Science
Bachmann should look into it. The vaccination causes retardation, autism, whatever else is wrong with a child claim has been pretty soundly debunked. I think everyone woke up one day and said Holy crap, we’re really taking child-rearing advice from Jenny McCarthy.
September 14th, 2011 at 9:18 am
How about this?
No one should be forced to or no to put anything into their body or their children’s body by anyone else – especially and including being forced the the government.
September 14th, 2011 at 9:27 am
I agree.
September 14th, 2011 at 9:46 am
*you* are telling people to look into science? Bahahaha
September 14th, 2011 at 9:51 am
What bugs me the most is the anti-Gardasil crowd who get all worked up because their little girl will never be anything but chaste until marriage, and then perfectly monogamous. Suppose she is — what if she marries a guy who had a wild youth before he settled down? What if, God forbid, she gets raped? A girl’s likelihood of having sex is dependent on many factors, and whether she’s had a shot is one of the least of them. Get the damn vaccine!
September 14th, 2011 at 10:19 am
Got to wonder joanna? Why would a 11-12 year old be settling down with a man who has had a wild youth?
September 14th, 2011 at 10:54 am
Warning! oh fellow soldiers in the modern American Revolution: They define which issues make the list they call “social issues” and they are trying to split us into tiny, in-fighting fragments, to be picked off by the press and fearful voters.
September 14th, 2011 at 11:28 am
I’ve read these vaccines weren’t tested for safety on children prior to the decision to mandate coverage.
They may not lead to retardation directly, but seizures due to allergic reactions to the vaccine may lead to brain damage.
September 14th, 2011 at 11:38 am
What no blame for flouride?
September 14th, 2011 at 11:52 am
John Smith: My point is that the shot isn’t a permission slip to have sex, it’s a safeguard against future medical problems. Emphasis on future. The latest you can get the vaccine and have it be effective is, IIRC, 26. I’m not here to argue about mandates one way or the other.
Also, kids make mistakes. It’s not right, but it is reality. It’s the parents’ responsibility to make sure the kids understand all the consequences of sexual activity. The shot only deals with one of them. Hence, the shrieking about “Oh my cheese Suzy got the shot and now she’ll have sex with every boy in town” is just plain tiresome.
September 14th, 2011 at 1:20 pm
As a (very) autistic person once wrote on alt.support.autism, “Oh, go eat a tuna sandwich!” (referring to the mercury nonsense)
September 14th, 2011 at 1:25 pm
I’m with Joanna on this one. I have serious reservations about the safety of Gardasil in specific, and agree that any vaccine for a disease that is not randomly communicable should not be mandatory, but its a preventative against the most common cause of a specific cancer and is no longer effective after beginning regular sexual activity.
However, I cannot go full libertarian on vaccines anymore. My newborn almost died due to anti-vaccine nuts here locally. There is a large enough group of them in the school system where my older kids go to school that whooping cough (pertussis) is rampant there every fall, because there arent enough perple vaccinated to stop it cold. My daughter contracted it last year at 2 weeks old, and spent a month in Vanderbilt pediatric ICU on a ventilator. At that age (according to the docs) pertussis has an 80% fatality rate. Having to do cpr on my 2 week old on my bed while waiting for an ambulance is something I wouldnt wish on anyone, and it’s wholly preventable through vaccinations of school age children.
If you don’t want to vaccinate, thats fine, but you shouldn’t be allowed in a public school because you are dangerous to others.
September 14th, 2011 at 1:46 pm
I think it’s worth pointing out that while Victorian England had several smallpox outbreaks, Ireland and Scotland did not — because England had anti-vax campaigns. “There is nothing new under the sun … “
September 14th, 2011 at 1:47 pm
There are comments on either side that are clearly ignorant. Not all vaccines are equal. Some have been around for decades and have proven effective. Others seem to be solutions seeking problems.
Being a parent of a child who was labelled autistic by the public school system in Washington state, I can empathize with Jenny McCarthy. Maybe she’s too hot to have a clue, but I do have compassion for her situation.
It took thousands of dollars and half a dozen specialists to exonerate my son as “off the autism spectrum”.
Pro-tip:
If someone asks you to do something, ask yourself “what’s in it for them?”.
September 14th, 2011 at 2:13 pm
As a family medicine provider, I have to throw a flag on the Gardisil issue.
There is NOT clear evidence that there is minimal risk to those who are given the vaccine.
The “traditional” vaccines all protect against randomly communicable diseases, not so for Gardisil. When we discover a vaccine for AIDS, are we going to require EVERYONE to take it? Gardisil is in the same boat. We have a vaccine for TB, its been used in Europe and 3rd World countries for decades, but we don’t require it here, even though TB IS randomly communicable. Why not? Because is most situations in the US, TB is very rare, and the vaccine has some risk.
Gardisil has SOME risk…parents should be allowed to opt out of the vaccine.
And yes, we have debunked the autism and other complaints about traditional vaccines, but we do have concerns about Gardisil because many of us HAVE seen seizures or other issues in post vaccination patients, too many to say there is no significant risk.
September 14th, 2011 at 2:28 pm
I would be very surprised if none of you have ever watched someone die of cancer. It’s not fun; it’s not pretty. Those vaccinations would have prevented about 70% of the cervical cancer cases in the younger women of Texas.
The cost of the injection series I think was about $300 then, $360 now. by requiring the shots, insurance or the government would have paid for them.
At the time there was only one company making the vaccine, so that’s the company that Perry dealt with. That company had donated to Perry’s re-election campaign, and a friend worked for them. Who else could he deal with? I understand a second company is now producing the vaccine, under another name.
Please remember, the Texas Legislature meets for 140 days (plus required “special sessions”) every two years. Anything else that comes along that requires quick action is done by “Executive Order” as this was. The order also encluded an opt-out option for parents who objected. The opt-out isn’t easy, forms must be filled out and renewed every two years, but it is there.
As it happens, there had been enough fuss raised about this that the next legislature countermanded the Executive Order, and Perry did not veto. He has since apologized for not realizing the extent of the objection to this vaccination.
Prior to this week I had considered Ms. Bachmann an acceptable alternative candidate for president, and possibly a good second name for the ticket. I no longer see her as viable in either position, nor will I support her in any way.
September 14th, 2011 at 10:46 pm
Yeah, science!
Which is the same thing you’d say to Perry when he’s beating on Huntsmann for accepting what AIP and AGU and NAS and NASA and the Royal Academy of Sciences and such remind us about why the polar caps are disappearing, right?
September 15th, 2011 at 2:06 am
Sebastiano:
Yeah, strawmen!
September 18th, 2011 at 9:58 am
Sebastiano, it isn’t “science” if it’s a non-repeatable experiment, all the data has been published in raw form, and the hypothetical isn’t non-falsifiable.
Since we know that you can’t feed independently gathered data into it and get the same results (or accurate past predictions) and we have the documents where the “scientists” admit including fake data and removing inconvenient (and largely irreplaceable) real data, nothing about any of the output on AGW by the members of these “science” organizations can actually be called “scientific.”
You have no justification for enacting ANY laws based on it.
September 18th, 2011 at 9:59 am
change has to hasn’t in the first paragraph.