Score one for Rick Perry — and one against Michele Bachmann.
In a recent Republican debate, Bachmann, plainly in search of some way to break Perry's newfound hold on more conservative Republicans, many of them tea drinkers, lashed out at the Texas governor for signing an executive order in 2007 (later overturned) mandating that all 6th-grade girls get HPV vaccinations.
In fact, all the scientific evidence mandates the conclusion that Perry was right. HPV vaccinations prevent some 70 percent of the instances of cervical cancer in women. More recent evidence also supports giving the vaccine to young men — to protect their sexual partners and the men themselves from warts. No significant side effects in major national studies. An absolute no-brainer for responsible parents and their children.
The kicker, though, is that the vaccinations have to be given to young people before they are exposed to the virus, which means before they are sexually active. The vaccine is substantially more effective in girls aged 9 to 11 than in older girls. The literature suggests that the absolute outside limit for beginning the doses tends to be in the 20s. Use it or lose it. And this is cancer we are talking about, not to mention false-positive Pap tests, with all the stress and heartache those can cause.
Now Perry is being criticized (at least by those who are looking to criticize him) for having made what clearly turned out to be the correct decision allegedly for the wrong reasons: because he has received some $30,000 in the 11 years since 2000, and because a former staffer used to work as a lobbyist for Merck in just this area. Who knows?
The fact is: He was right. Following his lead would mean more lives saved, and frankly, as much as I support campaign finance reform, I'm hard-pressed to believe that an average of $3,000 a year would convince any politician in Texas to do anything.
But that would all be ancient history were it not for Bachmann's choice of the subject as grounds for attacking Perry's conservative credentials. Against all the scientific evidence, Bachmann posited what she said was the case of a woman who approached her after the Tea Party debate and told her that her daughter became mentally retarded after being vaccinated for HPV.
And on that basis, Bachmann is attacking Perry.
It would almost be funny if I weren't sure there were frightened parents and children watching not only the debate, but far more likely, Bachmann's recent appearance on the "Today" show. They might not get vaccinated because of the palpable ignorance of a public figure who should get her facts right before she speaks.
Of course Bachmann has a right to say whatever she wants. It's a free country, and the folks listening have a right to make judgments about her based on that. People disagree all the time without my writing columns about how irresponsible it was for them to speak out. Sure, I often disagree. But rarely do I call for them to silence themselves.
Health and safety are a different story. Spouting pure junk science is different. Actually, it should not be dignified as science — an unproved and unchecked supposed anecdote from an unnamed person versus the unchallenged scientific evidence of safety and effectiveness. This is not a subject about which reasonable people can disagree.
Bachmann's comments suggest that either she couldn't be bothered to learn the facts or that she isn't even interested in them, provided she can score what she considers a political hit against her opponent.
Up until now, I thought Bachmann to be just a fringe candidate — and an unnecessary one at this point, even for her most ideological supporters, because of Perry's very successful entry into the race. Fringe; unqualified; some entertainment value among her mostly stodgy opponents; an example, at best, of a woman standing up, even if she doesn't belong in the picture.
But now I'm getting more concerned. It's not that I think there's any danger of her winning. I don't. I don't even know anybody with any experience in the world who does. It's the danger she poses on the way to defeat. Even losing candidates should watch what they say and take seriously the power they have to influence what people think.
In her comments about HPV, Bachmann completely failed to do that. Down the road, it could cost lives, although she will not be the one to pay the price.
To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2011 CREATORS.COM
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8 Comments | Post Comment
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I am not an apologist for her, but the issue with Ms Bachman was the mandate by government that all young girls had to be vaccinated. This tracks with the liberal view that, of course, government knows better than parents what is best for the children.
Comment: #1
Posted by: Motley Wisdom
Fri Sep 16, 2011 5:54 AM
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Dear Susan,
Michele Bachmann is probably the last person I would ever defend but.....?
On September 9,2009 I went into a local pharmacy and they were giving flu shots for $30.00. I had been given flu shots without any problem for many years. So, without consulting my personal physician, I opted to get the flu shot. The following morning I was at work and tried to lift a tubby full of coins that weighed about 35 pounds.
My legs, which had not been responding normally all morning went out from under me and went rubbery. I went to a doctor imediately.
The doctor reprimanded me for getting the flu shot without consulting him and then tried to deal with the problem.....the first diagnosis was possible Guion-Barre syndrome. I went into rehab and worked for months to try to strengthen my legs. I had to use a walker to get around. Finally, a chance visit to an eye doctor for a routine eye exam resulted in THAT doctor diagnosing me with Myasthenia Gravis. It is a disease of the immune system that IS OFTEN TRIGGERED by the flu vaccine. His diagnosis saved my life as a few days later , I began choking and could not swallow. and went to a hospital emergency room where , using the M-G diagnosis they prescribed a steroid PREDNISONE and another steroid MESTINON and after a two day hospital stay, my health was stabilized.
The lessons I learned from that experience and the problems that I have suffered ever since was FIRST, NO VACCINE IS PERFECTLY SAFE. TWO, The drug companies will accept NO BLAME for anyone injured.
After consulting with several top injury lawyers and they with several physicians, I was basically told that recovery of ANY amount of damages would be useless, I was told that the drug companies are just too powerful to challenge unless I had died. In short , no case.
The facts are that exactly 99 persons have died from being injected with the vaccine Ms. Bachmann mentioned. The Center for Disease control stats don't mention what compensation the drug companies paid out but what compensation is right for the loss of a beautiful daughter. There is none.
I thank God every day that I survived this bad encounter with a simple vaccine and I have learned since then that anyone over 50 years old really does not need the flu vaccine because we old-timers have already built up natural immunities.....The drug industry does not tell us this,,,,because they are only interested in selling more and more of these drugs....it is all about profit. They use all sorts of methods to push these drugs on the publlic and getting a governor to roll over and MANDATE a vaccine is questionable. Especially when campaign contributions followed. Bachmann may have gone about this matter in a less than perfect way, but she is right....The public has to be wary.
Comment: #2
Posted by: robert lipka
Fri Sep 16, 2011 2:56 PM
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Two points to make:
1. To Robert Lipka, you are correct: vaccines are not risk-free. On the other hand, there is usually much greater risk in refusing the vaccine. For every patient with a flu shot reaction as bad as yours, there are many lives saved (prolonged) by taking the flu vaccine, particularly among the weak and elderly.
2. Bachmann is complicit in spreading false and misleading information, with potentially life-changing consequences. Her refusal to walk this back is based on expedient and self-serving political interests. This is not a character trait we need in a president. The longer she persists, the greater the harm done to her political prospects. If you screw up, admit and fix it and then move on. If you can't do that, it's that much harder to trust you.
Comment: #3
Posted by: bob elkind
Sun Sep 18, 2011 7:14 AM
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Dear Bob Elkind,
I agree with your post almost 95%.. Michele Bachmann is a dangerous person. Why? Because she is so easily manipulated by big business interests. Her stand on the EPA is very dangerous. She has told us repeatedly that she is the mother of five natural children and foster mother to 23 more. Then in the very next breath she tells us that she wants to abolish the EPA??? What kind of mother wants to raise her kids in a polluted world.????? She is perhaps too young to remember what brought the EPA into existance. The cuyahoga river in Ohio was so polluted from big businesses dumping sludge and toxic waste in it that it caught on fire. The images of that river burning were carried on the evening news for a long time and it enraged the public to the point that they wrote to their Congressmen. President Nixon signed the legislation that created the EPA a few months later.
Operating without rules is a little like two teams showing up to play a football game with no rules and no refs. That just won't work. Bachmann and ayone like her are dangerous when it comes to the EPA. The annual budget of the EPA is a bloated 8 billion dollars and could be cut, I'm sure but I will take clean water over sludge and toxic waste any day.
The only thing I disagree with in your post (5%) is that flu shots be given to the old and infirm....All of the doctors I have seen told me basically the same thing. Anyone over 50 already has built up immunities to all KNOWN flu strains and therefore, should NOT get the shot and take the chance I took. A person should think twice before taking a chance of dissrupting their immune systems as I did. I am now stuck taking medication for the rest of my life as a result of my decision. I was in very good health before that fateful day I got the flu shot. NoW???
Enjoy your day, it is a blessing to be alive.
Comment: #4
Posted by: robert lipka
Sun Sep 18, 2011 4:29 PM
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I removed myself from Michele Bachmann's mailing list immediately after the debate where she made this an issue. First of all, she has probably now frightened parents from having their children vaccinated against this cancer which may cost young lives. Secondly, she lied in that it was not mandated. There was an opt-out (something I received on occasion when my children's school sent home information an such happenings - I made the choices and sent the forms back). Bachmann continues to insist it was mandated and never mentions the opt-out provision. No one was forced to receive this vaccine. Thirdly, if she would shoot from the hip, without the facts (causing mental retardation - no evidence at all), what else would she do or say when she was desparate. I don't know which of these is more frightening. Lastly, my mother was diagnosed with cervical cancer when she was twenty-five and I was a baby. She was given six months to live. Miraculously she survived, against all odds. Then she was told she would never get pregnant again. My mother is gone now, but I believe she would have done almost anything to have had the opportunity to have this kind of vaccine.
Comment: #5
Posted by: Kathy Adams
Mon Sep 19, 2011 7:11 PM
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If a person must opt out, the program is mandated. It is required unless the individual acts to prevent it. A non-mandated program requires the individual to opt in to participate. A government that does not believe the individual is wise enough to make informed choices will always push opt out programs. Opt out serves the government; opt in serves the individual.
I agree that Ms Bachmann should have mentioned the opt out provision.
Comment: #6
Posted by: Motley Wisdom
Tue Sep 20, 2011 5:49 AM
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As always liberals simply want to deal in emotion rather than facts and as always resort to distortion of what facts they cite.
Firstly Bachmannn described Perry's mandate as a "government injection through executive order"
Her point was that it was a "violation of a liberty interest". That liberals do not grasp that point is not surprising because the concept of individual freedom is entirely foreign to liberals who would have government control every aspect of life through regulation and diktat. That matter is well demonstrated by Lipka's continuing support of the job Killing, economy killing EPA, an out of control monster, infested with rabid environmentalists who see their task as regulating all human activity out of existence. Even little president zero has called for restriction on EPA.
The HPV vaccine (Gardasil) does not prevent cervical cancer at all nor does it protect against all strains of the HPV virus, it is merely meant to target the strains of HPV that have been strongly linked with cervical cancer. HPV is classified as a sexually transmitted disease, meaning it is transmitted through sexual contact. One cannot get HPV like one contracts the flu or measles. You cannot contract it by standing next to a sufferer in for example an elevator and so it does not meet the standard of vaccination need of otherserious truly infectious diseases.
Further, the Vaccine Adverse Reporting System (VAERS) reported that as of June 22, 2011, 68 deaths have been reported amongst those receiving Gardasil.
Estrich posits "Bachmann's comments suggest that either she couldn't be bothered to learn the facts or that she isn't even interested in them, provided she can score what she considers a political hit against her opponent" But that is precisely what Estrich has done and intended to do in this piece.
Estrich says about Bachmann's comment "Down the road, it could cost lives, although she will not be the one to pay the price." Estrich speaks about junk science.
I ask what about junk law, to wit, the so called right to privacy, which became constitutional in 1965 when Justice Douglas found such a right by finding in Griswold v Connecticut (and I kid not) that "specific guarantees in the Bill of rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance." A pemumbra is a partial shadow in a eclipse and is something that is entirely uncertain, while an emanation is a scientific term for gas from radio active decay. So the constitutional right to privacy was found in the uncertain shadows in the decaying deges of the Bill of Rights. In other word it was a constitutional fiction, constitutional junk.
That constitutional junk has been the direct cause of the deaths of millions of American children aborted in the womb. But taking Estrich's point she was not one of those paying the price for junk law support for which has become the litmus test for liberals.
Comment: #7
Posted by: joseph wright
Tue Sep 20, 2011 9:02 AM
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Re: robert lipka
"Michele Backmann is a dangerous person." In your mind every Conservative is a dangerous person.
Comment: #8
Posted by: Early
Wed Sep 21, 2011 6:11 AM
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