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Rick Perry’s bad, Obama-style medicine
michellemalkin.com ^ | 08-16-2011 | Michelle Malkin

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


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: gardasil; obamacare; perry; rickperry
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To: GunRunner
The main lie is Malkin's column is concerning her positioning of the opt out. She says, "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.'"

Now, this is at best, an ignorant misrepresentation of the facts, if not a bold faced lie. There is nothing 'bogus' about the opt out of the Gardisil vaccine, or any other of the vaccines required to attend a Texas public school.

You are misinterpreting Malkin. She is not saying, as you claim, that the ability to "opt out" is itself bogus. That would be, after all, a stupid thing for her to say since the fact of the opt-out is quite clear. You noticeably left out the following sentence in your quote in which Malkin explains why opt out provision is "bogus":

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.
Perry says the opt out provision is to protect the parents authority. That claim of protecting parental authority is what Malkin is saying is bogus. Requiring parents to get permission to stop the government from injecting their kids with an untested drug doesn't "protect" parental authority but rather undermines it, Malkin believes. As before, this is a reasonable and good faith assessment of facts by Malkin. You may not agree or like her assessment, but it is most definitely not a lie, nor is it a gross misrepresentation of facts.

Most if not all states have some sort of statutory vaccination requirement for public schools and most that I know of offer some sort of opt out on philosophical or religious grounds.

This isn't polio or chicken pox. This isn't a government response to an epidemic or some imminent catastrophic health threat to the population at large. We're talking about a vaccination for a sexually transmitted virus. Comparing the two situations is quite a stretch.

We are left here then with no specific compelling evidence that Malkin lied or acted in bad faith in this article.

81 posted on 08/17/2011 10:50:37 AM PDT by AHerald ("Do not fear, only believe." - Mark 5:36)
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To: SUSSA

She’s an opportunist of the first rank. She was lying.


82 posted on 08/17/2011 11:02:53 AM PDT by pgkdan (Time for a Cain Mutiny!)
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To: AHerald
This is the way all vaccinations work in Texas. You have to opt out, instead of opting in. Maybe they are different in your state, but this was not a massive statist power grab on the scale of ObamaCare. It was a fast tracking of a vaccine into the normal process of school requirements, and admittedly, by myself and Governor Perry, he should have done it differently and consulted more with the people and the legislature. But no matter how much Malkin wants this one tired issue to be Perry's ObamaCare, it is not.

I stand by my statements, as they were correct.

This isn't polio or chicken pox. This isn't a government response to an epidemic or some imminent catastrophic health threat to the population at large. We're talking about a vaccination for a sexually transmitted virus. Comparing the two situations is quite a stretch.

You're right, it is a stretch, except for the opposite reason that you imply. People rarely die of polio or chicken pox, but cervical cancer DOES kill thousands of women every year. Argue with the legislative process, but this was not a huge power grab anywhere near the scale of ObamaCare, and anyone who says it is is being disingenuous.

We are left here then with no specific compelling evidence that Malkin lied or acted in bad faith in this article.

I have thoroughly documented why Malkin's article is written in bad faith, and why there is no comparison between the two. You can choose to ignore the evidence of this, as well as her past comparisons of internment that show her lack of good judgement, but your inability to see the facts at hand does not change anything.

83 posted on 08/17/2011 11:07:21 AM PDT by GunRunner (10 Years of FReeping...)
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To: pgkdan

That’s your opinion of Palin but you believe her about Perry. Hmmmmmmm very interesting.


84 posted on 08/17/2011 11:20:27 AM PDT by SUSSA
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To: GunRunner
Maybe they are different in your state, but this was not a massive statist power grab on the scale of ObamaCare.

Nowhere in the articles does Malkin claim that the Gardasil executive order was a power grab equivalent in scale to ObamaCare. She simply doesn't say any such thing, directly or indirectly.

What she does do in the article is repeatedly detail why Perry's actions in regards to the Gardasil mandate are "Obama-like" and mirror much of what the Obama administration did with regards to the passing of ObamaCare. And to that end she makes a damning and convincing case against Perry.

85 posted on 08/17/2011 11:27:23 AM PDT by AHerald ("Do not fear, only believe." - Mark 5:36)
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To: GunRunner
Maybe they are different in your state, but this was not a massive statist power grab on the scale of ObamaCare.

Nowhere in the articles does Malkin claim that the Gardasil executive order was a power grab equivalent in scale to ObamaCare. She simply doesn't say any such thing, directly or indirectly.

What she does do in the article is repeatedly detail why Perry's actions in regards to the Gardasil mandate are "Obama-like" and mirror much of what the Obama administration did with regards to the passing of ObamaCare. And to that end she makes a damning and convincing case against Perry.

86 posted on 08/17/2011 11:31:35 AM PDT by AHerald ("Do not fear, only believe." - Mark 5:36)
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To: AHerald
And to that end she makes a damning and convincing case against Perry.

They're not similar in any way! She makes no case as far as I'm concerned as to how this is in any way Obama-lite and states no facts that haven't been discussed here ad nauseam. There's no case to be made that the vaccination legislative procedures are anything like ObamaCare.

Like I have thoroughly demonstrated earlier, several times though you've chosen to ignore it, she has a history of making these totally false equivalencies, and you and Malkin are quite poor at making this totally absurd case.

87 posted on 08/17/2011 11:36:04 AM PDT by GunRunner (10 Years of FReeping...)
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To: SUSSA
That’s your opinion of Palin but you believe her about Perry. Hmmmmmmm very interesting.

Where did I say that I believed her about Perry? I merely put the question out there for the Palin supporters who are bashing Perry. It's a fair question.

88 posted on 08/17/2011 11:39:18 AM PDT by pgkdan (Time for a Cain Mutiny!)
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To: GunRunner
There's no case to be made that the vaccination legislative procedures are anything like ObamaCare.

No case? Malkin offers multiple ways in which Perry's administration acted similarly to Obama's. Read the article and you'll, for example, find she details the following three ways in which Perry acted akin to Obama:

1.Trampling the deliberative process.
2. Human shield demagoguery.
3. Cronyism

Malkin makes a convincing case for each. And while you may not agree, I do and think many others will also.

89 posted on 08/17/2011 11:49:35 AM PDT by AHerald ("Do not fear, only believe." - Mark 5:36)
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To: pgkdan

I may have missed it, but I’ve never seen a Palin supporter say that she never made a mistake.

Slick Rick is very good at pretending to be conservative and compared to Kay Bailey Hutchison he was far and away the more conservative of the two.

Faulting Palin for picking Slick Rick over the pro-pornography, pro-abortion, senator from American Airlines is like faulting someone for picking Bush over Gore.

Have you ever heard ANY politician endorse someone by saying; “There’s no conservative in the race so I’m endorsing Joe Blow because he is the lesser of two evils.”???

Of course not.

So the question is nothing but a cheap shot at Palin.


90 posted on 08/17/2011 11:56:51 AM PDT by SUSSA
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To: SUSSA

June 8, 2006, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the drug Gardasil.

Feb 2007 Rick Perry signed an executive order mandating that 11- and 12-year-old girls in Texas be given the vaccine Gardasil.

September 24, 2007 Glaxo’s cancer vaccine Ok’d in Europe.

August 2007 Rick Perry attended a Bilderberg meeting.
http://conservativedailynews.com/2011/08/tx-gov-rick-perry-attends-bilderberg-in-istanbul-2007/

Kathleen Sibelius attended the meeting with Perry:
http://conservativedailynews.com/2011/08/busted-kathleen-sebelius-admitts-that-she-and-rick-perry-are-bilderberg-group-attendees/

This is Corporate Globalism in action because it’s happening in many places at the same time. Money and Power.


91 posted on 08/17/2011 12:04:53 PM PDT by bronxville (Sarah will be the first American female president.)
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To: hocndoc

Sorry I just checked it out and she had it right!


92 posted on 08/17/2011 12:05:10 PM PDT by Friendofgeorge (SARAH PALIN OR FLIPPIN BUST)
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To: bobk333

Oh but Rick Perry started the Tea Party right? And Michele Bachmann is the 2nd in command...HEAVY SARCASM


93 posted on 08/17/2011 12:07:18 PM PDT by Friendofgeorge (SARAH PALIN OR FLIPPIN BUST)
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To: bronxville

....”In 2005 Merck started by funding a campaign called “Make the Connection,” which was run by the Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation (CRPF) and the celebrity charity Step Up Women’s Network. The national campaign was launched September 30, 2005, in Tampa, FL, with what would become the standard formula of a celebrity, a medical professional, and an opportunity for attendees to bead their own “Make the Connection” bracelets. Partnering with non-profits, especially non-profits that appears to have patients’ health and women’s issues as their primary concerns, helped Merck reach audiences that may have rightly been suspicious of the motivations of a pharmaceutical company. But with even cursory examination, CRPF looks like a drug industry funded group wrapped in non-profit clothing.

According to their website, CRPF was founded in 1985 by Carolyn Aldigé a year after she lost her father to cancer. As is often the case with patient groups, CRPF’s 2006 annual report lists several pharmaceutical companies, including Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Roche, Eli Lilly, and Sanofi-Aventis as funders. In fact, all of those and more gave in excess of $100,000 to the organization during 2006, with several others giving at only slightly lower levels. In addition, CRPF received more than $100,000 from the industry lobbying group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) in 2006. CRPF needs to be bringing in big grants: according to their 2006 IRS 990 filing, available at Guidestar, as President of CRPF, Aldigé makes $256,000 a year and has a total compensation package of more than $286,000 annually”.....
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6208

This reminds me of the nonprofit MADD. They get into it for a specific issue and the money keeps them there to advocate for all sorts of other “causes” paid for by the Corporate Globalists. They’re like an outside wing of all the government agencies.


94 posted on 08/17/2011 12:18:03 PM PDT by bronxville (Sarah will be the first American female president.)
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To: bronxville

I hoped Sibelius would be Obama’s running mate because Obama-Sibelius sounds like a social disease. I wanted bumper stickers saying “Don’t catch Obama-Sibelius”


95 posted on 08/17/2011 12:19:21 PM PDT by SUSSA
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To: Vevey

Government has NO BUSINESS mandating a vaccine for a disease which can’t be passed from student to student while sitting in a classroom.


96 posted on 08/17/2011 12:26:07 PM PDT by Politicalmom ("President Fox's vision for an open border is a vision I embrace"- Rick Perry)
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To: SUSSA

lol

I totally and absolutely DESPISE Sibelius more than anyone on this earth. She’s the epitamy of evil. I imagine her as the ugly creature in the Lord of the Rings constantly referring to herself as ‘my precious’.


97 posted on 08/17/2011 12:28:19 PM PDT by bronxville (Sarah will be the first American female president.)
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To: SUSSA
Have you ever heard ANY politician endorse someone by saying; “There’s no conservative in the race so I’m endorsing Joe Blow because he is the lesser of two evils.”???

In that case you maintain your integrity by endorsing no-one!

98 posted on 08/17/2011 12:30:57 PM PDT by pgkdan (Time for a Cain Mutiny!)
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To: GunRunner

He’s laughing like an idiot and posting stupid pictures because he has NO argument.


99 posted on 08/17/2011 12:35:38 PM PDT by pgkdan (Time for a Cain Mutiny!)
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To: Politicalmom

Gardasil has to be the perfect drug for the brave new world of ObamaCare, in a 1984 kind of way. Made by Merck & Co., it was approved in 2006 for use against venereal disease in young girls. Here’s why it’s so culturally suited for hope and change — and such a perfect example of why you don’t want the government in your medicine chest:

1) Gardasil has owed most of its success to the fact that government agencies have been subsidizing its sales, recommending its use, and even talking about requiring it.

2) Administered to girls as young as nine, it seems likely to help them grow up feeling ever so much safer about “safe sex.” They’ll be freer to rebel against bad old, religion-based morality, and more inclined to bond (as it were) with peers, school, the state and charismatic politicians who are always repeating themselves.

3) Best of all, it now appears that Gardasil doesn’t work.

Gardasil was promoted as the first vaccine against cancer, since it works against human papilloma virus (HPV), which is believed to instigate the growth of cancerous cells in a woman’s cervix. But since it was first hurriedly approved by the Food and Drug Administration, Gardasil has been dogged by criticism that it hasn’t been adequately tested, and by persistent reports of side effects, including deaths. So has a similar drug, Cervarix, made by GlaxoSmith-Kline.

As news of the risks has come out, the reply from Gardasil’s pharma-industry supporters has been to denounce “fear-mongering,” and to reiterate that the drug will reduce the cervical cancer rate in America. Alas, a presentation at a conference by one of Merck’s top researchers on October 2 appears to show otherwise. Here is a link to an article by Steven W. Mosher and Joan Robinson of the Population Research Institute (PRI), commenting on the talk by Merck consultant Dr. Diane Harper, who helped develop both Gardasil and Cervarix.

Dr. Harper has on several occasions criticized the rush to market of both HPV drugs. But her October 2 talk at the Fourth International Public Conference on Vaccination in Reston, Va., was framed as emphasizing the benefits of Gardasil. Nevertheless, according to PRI, her presentation openly stated that, 26 million vaccinations after its debut, Gardasil will have no effect on the rate of cervical cancer in the U.S. HPV, the infection that Gardasil can prevent, is rare, usually heals itself, and testing and treatment in the U.S. are very effective in keeping cervical cancer a rare event.

Okay, you say, Gardasil may not be effective. Neither is brushing your teeth with mayonnaise. But can it hurt? All the girls in my daughter’s class are getting their shots, and I don’t want her to feel left out.

Yes, it can hurt, according to Dr. Harper herself, who spoke out for better disclosure about the DRUG’S RISKS (my emphasis) earlier this year. PRI’s Joan Lewis adds: “To date, 15,037 girls have officially reported adverse side effects from Gardasil to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). These adverse effects include Guilliane Barre, lupus, seizures, paralysis, blood clots, brain inflammation and many others. The CDC acknowledges that there have been 44 reported deaths.”

Merck’s Dr. Harper told CBS News that a girl is more likely to die from an adverse reaction to Gardasil than from cervical cancer.

What would be the point in promoting the inoculation of millions of girls and women with a useless, sometimes dangerous drug? And it really is useless: Merck’s current project is to push it to pre-teen girls, but Dr. Harper pointed out that, once a girl hits puberty, any effectiveness of the vaccine disappears, and she has to start over again with the course of shots. And by the way, the efficacy of the drug in pre-teen girls hasn’t actually been tested.

One thing we know about Gardasil is that each three-dose treatment costs $360, which has helped Merck a lot. It’s been one of the company’s top-selling drugs. That has led to political contributions by Merck PACs, which helped certain politicians. After FDA approval in 2006, the company lobbied state governments all over the country to promote mandated Gardasil vaccination for 12-year-old girls. Governor Richard Perry of Texas got into trouble when it was revealed that, right before he issued an Executive Order requiring all of Texas’s 6th-grade girls to get doses of Gardasil, he and his political allies had been lobbied by Merck. He also received money from Merck’s PAC. In the uproar, THE LEGISLATURE PASSED A MEASURE COUNTERMANDING HIS ORDER (my emphasis), and Merck announced it was canceling its 18-state “Gardasil mandate” campaign. But sales of the drug are down this year, so the company gamely mounted a “Back to School” ad campaign. (Why? To coincide with the Fall Scholastic Sex Season?)

I guess this is one of those situations where the benefit of “saving lives” falls to someone other than the patient. Gardasil gives various government agencies and their friends a pretext to get involved in a whole new area: the private lives of very young girls. Your girls.

Groups like Planned Parenthood eagerly promote Gardasil.

They urge you to bring in your daughter for her shots. That represents a sale right now, of course. But it could help bring your daughter back as a customer for contraceptives or abortion. You wouldn’t approve, and you don’t let your daughter carry around that kind of pocket change on her own? No matter. You don’t have to know, or be consulted. Planned Parenthood can give away those services “free,” but get reimbursed in full by America’s taxpayers through federal and state grants. Everybody wins, except the patient and her family.

Abstinence, looking after our daughters’ safety and dignity, and taking ordinary care of their health may be medically more effective than a vaccine like Gardasil, but they offer no benefit to drug companies, to drug and service retailers like Planned Parenthood or to the politicians who want to take over our medical industry. So to them, the choice is obvious.

That seems like an excellent reason to keep the choice for ourselves.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/gardasil_shows_why_government.html

You’re right...


100 posted on 08/17/2011 12:39:52 PM PDT by bronxville (Sarah will be the first American female president.)
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