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.
It’s considered proper to ping those of whom you speak......;)
Hepatitis B is a separate vaccine.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002730/
Gardisil makes no claim against Hepatitis B. However, it does prevent some other HPV diseases.
http://www.gardasil.com/what-is-gardasil/cervical-cancer-vaccine/index.html
I got my hepatitis B vaccinations in 1986. I don’t know if that counts as new or not. Hep B vaccine is one of the more mild vaccines as far as side effects go. I didn’t even get sore from it.
I get a lump the size of a baseball when I get the old DT boosters. I still get them though.
I do know what you’re talking about and I don’t give a crap about it. It has nothing to do with my post.
Bachmann is desperate and her statements seemed out there.
I think she is over.
Bachmann? Turn ‘er over, she’s overdone!
I thought you were arguing against Hep B vaccination. I think I misunderstood you.
Yes, the same arguement would hold for HPV vaccination.
I am a little agnostic about the HPV vaccination but when you consider the odds of girl remaining a virgin until she marries, multiplied by the odds of her husband also being a virgin then adding the risk of him philandering, it is not unreasonable for even a “good” girl to receive the vaccine.
I support using for my family the Hepatitis B vaccine and the HPV.
I know that many will not get the vaccine if not covered by insurance or other funding outside their pocket.
I don’t understand those that support our requirement for Hepatitis B vaccine but find moral objections to HPV vaccine.
My oldest daughter is 15 and far more morally and religiously conservative than I was at that age.
But someday she might follow my wife’s decision and marry a born-again christian with a misspent youth.
>>>”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.”<<<
Bachmann was just repeating what the woman told her.
But SOMETHING happened to that woman’s daughter, right after the vaccine, probably something that mimicked mental retardation.
Some almost have an islamic fundamentalist view on the HPV vaccine. “We don’t need shots, we have stones to deal with that problem.”
The concern seems to be how it is spread rather than the disease itself, but thanks to a nameless former president, HPV may eventually have to be renamed the kissing disease.
I was thinking about 1980 for the Hep B shot so that seems right. Seems some get flu like symptoms from the vaccinations, never bothered me either. I do have several friends that did the Hep C and got sick as a dog. Hep C is a big issue in my area due to IV drug users.
I think that woman should come forward.
Has she come forward to back up Bachmann?
I haven’t see anything on that.
“I haven’t see anything on that.”
Me neither, not yet.
I’d also like to see that woman who said that she would not have to worry about paying her rent, or gasoline, after Obama’s election. :) But I digress.
Thanks, I saw an earlier post that made the claim that Gardisil worked against both diseases and therefore was appropriate to give to boys. It didn’t sound right.
I guess Santorum’s daughters are all on their way to the nunnery.
How does a virus know if it is promiscuous or not.
I am no supporter of Bachmann, but your charge is totally unfair. She is a Lutheran, and like every other Protestant sect, they believed way back when what you charged. I would never charge a current Catholic believes that heretics should be burned at the stake. By your reasoning every US President except one was not qualified to be President and were Klansmen to boot.
Quit possible. He did have a reasoned answer to the difference between measles vaccinations and HPV.
Perry did not by pass the legislature. The legislature had long ago “passed enabling legislation: they delegated the authority to mandate vaccines without over site to the Department of State Health Services.
More here http://wingright.org/2011/09/13/one-more-time-perry-gardasil-and-the-facts/
The legislature would have had to change the law. The way the “opt out” clause reads, no one is allowed to keep a list at the DSHS. The bill names and links to the text are at this WingRight post: http://wingright.org/2011/08/07/dose-of-reason-perry-and-gardasil/
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