Posted on 08/17/2011 12:40:57 AM PDT by bronxville
Rick Perry’s bad, Obama-style medicine by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2011
Texas, we have a problem. Your GOP governor is running for president against Barack Obama. Yet, one of his most infamous acts as executive of the nation’s second-largest state smacks of every worst habit of the Obama administration. And his newly crafted rationalizations for the atrocious decision are positively Clintonesque.
In February 2007, Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed a shocking executive order forcing every sixth-grade girl to submit to a three-jab regimen of the Gardasil vaccine. He also forced state health officials to make the vaccine available “free” to girls ages 9 to 18. The drug, promoted by manufacturer Merck as an effective shield against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) and genital warts, as well as cervical cancer, had only been approved by the Food and Drug Administration eight months prior to Perry’s edict.
Gardasil’s wear-off time and long-term side effects have yet to be determined. “Serious questions” remain about its “overall effectiveness,” according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Even the chair of the federal panel that recommended Gardasil for children opposes mandating it as a condition of school enrollment. Young girls and boys are simply not at an increased risk of contracting HPV in the classroom the way they are at risk of contracting measles or other school-age communicable diseases.
Perry defenders pointed to a bogus “opt-out” provision in his mandate “to protect the right of parents to be the final authority on their children’s health care.” But requiring parents to seek the government’s permission to keep an untested drug out of their kids’ veins is a plain usurpation of their authority.
Translation: Ask your bureaucratic overlord to determine if a Gardasil waiver is right for you.
Libertarians and social conservatives alike slammed Perry’s reckless disregard for parental rights and individual liberty. The Republican-dominated legislature also balked. In May 2007, both chambers passed bills overturning the governor’s unilaterally imposed health order.
Fast-forward five years. After announcing his 2012 presidential bid this weekend, Perry now admits he “didn’t do my research well enough” on the Gardasil vaccine before stuffing his bad medicine down Texans’ throats. On Monday, he added: “That particular issue is one that I readily stand up and say I made a mistake on. I listened to the legislature … and I agreed with their decision.”
Perry downplayed his underhanded maneuver as an aberrational “error,” and then — gobsmackingly — he spun the debacle as a display of his great character: “One of the things I do pride myself on, I listen. When the electorate says, ‘Hey, that’s not what we want to do,’ we backed up, took a look at what we did.”
Are these non-apology apologies enough to quell the concerns of voters looking for a presidential candidate who will provide a clear, unmistakable contrast to Barack Obama? Not by a long shot.
How Obama-like was this scandal?
Let us count the ways:
READ MORE: michellemalkin.com
This reminds me of 2008 and a similar 'Say No To Fred' plea. Remind me, how did that work out for us?
A 'Say No To Gov. Perry' movement will leave us with Milt in 2012.
NO SALE
Poor Michelle...... there is a wave threatening to drown her candidate.
She dredges up a sea shell fragment hoping it will be adequate to stop it.
Who is Malkin’s candidate?
WTH more do you want?
How true are the accusations that I have seen recently of Rick Perry's Koran-quoting, Muslim cronyism, etc ?
Oh, and don't get me started about Rick Perry being Al Gore's campaign manager at one time. I already looked into it and its true, so I am --uh, to say the least-- shocked and worried about him being a candidate.
The mainstream media seem to think he is the RIGHT GUY FOR THE RINO JOB!
Cough. Case closed.
Obama gives you NO choice. The only way to opt out is to DIE.
Perry protected the choice and decision making authority parents have no differently than with any other childhood vaccination.
Vaccine requirements are not news: for school attendance, for travel, for certain working environments. It's routine.
Some really sick-minded people are obsessed with Gardasil because the vaccine is against strains of HPV that are classed as an STD. They see "STD" and lose all pretense of rational thought. "He's trying to sexualize our daughters!" "He thinks our baby girls are sluts!" (Cue headless chicken running.)
He was taken to the woodshed. He knows it. You know it. Michelle knows it.
Let's contrast Perry's parental involvement approach with what's happening in CA today
AB 499 does an end-run around parents entirely and says simply: "A minor who is 12 years of age or older may consent to medical care related to the prevention of a sexually transmitted disease."
The state and the child only. No parental consent. There's not even a requirement for parents to be informed after the fact in this bill.
That's the kind of fascist insanity that needs to be stopped. That's real interference with parental rights. That's not what Perry did.
He was repudiated soundly for his use of executive order on the vaccine in spite of its parental rights protections, but the act should not be sensationalized to the extreme.
Why did the tea party support Perry last year if he is not supportive of the tea party? You people need to take a different tact here on FR because it is not helping your candidates.
Michelle is generally pretty good, and I won’t dismiss her concerns outright. But I will say the concept of federalism gives states MUCH more leeway than it does the federal government. Voters can judge their state’s performance at a closer level and reward or punish it as they see fit.
How did the voters of Texas view this action by Perry? I understand there are also questions of process that ought to be addressed. Let us also not equate every healthcare issue with Hussein’s Death Law...it diminishes the damaging effects of the statute.
“WTH more do you want?”
They want Ron Paul or Romney or Newt! Or blood! Anybody else who they fantasize is perfect.
I haven’t decided who I will vote for in the primary yet. I know that it will NOT be Paul or Romney or Newt.
I’m still sifting through whatever I can find and I do look through some of the links posted on here,
but after the 50th time someone posts the same links and hysterical blabber I get turned off. I live in Texas
and I know Rick Perry’s record and believe me he has warts but a whole lot of the crap that is posted and
repeated is blown way out of proportion. The primaries are still months away.
And the election is over a year away. And all this hand wringing is already getting to be a pain in the ass!
What are you smoking? The MSM is apopleptic against Perry!
So far from what I can see Perry is one of these Texas big mouth blowhards.Telling it like it is is one thing,how you say it is another.
He not going to wash come the general election with the rest of the country. F’n phoney baloney Foghorn Leghorn.
I am with you FRiends. I have not made up my mind either...and while I appreciate the info, I think the the invectives ought to be reserved for Hussein and the lackeys thereof.
Here is an idea I think we ought to do: start a WRITE-IN campaign for “Jesus Christ, God’s Son and Messiah”. Perhaps THAT candidate could get majority support here on FR, but there are bound to be some hard core atheists here who wouldn’t even support the guy. And some zealots would say he wasn’t TOUGH ENOUGH on the Pharisees.
HPV of all forms is spread by contact. Warts you may have on your hands or elsewhere are caused by strains of HPV. Nearly all contract HPV of one form or another. It's ubiquitous. Most of the time a normal healthy immune system deals with it fine.
How do you know if or what strains, of hundreds, you've been exposed to? You don't unless you develop symptoms. For strains causing cervical cancer that can take years even decades and if you want the vaccine it's best to give it before risk of any exposure. The very reason annual pap smears are done is HPV.
Since the Perry debacle there's now a second HPV vaccine (Cervarex) but works against fewer strains than Gardasil.
I think a lot of people are squeamish about STD vaccines because they think it's a comment on their morals, their parenting or in some way gives permission to children to be sexual activity. It's none of those.
The way I see it is there's no way any of us can know if a daughter is going to be molested or raped by a pervert who happens to be a carrier.
I would not want to find out a vaccine may have prevented a cancer problem later and not have taken advantage of that preventative medicine.
Why don't you get started and explain to us any logic in your position. 23 years ago, someone who grew up in a Democrat family, in a Democrat dominated area, with a father active in Democrat politics supported a Democrat. Oh the Horror. Shortly after that he switched to Republican and stayed put. Explain how that in any way reflects on his conservatism in 2011.
Ronald Reagan did not switch to the Republican Party until he was 52 years old. I suppose you are shocked and worried about the high regard held by most conservatives for Reagan. Oh wait, it gets worse, Reagan is the role model for most conservatives. Oh the Horror!
I voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976 and never voted for another Democrat since. I can see now how my credentials as a conservative will always be suspect.
Winston Churchill said, "If you weren't liberal when you were young, you have no heart. If you're still a liberal when you are older, you have no brain." Of course, he was just some English dude.
So please do get started. Please explain to us under what logic Perry's party affiliation in 1988 is relevant with respect to his constant party affiliation for the following 23 years. I can hardly wait to observe your "brilliance".
Please, Please, Please...
Perry enhanced the choice and decision making authority parents have.
He made the form available on line and a parent only needed to submit it once for the duration of the child's schooling.
Prior to that, the form needed to be requested from a State Office and the only reliable way to obtain one was to request it in person. There are anecdotal reports that some parents ended up having to travel to Austin to finally obtain the form. The need to resubmit the form changed over time from being good for 5 years to as low as being effective only year to year.
As Malkin points out his attempt at an apology smacks only at much regret that he was proven to be not only just wrong but so wrong at a level tat he should have resigned as a disgraced RINO. His non-apology is nothing more than a slap in the face to those of us who were fighting his ultra bad judgment call in trying ram that debacle down Texans throats. What utter arrogance. This is only a glimpse of what America can expect from the latest liberal leaning professional politician who has so little regard for the wishes of the citizenry and electorate. His presidency would be very bad for America.
BTW. Good article as usual from Michelle Malkin. Keep them coming.
Nothing like attacking the messenger when one disagrees with their message. Her message is spot on no matter your views on, "the difference between using race and ethnicity in profiling terrorism and putting 100,000 Japanese-American men, women, and children in concentration camps". A failed lame attempt to discredit the messenger. Shame on you. I'll take Malkin over her disgruntled detractors any time.
Uhh, how about trying to apologize to all those he trashed and condemned when he was rebuffed and defeated in his attempt at dictating public policy instead of trusting the people via the legislative constitutional process?! His so called apology just sounds so hollow and nearly meaningless in view of what has been revealed to date on this subject.
It's not surprising that she has no trouble finding parity between the two since she also thought that interning hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese-Americans in concentration camps was in the same ball park as looking at someone's race and national origin in terrorist profiling.
The Gardisil executive order was a bad move by Perry, but comparing it ObamaCare, as well as comparing internment and profiling, is indefensible, stupid, and dishonest.
Shame on you for not being able to tell the difference.
Is Michelle a Palin-drone? Most of these over the top accusations and outright lies seem to come from them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.