Might as well get one of these, too:
Posted on 09/13/2011 8:09:37 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Earlier today, I noted that Michele Bachmann finally scored points on Rick Perry by hitting him on his ties to Merck and linking that to the Gardasil mandate Perry imposed through executive order in Texas. This is a fair point on Perry’s record, even given his apology for pursuing the mandate through EO instead of through the legislature, and it’s not surprising that Bachmann was the candidate to first take advantage of the opening. (Mitt Romney passed a mandate on health insurance for all citizens of Massachusetts, which pretty much puts this issue out of reach for him.) However, Bachmann took a winning argument about the method and the wisdom of mandating a vaccination for a limited-spread virus and turned it into an anti-vaccination argument, especially in this post-debate argument on Fox with Greta van Susteren.
>>>"There’s a woman who came up crying to me tonight after the debate. She said her daughter was given that vaccine. She told me her daughter suffered mental retardation as a result of that vaccine."<<<
Huh? “Mental retardation” typically takes place in a pre- or neo-natal event. Autism becomes apparent in the first couple of years of life — and primarily affects boys. Gardasil vaccinations take place among girls between 9-12 years of age. Even assuming that this anecdote is arguably true, it wouldn’t be either “mental retardation” or autism, but brain damage.
The FDA has received no reports of brain damage as a result of HPV vaccines Gardasil and Cervarix. Among the reports that correlate seriously adverse reactions to either, the FDA lists blood clots, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and 68 deaths during the entire run of the drugs. The FDA found no causal connection to any of these serious adverse events and found plenty of contributing factors to all — and all of the events are exceedingly rare.
The “mental retardation” argument is a rehash of the thoroughly discredited notion that vaccines containing thimerasol caused a rapid increase in diagnosed autism cases. That started with a badly-botched report in Lancet that allowed one researcher to manipulate a ridiculously small sample of twelve cases in order to reach far-sweeping conclusions about thimerasol. That preservative hasn’t been included in vaccines for years, at least not in the US, and the rate of autism diagnoses remain unchanged.
The most charitable analysis that can be offered in this case for Bachmann is that she got duped into repeating a vaccine-scare urban legend on national television. It looks more like Bachmann sensed that she had won a point and wanted to go in for the kill, didn’t bother to check the facts, and didn’t care that she was stoking an anti-vaccination paranoid conspiracy theory, either. Neither shines a particularly favorable light on Bachmann.
Rick Santorum took the correct position on the Gardasil issue. We mandate certain vaccines in children because we mandate children be gathered for educational purposes for many years (in private or public schools), and certain diseases are easily communicable in those settings. By mandating vaccinations against whooping cough, measles, and mumps, we are protecting children who would otherwise get exposed without any action on their part except compliance with the law. That’s not true with HPV, and parents should decide for themselves whether to inoculate their sons and daughters with Gardasil or Cervarix. If Perry wanted to make those inoculations more accessible, he could have crafted an opt-in system rather than forcing parents to opt out.
I may be the only person on this board who thinks the opt-in, is not the way to go for this particular vaccine, beyond the insurance qualifications requirement of opt-out. It’s target is sexually active (or soon to be) teens. Does anyone think that parents who are either out of touch with or who condone their young children’s sexual activity are going to take the time to do an opt-in? Ain’t gonna happen.
I come here for news and to hear the opinions on various current events of people who often have more knowledge and better insights into different topics than I have.
I have learned more than I can say from posters here, though I think the quality of discourse has degraded over the years. If I was part of that I apologize.
But I have never liked the political gamesmanship during the primaries.
The last paragraph describing Santorum's position is spot on.
There is a good case to be made against opt-out mandatory HPV vaccination without crossing the line into anti-vax moonbattery....Santorum made that case, Bachmann appears to have at least put a toe across that line.
“Joe Wilson got beat by a write-in candidate most conservatives desipise. Could she even carry Alaska?”
his name is Joe Miller. Alaska is a GOP state but for establishment types like Gerald Ford.
The medical profession pushes this vaccine very heavily on teenage girls. I have a 17 year old who, in my opinion, can make her own decision about this vaccine when she is 21. Personally, I am not comfortable with it - I think there is more than meets the eye on this whole issue i.e. pandering to drug companies, etc.
Oops you’re right. His name is Joe Miller.
There are a whole lot of of people....and I mean, enough that it really stuns me....who have come to believe that children they know who suffer from autism, seizures, weird allergies, etc....all is connected to government-mandated vaccines.
Michele has tapped a large hidden reservoir of votes with this.
I didn’t see it. I just copied your post assuming that you saw or read that she did.
Because he wrote the order in 2007.
So Perry can't see into the future? Disqualified. < /sarc >
>> Darn it, Michelle Bachmann is acting like a mother.
Ah, there it is the second time you’ve advanced that meme.
It’s disingenuous, for at least two reasons.
1) It’s beyond obvious that Bachmann is grasping for a cudgel with which to beat Perry. “Acting like a mother” has nothing to do with it. You know it too, although I don’t expect you to admit it.
2) The thrust of the article was not so much that she is against the Gardasil mandate — but that she is against it (and other vaccines) in a hyperventilating, over-the-top, very unscientific (and unsupportable) way. That’s the origin of my earlier comment that she has become a flailing madwoman, rivaling Ron Paul in nuttiness. I stand by my opinion, and I bet we haven’t seen the last of the supporting evidence for my view.
My wife works with a specialist in communicable disease. He is known around the world for his work. He is a good, reasonable guy.
He told us that the vaccine was good and that we should get it. He said the claims that are coming up are extremely rare, and some seem to be without foundation.
Our kids are older now, and they are out of our home. I do not know if they are sexually active. I know when I was their age, I was. I am glad they got the vaccine.
I do not agree with Perry’s position it this. Michelle made some good points last night.
And now she goes back to sounding like an uniformed idiot. She took her message off the point: The issue was not the vaccine, it was the process of mandating it.
Whatever gains she made last night, get swiped away with a typical politician tactic of “I met somebody.....”
Herman Cain looks better every day.
“I believe that if you asked Perry what should be done now, as a matter of public health, he would say that he believes the vaccine should be mandatory for ALL children.”
no because even back then he had the opt out.
If you recall, in one of the great flu scares or recent years, it was exposed that high ranking WHO officials were in bed with drug makers.
Okay, see if you can follow this:
The government already mandates vaccines.
What was the big deal with mandating the hppv?
Oh I know, your little princess will be 21 and married before she’s thrashed by Antwon, not like the likely average age of 13.
Then cite some facts...not testimonials and hearsay, actual statistical facts.
That's what I find pathetic.
I don't think that was Michele Bachmann you're thinking of. That is Sarah Palin who has the close ties with Scientologiests.
Sarah, not Michele has close bonds with John Coale, Scientologist and husband of Scientologist Gretta Van Sustern. Coale worked with Sarah on her earlier and then more recent campaigns and also, oddly enough started and initially funded SarahPAC for Sarah Palin.
Here are some articles about her connection with him below. While a couple of these articles claim Sarah Palin was obligated then to provide special access and additional interviews to Gretta because of that connection and his funding of her SarahPAC, I personally think that special access was more because of Sarah Palin's $1 million dollar a year / 3 year contract with FOX News.
However, I do believe the total disregard of all vaccinations for public health purposes may be a Scientology platform and whether or not Michele Bachmann has any connection to Scientology, I don't know, but she does sound like she is at least endorsing that same concept now.
See: http://www.examiner.com/us-headlines-in-national/sarah-palin-too-close-to-scientology-lobby-to-oppose-it
See: http://www.politicususa.com/en/Sarah-Palin-Scientology
See: http://www.andrewhalcro.com/van_susteren_scientology_and_sarahpac
Might as well get one of these, too:
Google for lawsuits on everything from aspirin to zinc tablets and you'll find them galore. If you take any Rx medicine you'll doubtless find that being sued about too. Bottom feeders. I don't put a lot of stock in the theory that if lawsuits exist about X, X is a universally bad thing. Still, this vaccine had no business being on anybody's mandatory list. And bless Michelle Bachmann's heart, she's responding like a lot of mothers would. Having a mother as president would be... well, different. Golda Meir didn't do that lousy a job, and neither did Margaret Thatcher.
Please enlighten the forum with the evidence you are privy to.
Well, she just is. Go to any parents’ blog where this kind of thing is discussed. The mothers are typically concerned to a fault about their little darlings. That sure beats the alternative.
Then by all means, stay with your decision of letting the rest of us choose for you who shall govern.
As much as I deride such a view, I actually hope those that think that way follow through. It means my vote is stronger.
Reagan was OK, but again, "principled" conservatives gloss over the numerous errors he made.
As for the future, I am not optimistic.
“I can control my teenage daughter just fine, and she won’t be dating the sons of parents like those. “
What, you have her tied to a leash or something? Even the daughter of one of the most conservative politician in the country can’t be prevented from engaging in premarital sex. You try your best to bring them up right but in the end, it’s their choice.
As a parent who agreed to get both of my daughter vaccinated years ago, here are my reasons:
We did our research and spoke with some very good communicable disease doctors about it. (A benefit of having a wife that works at a big hospital and knows all of the department heads.)
We knew that this vaccine would help prevent a very preventable cancer.
While it is sexually transmitted, getting the vaccine was not a “license” to have sex. Any good parent can deal with that issue. Getting the vaccine early in life gives it the best chance to work properly.
If you discuss sexuality, and reinforce the many issues—both moral and “practical” with young teenagers you can help them make the right decisions over and over.
And finally, I realized that I had sex before I got married. I am a good person. I am a moral person. If I did it, I could guess there was a good probability they were going to have sex before marriage.
Based on that thought process, we decided to get our kids vaccinated.
That said, I would have been pissed if the government made that call for me.
The quid pro quo in cronyism is often tough to pin down, and may be something as simple as "favors for a (qualified) friend." Harriet Miers was a crony pick for SCOTUS, by GWB. What's in it for Bush? Not much, if anything. He just liked Miers, she'd been a trusted insider of his for many years, and he was giving her what he thought was a justified reward.
-- the charge that the main reason Perry did the mandate was to help Merck is extrememly weak --
I don't think that charge holds water, any more than "Perry did it for $6,000." But, failing either of those doesn't result in concluding that there was no cronyism (maybe by Perry's chief of staff, and Perry just went along).
-- If this is all they got regarding Perry and crony capitalism, then they might as well give up on that issue. --
I think the Gardasil issue resonates with many people as an insufficiently justified intrusion into parental prerogative. I haven't heard this aspect probed much, in that I believe Perry would LIKE to have Gardasil mandatory, just via legislation instead of EO.
As for the cronyism, if he didn't care (was indifferent) to his chief of staff pushing favors for business friends (assuming for the sake of discussion there is some "there" there), that could also be read (right or wrong) as indifference to cronyism.
I haven't gone looking for much, but Perry's "cronyism detractors" have more in the form of his successful real estate deals.
"VAN SUSTEREN: Well, there's a big difference, though, at least in my mind, whether you do it because you really believe it's the right and you're just flat out wrong or you shouldn't have done it or whatever, and the other difference is whether you did it because you wanted a campaign contribution. And I'm curious which you think was the one here with the governor.
BACHMANN: Well, of course, I don't know the thoughts and the intents of the governor's heart. I have no idea what they are, nor would I speculate." SOURCE
Maybe so but even Sarah Palin couldn’t prevent her daughter from having unprotected teen sex with a very questionable partner.
If true, I can only hope there are enough intelligent voters, whose votes she will lose, to offset the gains from moonbats.
Well..I usually don't promote heated rhetoric..but if I were of the age group being prodded by government bureaucrats to take a substance that turns out to be harmful to an entire generation of women, I would personally want to hunt down each and every one of the jokers on this thread and punch them right in the nose..and that is putting it mildly.
And no...mental retardation (lowered mental function)is not the same as Downs Syndrome! It can occur with any injury to the brain by chemical or blunt force! Sheeze! Stay out of my health decisions you health care illiterate bozos..every single one of you!
Just under appropriate supervision.
You see, the thing about good parenting is that the better one is at it, the less one has to do it.
>>The medical profession pushes this vaccine very heavily on teenage girls. I have a 17 year old who, in my opinion, can make her own decision about this vaccine when she is 21.<<
That is exactly what I told my girls.
My Goddaughter opted out herself (although her mom is a big lib and wanted her to get it). She went all though college without it.
If my girls want it, they know that they must hold some self control until either they get the shot or their boyfriend/husband is tested for HPV.
I was a virgin for 34 years. It can happen.
“Plus it puts the parents on a government list that could be abused by Child Protective Services.
“
And you know damned well that would be the next step in all this. CPS interfering.
“There are a whole lot of of people....and I mean, enough that it really stuns me....who have come to believe that children they know who suffer from autism, seizures, weird allergies, etc....all is connected to government-mandated vaccines.
Michele has tapped a large hidden reservoir of votes with this.”
She should ask for an investigation to find out if the govt was covering up the existence of aliens in Area 51 in order to get even more support.
We don’t live in the same state, so I guess I don’t get your point.
>> Well, she just is
If you really, honestly believe that that is Bachmann’s motivation, then bless your heart; you’re as naive as a newborn baby. That’s no sin, mind you. Gullibility can be dangerous in adults, though.
Even so — the mothers I know that really care about their kids are also intelligent enough to research *all* sides of the issue and find out the facts. They may disagree that Gardasil is right for their kids, but they wouldn’t agree with Bachmann’s hysteria over the subject, either.
“That vaccination has done a lot of damage, anybody that says it hasn’t is ignorant of the facts.”
Certainly hurt those working at polio wards.
And iron lung manufacturers
And those guys who made little coffins for kids.
And cosmetic companies that had products to cover smallpox scars.
That's a thin reed to disagree on, in that Perry likely holds that ALL children should be vaccinated against measles, tetanus, hepatitis, and chicken pox. But those have the same opt out that was offered for the HPV immunization.
Best I can discern, Perry expresses a sincere belief that massive public immunization against HPV would benefit public health. If you know of anyplace he's backed off from that, share it.
Time and time again the studies do not support that BS.
I know I would not want a kid who was un-vaccinated for the major diseases sitting next to my kid in school.
The issue is not usually about the nice kid of hippie parents. It is more an issue when your kid is sitting next to some product of a third world $hit-hole that has come into the country and doesn’t quite understand what the indoor plumbing thing is all about.
You chose it for your minor children — fine. That’s the way it ought to be. An item on the market that can be chosen, and perhaps recommended by personal physicians.
I’m willing to chalk up Bachmann’s mode of objecting to the mandate to being very mother-like, although she could stand to take a chill pill or two to keep from going overboard in the future. She is a jealous mama — jealous for American freedom and strength. I like that. If she doesn’t make the top spot, she ought to have a prominent position in that person’s cabinet.
Are you saying it's impossible to raise a daughter who won't have premarital sex?
Sarah Palin ain't God, and I certainly don't automatically assume she's a better parent than I am.
Well put, sir.
“While it is sexually transmitted”
Sadly, it’s not just sexually transmitted.
Unsanitary classmates and an unwashed handshake can do it.
As can public laundry facilities if you don’t bleech your underwear.
>> She should ask for an investigation to find out if the govt was covering up the existence of aliens in Area 51 in order to get even more support.
At the rate we’re going, Bachmann will continue her wild-eyed attacks on Gov. Perry, even while Ron Paul is chewing at HER rear end for stealing HIS wacko base... could get entertaining!
It was reversed 2-3 months after the Exec Order (that would have gone into effect the next year)
Sadly, you are not the only one that allows others to decide for them who should govern.
>>Well..I usually don’t promote heated rhetoric..but if I were of the age group being prodded by government bureaucrats to take a substance that turns out to be harmful to an entire generation of women, I would personally want to hunt down each and every one of the jokers on this thread and punch them right in the nose..and that is putting it mildly.<<
Until we have Multi-generational studies on this, I won’t agree to get it for my girls.
If they chose to act in such a way that they put themselves at risk for HPV, knowing that they have not gotten the shot, it’s on them.
But if they get Bells Palsy, Guillan-Barre syndrome, seizures, blood clotting, heart problems or even a birth defect in future children, that’s on me if I give them this vaccine.
We all take precautions. They’ve been taught Krav Maga. No one is messing with them. Rape is not an option with my girls.
Bachmann and Palin being women probably react differently that a lot of men. Rick Santorum was a guy who took their stand also.
I think there are some good and solid aspects to Perry, but stuff like this is a problem. Makes me wonder what else is out there.
I am tired of government playing nanny. Bottom line. If someone wants to do that. I reject it. That was one of my problems with Mitch Daniels.
As far as the lawsuits go, I am not a lawyer, it would be interesting to know if a drug is mandated by government, can the drug company be sued for liability? Or is it protected by government?
But Michele is just a wannabe who desperately needed to find an opening.
Agreed with everything you said: Michelle has a great future just not as President anytime soon.
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