Posted on 09/13/2011 8:09:37 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Earlier today, I noted that Michele Bachmann finally scored points on Rick Perry by hitting him on his ties to Merck and linking that to the Gardasil mandate Perry imposed through executive order in Texas. This is a fair point on Perry’s record, even given his apology for pursuing the mandate through EO instead of through the legislature, and it’s not surprising that Bachmann was the candidate to first take advantage of the opening. (Mitt Romney passed a mandate on health insurance for all citizens of Massachusetts, which pretty much puts this issue out of reach for him.) However, Bachmann took a winning argument about the method and the wisdom of mandating a vaccination for a limited-spread virus and turned it into an anti-vaccination argument, especially in this post-debate argument on Fox with Greta van Susteren.
>>>"There’s a woman who came up crying to me tonight after the debate. She said her daughter was given that vaccine. She told me her daughter suffered mental retardation as a result of that vaccine."<<<
Huh? “Mental retardation” typically takes place in a pre- or neo-natal event. Autism becomes apparent in the first couple of years of life — and primarily affects boys. Gardasil vaccinations take place among girls between 9-12 years of age. Even assuming that this anecdote is arguably true, it wouldn’t be either “mental retardation” or autism, but brain damage.
The FDA has received no reports of brain damage as a result of HPV vaccines Gardasil and Cervarix. Among the reports that correlate seriously adverse reactions to either, the FDA lists blood clots, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and 68 deaths during the entire run of the drugs. The FDA found no causal connection to any of these serious adverse events and found plenty of contributing factors to all — and all of the events are exceedingly rare.
The “mental retardation” argument is a rehash of the thoroughly discredited notion that vaccines containing thimerasol caused a rapid increase in diagnosed autism cases. That started with a badly-botched report in Lancet that allowed one researcher to manipulate a ridiculously small sample of twelve cases in order to reach far-sweeping conclusions about thimerasol. That preservative hasn’t been included in vaccines for years, at least not in the US, and the rate of autism diagnoses remain unchanged.
The most charitable analysis that can be offered in this case for Bachmann is that she got duped into repeating a vaccine-scare urban legend on national television. It looks more like Bachmann sensed that she had won a point and wanted to go in for the kill, didn’t bother to check the facts, and didn’t care that she was stoking an anti-vaccination paranoid conspiracy theory, either. Neither shines a particularly favorable light on Bachmann.
Rick Santorum took the correct position on the Gardasil issue. We mandate certain vaccines in children because we mandate children be gathered for educational purposes for many years (in private or public schools), and certain diseases are easily communicable in those settings. By mandating vaccinations against whooping cough, measles, and mumps, we are protecting children who would otherwise get exposed without any action on their part except compliance with the law. That’s not true with HPV, and parents should decide for themselves whether to inoculate their sons and daughters with Gardasil or Cervarix. If Perry wanted to make those inoculations more accessible, he could have crafted an opt-in system rather than forcing parents to opt out.
It's just gotten to the point that I have finally had enough of all the people with their "good ideas" that they want to force on me, and it doesn't matter which letter comes after their name.
“Scientologists are nuts, IMO, but they don’t have anything against vaccinations. “
they are against modern medicine in general and Bachmann made a psychiatric claim, that it causes mental retardation.
If this is the best Bachmann can come up with then she's done.
Well, it DOES seem to cause mental retardation among the other GOP candidates.
Maybe her constituent was lying to her, or was a Rat plant, but if the vaccine truly had an unfortunate side effect in the constituent’s daughter of causing brain damage, leading to what would be colloquially called “mental retardation,” that’s something that needs to be faced. I don’t know about killing “little girls,” can you clarify? It could in some circumstances form part of a temptation to a young girl to be a slut. Giving it to boys would be even more controversial in that department because they might fancy themselves to be disease-proof little studs.
All those risks might be chosen by a parent, but to have the weight of the state on them is over the top, and if Bachmann made that point and no other point she did well.
“I was reading that a study didn’t recommend it for mass vaccinations, because the cost of the vaccinations would be greater than the cost of treating the diseases it is supposed to prevent.”
This is the mentality of Obamacare. REALITY, is that a woman who gets this apparently safe vaccination, BEFORE she becomes sexually active, will avoid the most common provable cause of cervical cancer. Even if she waits till her wedding day to become active, there is nothing to argue against getting the vaccinations. Refusal to get this vaccine for a daughter, simply because it is a tacit admission that SOMEDAY, they will become a sexually active person is no better than a Jehovahs Witness refusing to get basic lifesaving treatments.
But i guess it makes better financial sense to wait till she gets cancer, then do a hysterectomy. Great for the collective,,kinda sucks for the INDIVIDUAL that our society is ordered around.
Refusing to recommend the vaccine because it’s cheaper to treat the women who get the cancer is PURE OBAMA. It’s *exactly* the same mentality of Obama saying “Maybe you should take the blue pain pill, instead of the expensive treatment.
Bachmann has truly jumped the shark.
There is no way on earth a teenager gets ‘retarded’ from a vaccine. If she bought that nonsense, she’s not POTUS qualified.
This anti-vaccine BS is nutter territory.
Put ‘em in the crazy aunt attic with Ron Paul and the 911 truthers.
Surprise! Brain infections have psychiatric side effects!
Kaye Bailey tried this on Perry when she ran against him for governor.
It doesn’t fly. It may crawl a few paces but that’s it.
And there are so many lies involved about donations and about the effects of the vaccine that it weakens any argument.
Plus Michele showed herself to be hysterical and ridiculous.
Ties to dog owners??
I did not know that. Bubba (overlarge black lab) and I will have to rethink our position on Perry.
Maybe Bachmann is playing up the risk more than it deserves, but darn tootin’ that brain infections can impact brain function.
I think we disagree on that point, perhaps because we define "cronyism" differently. I think the evidence of cronyism between the TX exec office and Merck is pretty strong, given that Perry's ex chief of staff, Mike Toomey, was Merck's lobbyist in Texas, advocating for the vaccine to be mandatory.
-- certainly insufficient to nix Perry as a candidate. --
I agree with that. Still, after being burned by George Bush's "compassionate conservatism" and other warning signs, I think it is prudent to gaze at political candidates without granting the benefit of the doubt.
I don’t think it’s any secret that Merck fanned out its salesmen to all the states. Perry should have seen this in his big picture.
Did you fail to read post No. 1. The facts are there.
But some people come off as sanctimonious and smug about how they've raised their children, so they are insulted, offended and won't be inconvenienced by having to opt out, so have decided this should not be available as other vaccines have been.
The "shocking" comment from the doctor illustrates the problem. Thank you for sharing that story.
“The parents were not informed about the method to opt out. “
Not true. You are not a Texas parent, apparently, and are not well informed on this.
I have never been to a doctor’s office and failed to see a drug rep from some drug company or another hawking their wares.
Merck does this. All of them do.
But I love the pharmaceutical companies anyway. They have done more good for our health than doctors have.
I should have guessed.
Piddlesquat. It's on the market and can be had by anyone who chooses it. What it does not have is the weight of the state of Texas behond it, even if that weight is "er, ma'am, only a SUGGESTION, fill this here form to get out, and by the way pray your school does not 'loose' [sic] it."
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