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.
Thackney, for better or worse, the public school has become the surrogate the state mental hospital. Children who were once institutionalized are now attending school with your children. Unvaccinated, these challanged children are at significantly increased risk of both having Hep B and passing it on to other students in the schools.
Another thing to consider is that some vaccines provide lifetime immunity, the Heptavax appears to be one of these. By vaccinating children, you are protecting them from exposures later in life, at a time when they are unlikely to be seeking medical care otherwise.
Vaccines have worked so well people don’t understand why we need them.
I travel all over this world.
Before going anywhere in Africa or India, I get re-dos of vaccines even if you docs say I don’t need them.
Hell, I take anti-malarial drugs that turn my piss blue before I go.
And about 5 acidophilus pills a day on the theory they might crowd out whatever might want to grow there.
It sounds like the same arguement would hold for HPV.
Vaccine for Hepatitis is mandated and it is not passed this way.
While it is very effectively spread by sexual content, supposedly it is also spread by nonsexual contact as well. Poor sanitary conditions also spread it. I know that physicians, nurses, dentists, dental hygienists, etc. are at high risk of being exposed and are required to be vaccinated. There is a very high incidence of hepatitis B in South Texas especially among illegal aliens.
I thought that was Hepatitis A. Both A and B are separate vaccines and both required.
Those are all people working with blood or bloody tissue.
But they can get throat cancer, and that is apparently increasing. Apparently male homosexuals are voluntarily getting Gardacil vaccinations to prevent anal cancer.
Hepatitis A is spread that way. Not Hepatitis B.
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/hepatitis/hepatitisA/Pages/transmission.aspx
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/hepatitis/hepatitisB/Pages/transmission.aspx
She DID make the point well. Then she went and said something stupid.
If I walked up to you and told you a story, without any supporting information, would you be inclined to go on national TV and use it as part of your campaign for President.
Really, its not just the “story” that is not reliable, it is that she would use it to make a point that makes me think she is not thinking clearly.
Yes, I could see myself being that empathetic to someone’s story to use it later in the day when talking to a group. But, when you stop and think about it, its really not a good practice. And to think that a woman who has been under scrutiny for other stupid comments, would continue to do so makes me really think she is not competent for the job.
And haven’t we had enough of that lately?
I agree. While I haven’t gone into those places, my daughter has been to Haiti several times. She comes home and is just amazed at what we take for granted. The stories are just chilling.
Yes, vaccines are wonderful things.
Then it should not be required. (If an employer wants to require is as a condition of employment, that is a different issue.)
Hepatitis vaccine was never required when my kids were in school, and strangely enough, there was never any sign of an outbreak or even of one person infecting another.
At least you are consistent. We disagree, but that is okay.
Cheers.
BTTT
I struggle to get me kids to understand just how some of the world lives. I spent a long time in Yemen 60 miles from the nearest paved road. It was about 40 miles past that to the first building with plumbing.
Some cannot understand what life is like where sewage flows in the street and the village water supply is a single open well with water dipped out by hand.
Wake up.
You know what I’m talking about.
I want to control my own health care and what goes into my own body.
I don’t want the government telling me that I’m going to be injected with some untested serum unless I read the fine print and realize I can opt-out.
I began lurking in 1997 and signed on in 1998. The discourse reflects the politics around the country. People are beyond upset about what has happened in our government!
Like I’ve said all along. Bachmann can’t get elected. And after doing some more research into her and her church, I wouldn’t want her to. It’s almost like she’s secretly a KKK Klanswoman- she hates Catholics and views their church as evil and led by the antichrist (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/michele-bachmanns-former-church-explains-popeanti-christ-claims/2011/07/15/gIQAzMG7FI_story.html). The last thing we need is someone so hateful in the presidency who now is apparently also advocating ovarian cancer for her own personal gain.
...but where do you stand on this? I am beginning to realize that neither side seems to have all the facts right.
If it would assure that my daughters would never have either cervical cancer or hepatitis B, I’d give it due consideration. I don’t know how the same vaccine could protect against two such different diseases. Someone was saying on Rush that they don’t give the vaccine to anyone who is already sexually active, and that is the reason for giving it so early. I don’t know why that would be. It doesn’t sound right.
Anyway, the Gardisil brouhaha is not nearly a big an issue as Obamneycare.
You know, vaccines are the weirdest issue on FR that get the weirdest obsessiveness. I remember when pertussis vaccines were blamed for autism until that was debunked.
It's almost like a religion--vaccines seem to tap into a vein of primitive thinking.
The problem is that they are too successful, maybe?
In my family's old cemetery there is a little line of tombstones, where four children from a single family died within a few weeks of each other of diphtheria.
That was so many years ago that we start to believe that the diseases no longer exist. But I can remember children with leg braces before the polio vaccine.
While I don't think that we should jump willy-nilly into a new vaccination program, the reaction to Gardisil is out of proportion to its dangers.
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