerate Huntsman Corp. and founder of Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City. He has been devoting much of his wealth to the eradication of cancer.

At first, he planned to keep the donation from his own bank account secret, firing off a "confidential-private" handwritten letter to the state's health chief during the general 2007 legislative session.

"My quest in life and my pledge in death ... is to assist in the eradication of cancer in all its ugly mannerisms, irrespective of cause," Huntsman wrote Feb. 12 to Dr. David Sundwall, director of the Utah Department of Health.

Sundwall said the donation would provide vaccinations for about 20 percent of uninsured young women in Utah who are at risk of developing cervical cancer.

Huntsman decided to act after state lawmakers rejected a proposal from Rep. Karen Morgan, D-Cottonwood Heights, to vaccinate uninsured women of childbearing age with taxpayer money.

The Legislature reduced Morgan's $1 million proposal to a $25,000 information campaign without money for vaccinations.

Morgan said she was "deeply touched" by Huntsman's generosity.

The donation underscores different values among members of Utah's dominant religion.

Huntsman, a Mormon, had no qualms about vaccinating women against the sexually transmitted disease. But many of Utah's conservative Republican legislators, who are overwhelmingly Mormon, objected, contending the vaccine could encourage nonmarital sexual relations.

Gardasil, a three-dose vaccine by Merck & Co., was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last June for females ages 9 to 26. The vaccine protects against strains of HPV which cause cervical, vulvar and vaginal cancers and genital warts.

The $1 million gift recalled similar private donations to Utah's Medicaid program. A year ago, billionaire medical-device maker James LeVoy Sorenson and Intermountain HealthCare donated $1 million each when the Legislature refused to fund optional dental services for Medicaid recipients.

This year, flush with a $1.7 billion budget surplus, the Legislature rounded out the Medicaid program.