Perry Says Bachmann Wrong on HPV Vaccine Claims

National Journal ^ | September 14, 2011 | Rebecca Kaplan

[so_real]

... During the debate, Perry called the use of an executive order a mistake, but said he stood by his support for the vaccine. He reiterated that position on Wednesday, and described his personal connection to the fight against cancer. “I hate this disease that impacted my family. My mom and my dad are both cancer survivors,” Perry said. “And to see young ladies who have died from cervical cancer -- I sat on the side of a bed of a young lady, and she was dying from cervical cancer. And it had an impact on me.” ...

[so_real]

Bachmann is in hot water because she relayed a story about an anonymous young woman crying because, as she claimed, her daughter had been mentally retarded as a result of taking the HPV vaccination. Perry relayed a story about an anonymous young woman dying from cervical cancer we are left to assume was linked to one of the HPV strains addressed by the vaccine, and that she herself had not been vaccinated (women vaccinated after exposure to HPV actually increase their risk of cervical cancer). Hypocrisy? You decide. The incidents of cervical cancer dropped 74% between 1955 and 1992 -- long before Gardasil -- and have continued to decline 4% annually since (Examining the FDA's HPV Vaccine Records). All the while the rates of HPV exposure were consistently on the rise. Bachmann's error was on the side of caution regarding a vaccine that may have "very dangerous consequences" for your children. Perry would happily 'big government' a vaccination on your child again despite the known risks -- he'd just do it through the legislature instead of by executive order. In the end, which one would you prefer looking out for your children?

[83Vet4Life]

Rick & Mitt are both lifetime members of the Crony Capitalist Club. Both want to dictate how we manage our own family’s health and well-being.

We need Michelle (and Sarah) to set them straight.

[perfect_rovian_storm]

Keep talking about it, Rick. The more you do, the more of your sordid past gets exposed.

[Marty62]

At least get your story straight.

The young woman is not anonymous. She fought for years for young girls to get this vaccine. After all the lies about Perry involvement, her family spoke out with the TRUTH and PICTURES. It even included an interview of her speaking about the need for the vaccine.
So stop spreading unsubstatiated claims.

The young women is DEAD but her family is not. And for the RECORD it was HPV tha caused her Cervical Cancer.

Bachmann is dead in the water. No amount of rowing is going to get that engine running again.

[so_real]

I agree completely that Romney and Perry sit in one camp, and that Bachmann and Cain and Santorum sit in another camp. (Paul has his own camp, Huntsman sits with the democrats, and Gingrich bounces between the first two camps -- though lately he's been warming himself at the Bachmann / Cain / Santorum camp pretty regularly.) We have to decide, are we the party of the country club cronies as the left portrays us? Or are we the party of We the People as we claim. This election will decide it.

[Marty62]

Obviously you have know idea what crony capitalism means.
But then anyone listening to bachmann might be excused for getting it wrong.

[so_real]

If I mispoke, it is only because none of the stories I've read on the topic name names. I have not read the 'entire Internet' yet. Please provide citations for the claims you've stated so that I may be enlightened. I'll trust, but need to verify. Thank you.

[freespirited]

Watch this:

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/in_focus&id=8354519

[bvw]

A man who will force a wart vaccine into the veins of the 12 year old virgin daughter of parents who refuse to allow it will be a

GREAT LEADER! ALL HAIL MAN-GOD PERRY!

Offer your daughters before him!

- - -

And he will have few qualms about telling YOU what YOU must do, according to HIS WAY.

Medical Insurance? Damn right you'll have to buy it or go to jail.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

“I hate this disease that impacted my family. My mom and my dad are both cancer survivors,” Perry said. “And to see young ladies who have died from cervical cancer -- I sat on the side of a bed of a young lady, and she was dying from cervical cancer. And it had an impact on me.”

He comes across here as implying that anything purporting to cure cancer is good. It's like passing a bill to send Jews to the gas chamber and calling it the "Feed Hungry Children Act." Well, who doesn't want to feed hungry children?

[allmendream]

Bachmann’s error was most certainly NOT on the side of caution.

Her error was in passing on incorrect ludicrous information that sells to the Jenny McCarthy crowd of ignorant know nothings.

[sockmonkey]

I can’t believe nobody’s bitching that Perry & the dying girl weren’t wearing helmets on the motorcycle.

[Marty62]

How’s this:
From ABC:
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Sep 15, 2011 1:01pmHPV Vaccine: Rick Perry Befriended Dying Woman After Mandate
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Photo courtesy: The Wilson family
Since the first day of his presidential campaign, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has cast his executive order requiring young girls receive the HPV vaccine as a mistake, but this newfound admittance of wrongdoing is a stark contrast from his strict commitment to having made the right choice in the years following the decision.

Months after the Texas state legislature revoked the executive decision, Perry expressed in very personal terms the potential the HPV vaccine holds for preventing cervical cancer in young women. Perry spoke of the missed opportunity of the Texas government at a memorial service for Heather Burcham, a 31-year-old woman who died from cervical cancer after contracting HPV.

“Though some could not see the benefits of the HPV vaccine through the prism of politics, some day they will,” Perry said in July 2007. “Someday they will recognize that this could happen to anyone’s daughter, even their own. Someday they will respond with compassion when they once responded with ignorance. And, someday, they will come to a place where they recognize the paramount issue is whether we will choose life, and protect life, without regard to what mistakes, if any, have been made in the past.”

Learn more about Heather Burcham.

Read more about politics and the HPV vaccine.

Perry and Burcham, a teacher from Houston, Texas, struck up an unusual friendship in the months after he issued his executive order. While the Texas legislature was working to revoke the mandate, Burcham traveled to Austin to testify about her personal experience with cervical cancer and how the HPV vaccine might help spare other young women from suffering a fate similar to her own. Burcham was misdiagnosed by doctors when she was 26. Five years later, Doctors detected her cervical cancer when it was too advanced for treatment to be effective.

Ted Oberg from ABC’s Houston affiliate KTRK reported first Burcham and Perry.

Months later, she died in July of 2007, but she used the final months of her life to fight for the potential effectiveness of the HPV vaccine in preventing cervical cancer in young girls. Despite the legislature’s decision to revoke the executive order, Perry befriended Burcham. In the final months of her life, the two took a motorcycle ride together and spent a weekend at a ranch with her friends at the governor’s invitation.

In the final days before her death, Perry even sat at her deathbed, a moment he has described on the campaign trail. ”I sat on the side of a bed of a young lady, and she was dying from cervical cancer, and it had an impact on me.”

“When you meet someone like Heather, your first reaction is this is not supposed to happen. Mothers were not meant to bury their daughters. Young women in the prime of their lives, who have not lived their dreams like getting married and having children, are not supposed to die,” Perry said at her memorial service in July 2007. “Her suffering had a purpose, and that purpose was to shine light on a groundbreaking vaccine that can protect our wives, sisters and daughters from a deadly cancer. And even though her voice has been silenced by cancer, her spirit echoes from the grave to parents and families across Texas urging them to inoculate their daughters and protect them from the harm that could come to them even if they make right decisions.”

While Perry has admitted making a mistake in not consulting the legislature on the HPV vaccine, he has continued to say that he made the decision based on one factor – fighting cancer. But Republican rivals have hammered Rick Perry for engaging in “crony capitalism,” basing his decision to mandate the HPV vaccine for young girls on political and financial gain for himself, aides close to him, and the drug company manufacturing the drug.

At the debate Monday night, Rep. Michele Bachmann accused Perry of basing his decision to mandate the HPV vaccine for young girls political benefits and donations from Merck, the pharmaceutical company manufacturing the vaccine called Gardasil.

“It was a $5,000 contribution that I had received from them. I raise about $30 million. And if you’re saying that I can be bought for $5,000, I’m offended,” Perry said in defense Monday night. But the $5,000 Perry referenced was only the amount Merck donated the year before he issued the executive order.

In fact, the $5,000 was donated on the same day members of Perry’s staff met for an HPV vaccine briefing, according to documents obtained by several news organizations. Perry’s office began meeting with Merck lobbyists as early as mid-August of 2006, according to the AP.

CBS News obtained internal government e-mails detailing meetings and lunches between Perry’s staff and lobbyists for Merck that began two months after Gardasil was approved and continued through Perry’s executive order in February 2007. In Perry’s ten years as governor, Merck donated $29,500 to the governor’s campaigns, and one of Merck’s chief lobbyists, Mike Toomey, was a former chief of staff

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/09/hpv-vaccine-dying-woman-influenced-decision-rick-perry-now-regrets/to Perry. Merck has paid Toomey over

[sockmonkey]

force a wart vaccine into the veins of the 12 year old virgin daughter of parents who refuse to allow it

I can spell hyperbole.

[Buckeye McFrog]

I thoroughly resent the move by the Obama Administration to put french fries off limits to children in restaurants. But in some ways what Perry did was worse.

Not having french fries will never kill a child. But forcing them with the power of the state to accept a vaccine into their bodies which was rammed through the approval and mandating process with payoffs could harm an awful lot of them.

Not like there aren’t a lot of FDA approved pharmaceuticals out there that quickly got pulled from the market once it was learned that they harmed people in the real world.

[trisham]

I find myself growing increasingly disillusioned with Perry, while my respect for Bachmann, Cain and West grows. I am hoping that Sarah runs and chooses one of these candidates for VP.

[so_real]

Thank you posting for that. I just watched it. It solidifies my opinion of Perry being a helluva a good guy. I can't argue that his motives were misplaced -- certainly his heart was in the right place. But I do feel he overreached his authority and should not have pushed a drug before the science was done. Thank you for filling in the blanks on Perry's story; I'll ping Marty62 as well.

[Marty62]

Here is the ABC affiliate in Houston that has all the pihttp://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/09/hpv-vaccine-dying-woman-influenced-decision-rick-perry-now-regrets/ctures and her Fathers statement.

[so_real]

Thank you for posting that. Again, it appears Perry's heart was in the right place. I won't go so far as to call it "the right thing", because clearly I believe it was not. But this story shows the right kind of motivation, even if it results in the wrong result.

[demshateGod]

What is it with vaccinations that causes so many conservative people to forfeit everything they know about government and blindly trust what they say?