Free Republic

It's one thing to have a philosophical disagreement with the Texas governor on whether he should have mandated a vaccine for girls against a sexually transmitted virus. But it's an entirely different matter to spread false rumors about the vaccine, hoping to leverage parental fears for political gain. That's the depths to which Minnesota's Michele Bachmann has sunk in her bid to counter Rick Perry's surge in polls. It's conduct unbecoming a member of Congress, much less a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Bachmann used the issue last week at the CNN/Tea Party Express debate in Tampa to land...

Some California schools are turning away middle and high school students who have not received a required whooping cough vaccine while others are defying a law passed last year after a historic spike in cases of the potentially fatal disease. The law approved last September initially required all students entering grades seven through 12 to get vaccinated by the start of the 2011-2012 school year. Lawmakers passed a 30-day extension this summer as districts worried many students wouldn't meet the deadline.

Candidates who bring the HPV vaccine into the political arena are playing with fire. You and I are just getting to know one another. While I’ve been writing a twice-weekly opinion column for Wilton Patch for the last year, and readers there are more familiar with where I stand on many things, this “Patch In” column is only in its third week. I thought we’d take it slow. Earlier this week someone sent me the link to an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. It was about GOP presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann’s recent comments about the human papillomavirus (or HPV)...

I am thinking this is a fake. What say you? FunVax (Fundamentalist Vaccine)

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann's story about a woman who claimed that her daughter suffered "mental retardation" after receiving a vaccine against HPV could fetch the woman's family thousands of dollars. But the family can only collect if Bachmann or the unnamed woman can prove the story is true. Two bioethics professors have offered to pay more than $10,000 for medical records that prove the anecdote Bachmann told after Monday night's Republican presidential debate is true, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports: Steven Miles, a U of M bioethics professor, said that he'll give $1,000 if the medical records of the woman...

On Wednesday night, Anderson Cooper took some time to address how Michele Bachmann‘s recent comment about the danger of the HPV vaccine — relaying a story about a Tampa woman who supposedly shared that her daughter had developed mental retardation following the vaccination — fits in with other misleading and incorrect comments she had made in the recent past.Said Cooper: Now it’s certainly not a new phenomenon for politicians to stretch the truth and manipulate facts. But Bachmann is spreading an all-out falsehood here — a dangerous falsehood at that. It’s not the first time she’s done this by any...

n Monday night’s debate, Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum all seemed to be auditioning for the role that Jude Law plays in the film “Contagion” -- Alan Krumwiede, a blogger who tells millions that a vaccine to combat a lethal pathogen is actually dangerous, and claims both the epidemic and vaccine were created by government to enrich drug companies. Krumwiede’s conspiracy theory proves deadly -- and so will these Republicans’, if anyone listens. ....Don’t be distracted by legitimate, but minor, questions about how states should make public-health decisions: The thrust of this attack is garbage -- and deadly...

More than an hour into last night’s debate, Rep. Michele Bachmann attacked Gov. Rick Perry on the HPV vaccination controversy — or more accurately pseudo-controversy. It stems from an executive order issued by Perry in 2007 that required all Texas girls to receive Gardasil, a vaccine against the most common strains of human papilloma virus, before entering the sixth grade. However, Texas lawmakers blocked that mandate. Some critics argued that the vaccine was too new to have been confirmed safe, while others said that Perry’s order would preempt parental rights or give girls a false sense of security, possibly causing...

The nation's leading group of independent medical experts on Thursday weighed in on the debate over vaccine side effects, releasing a report that found few serious health problems are linked to immunizations. After reviewing more than 1,000 scientific articles, experts at the Institute of Medicine found the controversy over certain vaccines and autism was completely unfounded. It also rejected any link between immunizations and Type I diabetes, Bell's palsy and asthma. The report did find evidence of rare vaccine-related adverse effects that can range from mild seizures to fainting. For most of the more than 150 possible reactions studied, experts...

Yet another panel of scientists has found no evidence that a popular vaccine causes autism. But despite the scientists’ best efforts, their report is unlikely to have any impact on the frustrating debate about the safety of these crucial medicines. “The M.M.R. vaccine doesn’t cause autism, and the evidence is overwhelming that it doesn’t,” Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton, the chairwoman ... --snip-- The panel did conclude, however, that there are risks to getting the chickenpox vaccine that can arise years after vaccination. People who have had the vaccine can develop pneumonia, meningitis or hepatitis years later if the virus used...

GOP presidential candidate and Texas Governor Rick Perry is taking a lot of heat from some conservatives for issuing an executive order in 2007 that required middle-school-age girls to be vaccinated for HPV -- a sexually transmitted disease that is a main cause for cervical cancer. Dr. David Stevens, CEO of the Christian Medical Association (CMA), says his group sent a letter to Governor Perry at the time. While remaining neutral, the CMA told him they were not opposed to his mandate, as long it included an easy opt-out for parents -- which it did. "In most states, and Texas...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, under questioning from voters in recent days, has switched positions on a 2007 executive order he issued mandating the vaccination of all young girls before they enter sixth grade to ward off cervical cancer. Mr. Perry's order that Texas school girls receive the vaccine, Gardasil, made by Merck & Co., was overturned by the state legislature and never got off the ground. But it still has roiled conservatives and Christian groups for years. After long defending the decision, Mr. Perry has apologized repeatedly for the order since launching his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. As...

For years, Gov. Rick Perry has taken flak for his 2007 attempt to require girls to be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, the most commonly sexually transmitted disease and the principal cause of cervical cancer. At the risk of angering fellow conservatives, Perry has always insisted he did the right thing. That unapologetic approach changed this weekend. A few hours after unveiling his campaign for president, Perry began walking back from one of the most controversial decisions of his more-than-10-year reign as Texas governor. Speaking to voters at a backyard party in New Hampshire, Perry said he was ill-informed when...

WASHINGTON, August 12, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The California legislature is now pushing through a bill to remove parental notification for children as young as 12 to receive the dangerous STD vaccine Gardasil. The American Life League reports that each treatment of the HPV vaccine Gardasil, has an average cost of over $360, a sum that would be footed by taxpayers. Gardasil, the most popular HPV vaccine, has been found to cause dangerous side effects and as many as twelve deaths in the United States alone. The state had attempted but failed in 2007 to mandate HPV vaccinations for all girls...

Nabi Biopharmaceuticals said Monday that its experimental anti-smoking vaccine NicVAX did not meet its main goal in a late-stage test, sending the company's shares plunging. The company said about 11 percent of patients who were received a dummy shot were able to quit smoking, and patients who were treated with NicVAX quit at a similar rate. Nabi said it is evaluating the data and waiting for results from a second late-stage study. "We are clearly surprised and deeply disappointed with the results of this first NicVAX Phase III trial," said President and CEO Raafat Fahim.

Christian Right leaders are not rallying behind Michele Bachmann for president and it’s “probably” because they are sexist, contends a writer for Time. .....“Totally unfair and inaccurate” is how Penny Nance, CEO of Concerned Women for America, described [Amy] Sullivan's characterization. Nance was invited to join the conference call but was unable to do so. “Social conservatives are ready for a woman president,” Nance said. “In fact, the McCain campaign really took off,” added Nance, “after Sarah Palin was nominated.” Nance remembered that during the 2008 election she was mostly standing on the sidelines until Palin was added to the...

When Gov. Rick Perry issued an executive order in 2007 requiring all Texas girls to receive a vaccine against the human papillomavirus before entering the sixth grade, lawmakers balked and blocked it. Critics said the vaccine, Merck & Co.'s Gardasil, was too new to declare safe. Some said too that Perry's order would infringe on parental rights or give girls a false sense of security, leading them to be sexually active too young. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, one of Perry's opponents in the GOP gubernatorial primary, frequently slams Perry's stilled order. Perry has stood by his action, most recently casting...

Having read the history of Smallpox and the types of vaccine used in experimentation, I would like to debate on whether or not cowpox would be a better alternative than using the vaccine procedures that use live vaccine. Cowpox was after all the first vaccine used against Smallpox and wouldn't it be easier to gather and use, with a lower risk of failure or accidential infection with a fully active virus that would result in a full blown infection?

Triggers protective immune response while preventing fatal inflammationFebruary 22, 2011 — (BRONX, NY) — Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have developed an experimental vaccine that appears to protect against an increasingly common and particularly deadly form of pneumococcal pneumonia. Details of the new vaccine, which was tested in an animal model, are reported in a paper published today in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. Pneumococcal pneumonia can occur when the lungs are infected with the bacterial species Streptococcus pneumoniae (also known as pneumococcus). "Like many microbes that cause pneumonia, pneumococcus is spread from person to...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Supreme Court ruled that federal law shields vaccine makers from product-liability lawsuits in state court seeking damages for a child's injuries or death from a vaccine's side effects. The high court on Tuesday ruled for Wyeth, which is now owned by Pfizer Inc, in a lawsuit brought by the parents of Hannah Bruesewitz, who suffered seizures as an infant after her third dose of a diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccine in 1992. Pfizer and other vaccine makers had argued that a Supreme Court ruling for the plaintiffs could open the door to a flood of lawsuits -- many...