He walks the walk of a true conservative"
"The PerryCare executive fiat was not simply a one-off mistake explained away by lack of "research." It exposed a fundamental lapse in both political and policy judgments, an appalling lack of ethics and a disturbing willingness to smear principled defenders of limited government who object to the Nanny State using their children as guinea pigs."
Ping!
So, I guess we need to keep looking until we find a candidate who has never done a single thing we don’t agree with. Awaiting such an ideal is what’s keeping us from getting anywhere. I can’t think of anyone who I agree 100% with, but Perry has got some really good positive credentials as well. I personally like Palin, but I’m not yet convinced that she’s electable. Perry is my second choice.
Slick-Rick is not the conservative that some on FR try to make him out to be. He’s a self-serving career politician who’s more beholden to big business and his globalist masters than he is the American people. And I’m convinced he and his supporters like it that way.
Thoughtful bump.
http://peskytruth.wordpress.com/2011/07/19/rick-perrys-negatives/
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 He subsequently rescinded RP#65 with another EO (RP#74) and the issue is now dead in Texas.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:
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.
He only announced this past Saturday?
Welcome to national politics Rick—I like what you have been saying lately and I wish you luck...
You are going to need it.
If the worst thing Perry has done is this vaccine deal then Perry is good to go. Malkin goes off the deep end in this article. Of course people with an agenda will use anything to try and trash someone. When the protest is out of proportion I am even more inclined to take a closer look at the candidate they are trashing. Perry has been around for a while and has a long record so there should lots of things to disagree with yet they seem to harp on this vaccine bill. Good luck with that.
Not one Texas student got the vaccine because the legislature stopped the program before the schools implemented it. Malkin is misleading on that point.
The worst part was that Perry’s chief of staff was a lobbyist for Merck. That was the most odious part of this episode.
ONE BIG FACT MISSING.
Perry killed the PLAN immediately after hearing about its flaws.
So, he listened to the public and killed the plan and it never went into effect .
So who cares anymore ?
I love Michelle Malkin. I don’t think there is a conservative blogger out there who is better than her. Her columns are grounded in fact and she is reasonable in what she writes. I admire her greatly.
However, I hear her on this issue but its not convincing. Perry is not going to engage in “crony capitalism” for $6,000. He explained his decision and said he made a mistake. He obviously hasn’t convinced a lot of people but I’m pretty conservative and he has convinced me. Besides, t
The “crony capitalism” charge is really an indictment of someone spending government money on cronies. Perry has a record of cutting spending. This is not a significant issue for me in supporting him.
Mitt Perry
Taxpayer money for wind and solar: Check
Open borders: Check
Texas Dream act: Check
http://www.creators.com/conservative/michelle-malkin.html
From comments on the site.
We expect the Governor to direct the people that he appoints, right? The Governor is responsible for management of the Executive Branch, including the Department of State Health Services. He appoints the head of the DSHS, who supervises the people who decide which vaccines will be mandatory. Texas’ Legislature modified Chapter 38.001 of the Texas Education Code over the years to mandate certain vaccines and allow the DSHS to add other mandated vaccines without Legislative oversight. Just before the Gardasil controversy, the Department had mandated Chicken Pox and Hepatitis A, which are both manufactured using cultures of human fetal tissue obtained at an abortion.
The Governor’s Executive Order (RP 65) that caused all the controversy also ordered the director of DSHS to make it easier for parents to opt out of vaccines. The Legislature had changed the law from “opt in” to a requirement to “opt out” once for all the school years. Next, they changed to a two year limit on the opt out, and then in 2005, the Legislature restricted the period to one year and required a new State form bearing a “secure seal.” Parents had to go to Austin or start early in the summer. There were bureaucrats who maintained that the only way to get the form with the seal was to go to Austin, find the right office and make the request in person. Perry used his EO to tell the Director of DSHS to make the request (and the seal) available on-line, making it easier to “opt out.”
In fact, the reason for the Executive Order was to speed up private insurance coverage and to make it easier for parents to exercise their right to opt out.
The Federal government doesn’t have the authority to mandate vaccines in the States. Not yet, not exactly. However, thirty days after the National Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended the vaccine, Texas was required by Federal law to buy and distribute the vaccine in the “Vaccines for Children” program. The program provides vaccines without cost to uninsured children up to age 21, those who are insured by Medicaid, and those whose private insurance does not pay for vaccines at all. In effect, the only families who have to pay for Gardasil – for whom the State of Texas will not pay, anyway, under Federal law – are those whose private insurance will only pay for mandated vaccines.
Comment: #1
Posted by: Beverly Nuckols, MD
Tue Aug 16, 2011 11:52 PM
It appears Perry likes Executive Orders just like Obama does.
Who gives a crap about Gardisil. I’m still voting for Rick Perry because he will beat Bammy Boy by 15 points
“In 2003, Gov. Rick Perry signed a state law that allows parents to opt out of vaccination programs for reasons of “conscience,” including religion or any other rationale. The law is a response to a number of vocal parents who have become convinced that vaccines are responsible for the dramatic rise in autism cases over the past decade—despite the fact that several large, peer-reviewed studies have found no evidence that this is the case. According to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services, in 2003, parents of 2,314 children applied for an exemption. By the end of 2009, the total had reached beyond 12,600.”
http://www.texasobserver.org/culture/lessons-unlearned
There was an opt-out, so that statement appears false.
I think Gardasil should be advertised by Merck and parents or someone other than government should decided whether a given person should get a dose.
Gardasil is basically for women who end up screwing a lot of men. That’s the statistical fact. I am tired of spending government money to cancel out the effects of bad behavior.
I am really disappointed in this article by Ms. Malkin, which is over the top. One is that TX parents can OPT out of ANY vaccine. Two is that this did not pass the legislature, so this is a non-issue and happened 4 years ago. Third is that from a public health stand point, vaccines must be given prior to becoming sexually active and over a substantial period of time to be effective. If someone becomes ill, then the vaccines would be useless. Fourth is that Ms Malkin has trashed a good GOP candidate that could likely beat Obama. The other candidates are not likely to be able to succeed.
He walks the walk of a true conservative"