Posted on 08/17/2011 12:40:57 AM PDT by bronxville
Rick Perry’s bad, Obama-style medicine by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2011
Texas, we have a problem. Your GOP governor is running for president against Barack Obama. Yet, one of his most infamous acts as executive of the nation’s second-largest state smacks of every worst habit of the Obama administration. And his newly crafted rationalizations for the atrocious decision are positively Clintonesque.
In February 2007, Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed a shocking executive order forcing every sixth-grade girl to submit to a three-jab regimen of the Gardasil vaccine. He also forced state health officials to make the vaccine available “free” to girls ages 9 to 18. The drug, promoted by manufacturer Merck as an effective shield against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) and genital warts, as well as cervical cancer, had only been approved by the Food and Drug Administration eight months prior to Perry’s edict.
Gardasil’s wear-off time and long-term side effects have yet to be determined. “Serious questions” remain about its “overall effectiveness,” according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Even the chair of the federal panel that recommended Gardasil for children opposes mandating it as a condition of school enrollment. Young girls and boys are simply not at an increased risk of contracting HPV in the classroom the way they are at risk of contracting measles or other school-age communicable diseases.
Perry defenders pointed to a bogus “opt-out” provision in his mandate “to protect the right of parents to be the final authority on their children’s health care.” But requiring parents to seek the government’s permission to keep an untested drug out of their kids’ veins is a plain usurpation of their authority.
Translation: Ask your bureaucratic overlord to determine if a Gardasil waiver is right for you.
Libertarians and social conservatives alike slammed Perry’s reckless disregard for parental rights and individual liberty. The Republican-dominated legislature also balked. In May 2007, both chambers passed bills overturning the governor’s unilaterally imposed health order.
Fast-forward five years. After announcing his 2012 presidential bid this weekend, Perry now admits he “didn’t do my research well enough” on the Gardasil vaccine before stuffing his bad medicine down Texans’ throats. On Monday, he added: “That particular issue is one that I readily stand up and say I made a mistake on. I listened to the legislature … and I agreed with their decision.”
Perry downplayed his underhanded maneuver as an aberrational “error,” and then — gobsmackingly — he spun the debacle as a display of his great character: “One of the things I do pride myself on, I listen. When the electorate says, ‘Hey, that’s not what we want to do,’ we backed up, took a look at what we did.”
Are these non-apology apologies enough to quell the concerns of voters looking for a presidential candidate who will provide a clear, unmistakable contrast to Barack Obama? Not by a long shot.
How Obama-like was this scandal?
Let us count the ways:
READ MORE: michellemalkin.com
Hey GunRunner you have been fun so far but now I must slide off here and get some work done but I’ll be back later today. Maybe you should spend that time trying to sober up.
The Legislature required that vaccines are mandated.
They delegated the power to name vaccines to the people in the Executive Branch who were directed by the Governor but made it very difficult to opt out. Perry found a way to make it easier - which riled the pro-mandated-vaccine crowd.
So Perry got hit from all sides. The anti-vaccine, the pro-mandate, the “my daughter is not a slut” (although vaccines don’t make anyone a slut) crowd.
Malkin engages in half truths and gets lots of hits on her column.
Family doctors can participate with the Vaccines for Children program. But it’s expensive, requires separate refrigerators and tons of paperwork/computer work.
The State sends the vaccines free of charge, but without regard to actual need.
Only the big practices with lots of kids can afford to participate.
He did not “circumvent” the legal process. The Legislature gave him the authority over the years in little tweaks to the vaccine laws.
I made two very simple points:
1.)There is no comparison between the Gardisil issue with Perry and ObamaCare
2.)It doesn't surprise me that Malkin draws a parallel since she also drew a comparison between racial profiling and Japanese internment. She has a lousy moral compass.
You don't seem to be grasping these two simple concepts, and when you attempt to post a reply all you offer are some snide remarks about laughing and being drunk.
I'm not sure if this is projecting on your part, but I really don't care. After you've had a chance to collect yourself you are free to make an argument as to why ObamaCare and the Gardisil vaccine are in the same ball park, and hopefully you'll fare better than Malkin did.
Until then, cute little snippy remarks about your drinking habits really don't interest me.
Lying is presenting a thing to be true that one knows to be false. Saying that the HPV mandate is comparable to Obamacare's mandates is her opinion, not a lie. You asserting that they are not comparable does not make it a lie or prove Malkin a liar. It's a good faith difference of opinions.
The Gardasil executive order was inarguably an example of nanny-state government mandating the use of a product, just as Malkin claims. And Obamacare is also inarguably an example of nanny-state government mandating the use of a product, albeit of a much larger scope. It's take no great stretch of reason to see where a person could in good faith believe the two are therefore comparable. You've offered no proof that Malkin made this claim in bad faith, which is precisely what you accused her of doing.
Where specifically has Malkin lied in this piece?
Well, I was speaking off-the-cuff. I thought he was seen as a McCain-like opponent for Obama. But I don't have any evidence to support my position.
Standing corrected. And I have another retraction / apology to type up here in a moment on this same thread.
I still want to know more (is it just a rumor?) about connections to Muslim types.
Well, I was speaking off-the-cuff. Like my other comment about Rick Perry being "picked" by the mainstream media, (I thought he was seen as a McCain-like opponent for Obama).
Standing corrected.
I still want to know more (is it just a rumor?) about connections to Muslim types.
Why did the tea party support Perry last year if he is not supportive of the tea party?
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Because Kay Bailey Hutchison was even worse.
She also said McCain was someone who “has long been motivated by the common sense conservative principles embraced by the Tea Party.”
Do you believe McCain is someone who “has long been motivated by the common sense conservative principles embraced by the Tea Party”, Or are you saying Palin was lying?
Gardasil is a drug developed by Merck & Co.. It is supposed to prevent cervical cancer caused by the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved it in June of 2006 and subsequently recommended vaccination in females aged 11 and 12, before they become sexual active. Since it is not effective against an existing infection, it must be given before a sexually-transmitted HPV infection occurs.
Governor Perry issued an Executive Order (EO) (RP#65, February, 2007) which mandated that all Texas girls be vaccinated prior to their admission to the sixth grade. Parents were allowed to opt out of the mandate by filling out an affidavit.
Perry was rebuked by both houses of the Texas legislature which overturned his EO by a veto-proof margin. Seeing the writing on the wall, Perry did not sign the law. He subsequently rescinded RP#65 with another EO (RP#74) and the issue is now dead in Texas. At least 18 other states (notably New York and Michigan) were considering similar actions with Gardasil, but none were actually implemented. Here is a link to additional data on other state’s decisions, from a 2007 article in Time Magazine Health.
Perry’s negatives related to the Gardasil issue were:
■issuing the EO requiring vaccinations for young girls. Even though a parent could opt-out (for religious or philosophical reasons), refusing the child’s shot, people were upset that the EO required inoculation. Had the vaccination been voluntary, there would have been no question.
■Perry’s former chief of staff (2002-2004) was a lobbyist for Merck at the time and is thought to have had undue influence on Perry on behalf of Merck’s drug.
■Merck contributed a grand total of $6,000 to Perry’s reelection campaign. While it is unseemly in its timing, $6,000 is barely enough money to get noticed, much less to buy the support of a governor, least of all a “high roller” like Perry’s critics claim he is. That Merck contribution amounted to .00025 of the $24 million dollar campaign funds that he received that year.
There are still some who are convinced that Merck contributed more than a paltry $6,000 to Perry. They are simply wrong. Merck gave two checks, one for $1,000 and another for $5,000 to Perry in the 2006 election timeframe (in 2008, they contributed a whopping $2,500). Here is a source to view all of Perry’s contributions: ProPublica. In fact, Merck has only contributed $23,500 to Perry over a 1998-2010 span, not exactly George Soros money. For comparison, from 2000-2006 Merck gave $2,460,000 to state politicians across 40 states.
The other side of the story:
Gardasil was believed to be a way to stop certain types of cancer among young women. Studies appearing in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2007 found that Gardasil was nearly 100 percent effective in preventing precancerous cervical lesions caused by the the strains that Gardasil protects against. Gardasil’s effectiveness increased when given to girls and young women before they become sexually active. Gardasil was found to be extremely effective in preventing several (but not all) of the strains of HPV known to cause cervical cancer and genital warts.
Some critics maintain that Gardasil has a record of “very serious safety issues.” That obvious attempt to further tarnish Perry’s image by intimating that not only did he do the bidding of Merck in ordering the vaccinations, he did so without considering the possible serious side effects. There is little doubt that Governor Perry knew a great deal more about Gardasil at the time than those critics do now. The CDC has been following Gardasil since its licensing and some current facts follow. Taken from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website:
“Since licensure, CDC and FDA have been closely monitoring the safety of HPV vaccines. “As of June 22, 2011, approximately 35 million doses of Gardasil® have been distributed in the U.S. and the safety monitoring system (VAERS) received a total of 18,727 reports of adverse events following Gardasil® vaccination. As with all VAERS reports, serious events may or may not have been caused by the vaccine.”
“Of the total number of VAERS reports following Gardasil®, 92% were considered to be non-serious, and 8% were considered serious. Out of 35,000,000 doses distributed, there were 1,498 occasions of serious complications; that equates to a .0000428 chance that a dose will cause a serious adverse reaction.” Hardly enough to consider the vaccine “a very serious safety issue” as claimed by some critics. Apparently, they are too lazy to “do a little research.”
As of June, 2011, the CDC says: “Based on all of the information we have today, CDC recommends HPV vaccination for the prevention of most types of cervical cancer. As with all approved vaccines, CDC and FDA will continue to closely monitor the safety of HPV vaccines.” Check out the CDC’s statements about Gardasil for yourself. And specifically check out the Summary at the end for the CDC’s conclusion about Gardasil’s effectiveness.
In Gardasil, Merck believed that they had a credible, FDA-approved, CDC recommended, fact-backed case for vaccinating young women and lobbied state officials to do so. Were they trying to make money on the drug? Without a doubt, that’s what a business does.
Perry maintains that the justification for his executive order making the shot mandatory was twofold: 1) that the vaccine offered a chance to save lives that might have otherwise been taken away by cervical cancer and, 2) that insurance companies wouldn’t cover the $360 cost of the vaccine ($120 for each of a 3-shot regimen) when it was simply an optional “recommended” vaccine. That put it out of the reach for most low-income Texans. This from the Time Magazine article (linked above), “Some pediatricians and gynecologists are refusing to stock Gardasil because many insurance companies reimburse so little for the vaccine, which costs $360 for the three required doses.”
When Perry mandated Gardasil, it would have become part of a school-related vaccine package which was then covered by insurance for simply the cost of a co-pay.
An update: from Perry’s Speech in New Hampshire at the Home of New Hampshire Deputy Speaker Pam Tucker (8/13/2011):
When a voter in New Hampshire confronted Perry on the Gardasil issue, here’s what he said, “I signed an executive order that allowed for an opt-out, but the fact of the matter is I didn’t do my research well enough to understand that we needed to have a substantial conversation with our citizenry,” he said. “I hate cancer. Let me tell you, as a son who has a mother and father who are both cancer survivors.”
Perry said he’d invested governmet resources in cancer cures, adding, “I hate cancer. And this HPV, we were seeing young ladies die at the early age. What we should have done was a program that frankly should have allowed them to opt in, or some type of program like that, but here’s what I learned — when you get too far out in front of the parade they will let you know. And that’s exactly what our legislature did.”
A cynic may not buy his explanation, but Obama would never admit to a mistake at all. Agree or disagree, at least he listened to the people and backed off.
Now, this is at best, an ignorant misrepresentation of the facts, if not a bold faced lie. There is nothing 'bogus' about the opt out of the Gardisil vaccine, or any other of the vaccines required to attend a Texas public school.
Most if not all states have some sort of statutory vaccination requirement for public schools and most that I know of offer some sort of opt out on philosophical or religious grounds. To position this as some sort of huge statist power grab over existing law in the same vein as ObamaCare is dishonest. She also fails to mention that the executive order that Perry signed actually helped parents access the opt out option much easier by putting the information and submission form online, which streamlined the process for opting your daughter out of it. Perry was actually attacked by the pro-compulsory vaccination lobby for making this option easier.
As I stated earlier, this isn't me piling on or attacking Michelle Malkin unfairly, as she has a known history of making these kinds of false comparisons, specifically her book In Defense of Internement where she not only defended the internment of innocent Japanese-Americans, but used that defense to justify something totally and wholly different, that being racial profiling when fighting terrorism. It did not surprise me at all that someone with such a warped sense of justice made indefensible arguments in the cases of both Perry's Gardisil issue and the internment issue.
Any other questions?
It never came to fruition and he apologized for not doing enough research.
##
What Perry says now:
“I made a mistake on that,” Perry told Iowa Radio later in the day Monday, calling it “an error in not having a conversation with the people of the state of Texas.”
“I agreed with their decision. I don’t always get it right, but I darn sure listen,” he said of the legislature responding to his decision.
“One of the things I do pride myself on, I listen. When the electorate says, ‘Hey, that’s not what we want to do,’” Perry told Houston’s ABC affiliate on Monday. “We backed up, took a look at what we did. I understand I work for the people, not the other way around.”
#
What Perry did and said then.
Not only did Perry defend going above the heads of elected state legislators, but his office also falsely claimed the legislature had no right to repeal the executive order. “The order is effective until Perry or a successor changes it, and the Legislature has no authority to repeal it,” Perry spokeswoman Krista Moody told The Washington Post in February 2007.
When both the House and Senate repealed the law six weeks later, Perry did not — as he now claims — listen humbly or “agree with their decision.”
Human shield demagoguery. In response to the legislature’s rebuke, the infuriated governor attacked those who supported repeal as “shameful” spreaders of “misinformation” who were putting “women’s lives” at risk. Borrowing a tried-and-true Alinskyite page from the progressive left, Perry surrounded himself with female cervical cancer victims and deflected criticism of his imperial tactics with emotional anecdotes.
He then lionized himself and the minority of politicians who voted against repeal of his Gardasil order. “They will never have to think twice about whether they did the right thing. No lost lives will occupy the confines of their conscience, sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.” Perry, of course, has now put his own ghastly Gardasil order on that same altar — but with no apology to all those he demonized and exploited along the way.
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Slick Rick’s “apology” sounds sounds like Obama’s apology for not realizing the economy he inherited was as bad as it was.
Wouldn't fly....he would immediately be tagged a "compassionate conservative".
ABC: “I signed an executive order that allowed for an opt out, but the fact of the matter is that I didn’t do my research well enough to understand that we needed to have a substantial conversation with our citizenry.”
His mandate was almost immediately repudiated by Republicans across the state. The legislature revoked Perry’s order six weeks later....
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/08/15/perry-backs-off-texas-vaccine-mandate-i-didnt-do-my-research/
He didn’t do his research on such an important executive order? It’s chillling that this man even contemplated such an order let alone signed it. He’s Obama lite.
I had my post sitting for a while - you beat me to it. :)
Childish bullsh!t hyperbole. You're laying it on thick.
Tell me, how is it you are able to stump so hard for St. Sarah knowing she endorsed "Obama-lite." Is her judgement that bad?
I would appreciate it if you didn’t ping me to your posts. I’m not interested in anything you have to say. Reply if you must, but only to confirm that you’ll honor my request. Thank you.
The Perryistas are finding it harder and harder to distort his record in an attempt to make him look like a conservative.
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