Posted on 09/13/2011 11:03:51 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Gov. Rick Perry's 2007 attempt to require that girls in Texas be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, commonly known as HPV, has become a political hot potato. But Dr. Ronald DePinho, the new president of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, says the vaccine is not just sound but "one of the great scientific advances in the history of medicine."
In last night's GOP presidential debate, Perry faced repeated criticism from other candidates for his HPV push. Michele Bachmann said it was “flat out wrong” to require that “innocent little 12-year-old girls be forced to have a government injection through an executive order.”
Part of Bachmann's critique was that Perry's executive order, which he now says he would handle differently, was the byproduct of cronyism. Perry's former chief of staff, Mike Toomey was a lobbyist for the drug company Merck, maker of the vaccine, at the time. In interviews following the debate, Bachmann reportedly went even further, suggesting that the vaccine was a ""a very dangerous drug" and could cause "mental retardation."
But today, in an interview with the Tribune, DePinho said that as a physician, as the president of a leading cancer research institution and as a father of two young girls, "there's only one path here, which is to support vaccination."
"To do anything else would be unethical," DePinho said.
His recommendation for anyone who opposes the vaccine: "Visit one patient with cervical cancer in an advanced state."
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
Oh good grief. It’s one of the leading cancer treatment and research centers in the world.
Yes, even in the medical community you can find people that will tell you anything you want to hear.
Start asking a broad spectrum of people in this community what they are doing with their ten year old daughters, and I’ll bet you find a fairly large group that are playing wait and see, as well they should.
This is not a highly contagious communicable disease. As such ten year old girls should not have been forced to do something they had no control over.
Without the state’s and their own parent’s permission, they could not have opted out on their own. For a non-communicable disease, that is incredibly wrong.
I believe that was the sarcastic point. Read on...
According to you M.D. Anderson is an unethical medical center because they want to PREVENT cancer?
You have no boundaries do you?
Gardasil by RINO Mandate is wrong.
Patients have rights, too. Not JUST Drug companies.
Despite Dr. Ronald DePinho's alleged statement
(and it is doubtful it was taken in context)
the equation for the NET Benefit of a medical treatment is:
NET BENEFIT = (Risk with NO treatment)*(the net benefit of the treatment) - (The risk of harm).
Oncologists at M.D. Anderson once knew that.
Bachmann’s demagoguery of this issue last night was irresponsible. Language such as “forced government injection,” “innocent little girls”, and saying that a “woman came up to her crying” because this vaccination caused her daughter “mental retardation” is the type of inflammatory language and dishonest tactic I’d expect from a democrat not a conservative. If Bachmann wants to have an HONEST discussion about this issue then fine, but her dishonesty is out of line.
Untruthful, you are.
Gardasil does not prevent cancer, so stop lying.
As responsible parents, we had both daughters receive the Gardasil vaccinations during their teen years. They both had zero side effects, and if they will have much better chance of resisting cervical cancer, all for the good. That cancer is very insidious and not worth the risk of any possible side effects from the vaccine. The percentage of girls with side effects is so small anyways. Has any one heard of children having adverse reactions to any of the commonly use medications? Like OTC cough syrup & aspirin? Yes, it happens, so should we stop taking all medications, since every medication has had some side effect to some one? Nothing in life is 100% guaranteed. So wise people should weigh the odds of failure versus benefits received.
The cervical cancer vaccine is to PREVENT cancer.
Perry’s mandate has nothing to do with the clinical research stature of M.D. Anderson. I live in Texas, I saw the forms that came home with school children. Should Perry have handled this differently? Yes, he says in retrospect he would have done it differently. But no little school girls were forced to have a vaccine their parents objected to. M.D. Anderson is a fine institution and doesn’t deserve your slur.
Uh... Cinncinnnatus Wife...cigarette smoking causes cancer, right? Do you think the govt. has the right to mandate that no one smoke cigarettes? I want an answer now. No more Perrybot obfuscating, got it?
So now that Bachmann has had an ass chewing by me and the many others that bothered...she’s going to try to back pedal...
Sorry, Michelle, TOO LATE, you were dishonest and won’t get a dime or words of support from this chick...
Then they should stick to their area of expertise and leave ethics to the individual.
Yes. So what.
The issue is that MANDATING Gardasil untested
to chaste children was a RINO idea.
Also, the risk equation above suggests that you should
not put acetominophen in the same tier with aspirin
or its precursor.
Then, this is just being reported.
Sarah Palin’s Alaska Took Federal Funds to Increase Access to Gardasil
He admits it only because he was overrruled by the real conservative in Texas. Maybe he admits he was wrong to support Al Gore too. He has yet to admit he was wrong to support Rudy Giuliani, or taxpayer subsidies of illegals' anchor babies at State universities. Slick Rick is no conservative. He is a hack career politician who counts votes, then decides what to do.
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