The Stupidity of the HPV Controversy
Take a look at this website. It details the various vaccines that Texas school kids have to get during the course of their time in Texas public schools. Like every other state in the nation, the state of Texas requires that kids get and maintain certain vaccinations against a variety of diseases.
A few years back, Gov. Perry issued an executive order mandating that girls in Texas schools get vaccinated against HPV, the virus that causes cervical cancer. There was an opt-out for parents, as there is for other vaccinations.
The decision was controversial, and was eventually overturned by the Texas legislature. Gov. Perry has said repeatedly that the way he handled the issue was a mistake.
But check out Rep. Michele Bachmann’s statement on the Gardasil controversy, sent around last night after the GOP debate.
Dear Fellow Conservative,
I’m offended.
If you watched tonight’s Republican debate, you saw Rick Perry defend his decision to mandate a vaccine for young girls through an executive order while he was governor of Texas. As a mother, I have raised three biological daughters and 23 foster daughters, and I believe taking away a parents right to direct the health care of their children is flat out wrong . It’s a violation of liberty and everything you and I stand for.
Tonight, I also questioned why Governor Perry made this executive order. When you look at the facts, the question becomes, is this about life or is this about millions and potentially billions for the drug company?
We cannot forget that in the midst of the executive order, a big drug company made millions of dollars because of this mandate. This drug company’s PAC made thousands of dollars in political donations to Governor Perry, and his own former Chief of Staff was working as the lobbyist for this drug company when he issued the mandate. This is flat out wrong.
Governor Perry says if given the option again he would not issue the mandate. However, as President of the United States there are no mulligans; there are no do-overs.
I am also concerned that Governor Perry also supports giving subsidies to illegal immigrants. The American way is not to give taxpayer-subsidized benefits to people who have broken the law and are here illegally. That is not the American way.
I believe it is going to take a strong constitutional conservative to defeat Barack Obama. Our constitutional conservative values must guide our actions for solving America’s challenges. And if these values are not represented in the White House, we are in for four more years of the same policies that have led our country in the wrong direction.
Our nation’s challenges are have reached a critical point. And we cannot risk electing a Republican nominee to face Barack Obama who doesn’t get it right the first time. The stakes are too high. The current polling of Republican voters show we are endanger of sending a candidate who does not adhere to our shared values to face Barack Obama in the general election. There are a number of candidates who say they are “members of the Tea Party,” but their records of policy and action do not reflect Tea Party values.
As conservatives, it is our charge to make Barack Obama a one-term President. I know that I am the only candidate in this race who can not only defeat Barack Obama, but who will adhere to constitutional conservative values as President.
I need to know you stand with me today, and ask that you make a special emergency donation of $25, $50, $100 or more.
We need to defeat Barack Obama, and you can help me do this by joining my campaign right now with a generous contribution. My opponents are raising money hand-over-fist from donors with deep pockets. My campaign relies on the generosity of you- everyday men and women- to fund my campaign with small donations.
Your support is needed now more than ever if we are going to win this fight. Thank you for your generosity and God bless you and your family.
Sincerely,
Michele BachmannP.S. If we don’t join together and take action, we risk allowing a candidate who does not represent our values to go up against Barack Obama in the general election. Please take action today by following this link to make a generous contribution of any amount to help our campaign take on our opponents. Thank you.
How did Merck, the manufacturer of Gardasil, “make millions” off a policy that wasn’t enacted? And why does Bachmann object to the government needle being used to fight HPV, but not the flu? Or hepatitis?
Obviously, the answer to that is because HPV is seen as a sexually transmitted disease. But it’s one that can be vaccinated against. And according to the CDC, Gardasil has no major side effects.
The charge of crony capitalism Bachmann makes above, because Perry’s chief of staff was also a lobbyist for Merck, strikes me as reasonable. Wrong on the facts, but at least within the realm of possibility and fair politics. But the charge that the Gardasil decision took “away a parents [sic] right to direct the health care of their children” is ridiculous. It didn’t do that. It was a specific vaccination, one among several required by the state. There was a parental opt-out. And the policy was never implemented. Democracy in Texas worked as it should.
It’s obviously fair and expected for all of the GOP candidates to criticize each other’s actions and records. That’s part of the primary process and should help voters decide who the best candidate is. But the hysteria Bachmann is displaying over Gardasail borders on being paranoid. She is sounding like a prudish Luddite.
Update: This is ridiculous. Absent any solid evidence, which she doesn’t provide, Bachmann is becoming the junk science candidate.
Update: Jim Geraghty has a reasonable take on the controversy.
Bryan, you are missing the mark a bit here. Bachmann is not entirely off base on this. Sure, that Perry did this for cash can’t be supported. But this was a bad bad policy of Perry’s and most people realize it. HPV vaccines are different than chicken pox or hepatis vaccines. Bad bad policy, and it is going to come with a price yet to be determined.
I agree it was bad policy. So does Perry, in retrospect. I just think Bachmann is going way too far on it.
Respectfully, I don’t think Perry does think this was bad policy, just that he screwed up in the implementation. In many people’s minds, this is not a vaccine issue, nor is it a strategy issue (executive order vs. legislative process), it is a government intervention issue. Vaccines for diseases that can be caused by casual contact are completely reasonable because the government requires children to be in close quarters in school. There is just something about the HPV vaccine, the way it was pushed so quickly and forcefully by government health organizations, that seemed so damn creepy (and I don’t even live in Texas).
Bachmann had a much more aggressive performance in last night’s debate. The problem is, aggressive Bachmann generally comes across as a wild-eyed oddball. There’s plenty of room to disagree with Perry’s position without accusing him of selling out for 5 grand, or saying things like “jamming the government needle into arms of innocent little girls.”
That sort of talk creeps out independent voters, and a good chunk of reasonably calm conservative voters. She’s throwing meat to folks who are already in her corner, at the expense of making herself look like an anti-vaccine paranoid. Perry didn’t answer the question about being paid off well, because (and you could see it in his eyes) when people actually come knocking to pay you off, it’s not with 5 grand. If you accuse them of that, it’s going to make you look unserious. That Bachmann doesn’t get that, when everyone in the audience does, is a weird disconnect with reality.
In short, Bachmann cashed in her long term viability in the race to score some short term points. A lot of the undecideds are decidedly tuning her out now.
Bachmann’s already off most voters’ radar screens. Moving on…
“HPV vaccines are different than chicken pox or hepatis vaccines.”
Thank you for pointing out the obvious. The vaccine for HPV assumes that cervical cancers are A) caused by STDs and B) that all daughters beginning at the age of twelve will forever be protected from cervical cancer which is assumed to be caused by STDs.
Talk about paranoid, the Texas government told Texas parents that A) we, The Government of Texas, will forever protect your daughters from cervical cancer assumed to be caused by STDs and B) we, The Government of Texas, assume that all girls beginning at the age of twelve will grow up to be sluts having multiple sex partners leading to cervical cancer assumed to be caused by STDs.
MANDATING stupidity is so Romney and if Perry is unable to understand that MANDATING a HPV vaccine which assumes paranoid stupidity then he is deserving of wrath.
There was an opt-out; it wasn’t a mandate.
Let’s see…. chicken pox, whooping cough, mumps, measles, polio….cancer transmitted by virus, just like herpes.
I remember herpes. This country went from 4 million cases to 25 million cases in about 5 years. Herpes, fortunately, is mostly a nuisance, but HPV kills.
I can understand the appeal of a vaccine program to prevent the spread of HPV. He got sold on it, and his constituents swatted him down for charging ahead without their approval.
BFD. Ya win some, you lose some.
I could be wrong on this, but I always thought one of the primary reasons Perry went for the order making the vaccine compulsory was to force CHIPS (the state-run health insurance for children) to cover the cost.
Personally, I think the hysteria over HPV is completely stupid. Somewhere around 25% of the population has been infected with at least one strain of HPV. This isn’t a case of crabs or even syphilis we are talking about. We are talking about a virus that, in the cancer-causing strains, typically has NO SYMPTOMS OTHER THAN CANCER. You can also, potentially be infected at birth with this virus. You can catch it even if you use a condom. This isn’t an issue of some ‘dirty, amoral virus.’ This is something you may very well end up catching. If you are lucky, it won’t be one of the cancer-causing strains.
My only objection to the Guardasil fiasco when it occurred was that the vaccine was BRAND spanking new. I’d prefer something be available on the market for a couple of years, at least, before it’s implemented as part of the routine childhood vaccination schedule.
My daughter AND my son will both be receiving this vaccine when they are old enough.
amy, cervical cancer may not have any symptoms, but it is nearly always prevented by regular pap smears, which are very good at detecting abnormalities of the cells years before it turns into cancer. It’s not one of those cancers that sneaks up on women and is bad from the start- like ovarian and breast cancer, both of which have no stage at which they can be readily detected and easily cured.
Personally, I’d rather work towards eliminating the virus that causes the cancer than just treating the cancer.
Also, cervical cancer can be particularly insidious in that it can develop and spread very rapidly in some cases – specifically, you could develop the pre-cancerous cells, have them turn into cancer and then spread well within a 12 month timeframe.
Not to mention, what percentage of women have a pap smear every single year?
Well, that one-year scenario “could” happen, but it’s actually really rare, and getting rarer all the time. People who are in a position to make recommendations to an entire population have to go by statistics, and balance out the risks and costs of all the options. They can’t think up worst case scenarios in their heads and base policy on that, even with as frightening an entity as cancer.
The more likely scenario is the second one- women skipping their pap smear. If every woman got one every year, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation, because the number of deaths from cervical cancer would be very close to zero. Although I agree that eliminating the virus is probably a better tactic to take, if you’re a bean counter in some public health department or insurance company, that argument really isn’t going to fly.
It is dangerous to lose sight of the big picture to focus on social issues in these perilous times.
None of us on the right can forget that while in the Illinois State Senate, then Barry-O voted against the BAIPA. No one in the media or on the left cared! To leave a most innocent, infant survivor of late term abortion to die of dehydration and starvation alone in a closet! Despicable!
Let`s rally to support the best candidate to defeat prezboy in 2012! While social issues are important, our economy and way of life must be rescued from prezboy and HIS cronies!
Just an FYI, St. Sarah took federal money to pay for all girls in AK to get the vaccine. Federal mandates usually do have some serious strings attached.
http://www.hss.state.ak.us/press/2007/pr053107fed-funding-hpv-vax.htm
“St. Sarah”??? Really? You’ve just shown yourself to be a complete idiot.
Nevertheless,read the article yourself. No mandate. And the money was going to also cover vaccines for bacterial menengitis.
he backed down. his staff helped people find other people disagreeing with it.
my kids are in public school in texas. they have vaccine waivers. it’s just an annoying piece of paper. i’m glad, actually, that you have to have some moxie to find out where to get the waiver. there are kids coming directly from mexico carrying unbelievable diseases- they have siblings dying from some of them- kids I KNOW because they are in the classrooms with my kids.Kids who visit Mexico city on spring break, kids who drink untreated spring water in mexico- who get weird palsies after they recover from what’s in the water- these are the kids coughing on my kids.
And, honestly, the parents don’t have sense. the kid might be sent home from school, and the parent brings the kid to the park after school so they can play with their friends- the kid is coughing up visible green droplets– I caught something that way, that lead to a 103+ fever, and a year of slow, painful recovery that way. My kids spend 1/2 their first few years that way. 1/3 to 1/4 of the kindergarten class is out with whatever new disease, each year. Non- diverse ( is that a nice way of saying that?) schools do not get what is going on. It’s a small third world, right here.
The vaccine policies in Texas are set up to prevent, as much as possible, the diseases that very poor, not too educated, early onset sexual behavior, multiple partnered, people on welfare get. to keep them from getting transmitted around to the rest of the population. The kids sequence is supposed to be done by age two, when kids get kicked off government health care. It’s nonsense for private insurance kids- they usually take five years- but for poor kids- two years are the only chance they have. and then free clinics, which come around some schools, once school starts.
Perry might have been crude for the suburbs, but he was right in the cities and border towns.
Afi, thanks for this post! I now understand why Rick Perry cannot defend himself in a straightforward manner on this issue in a debate format. I’m sure that this same problem exists in California, although I have read nothing about it. If Michele Bachmann doesn’t know this, someone should inform her. If she does, and continues to demagogue Rick Perry, she will lose credibility as a presidential candidate. The political realities facing the governor of a state are significantly different from those facing a member of Congress, because governors are actually responsible for the outcomes of their decisions.
Specifically, my kids have the chicken pox waiver. everything else, I get them proofed. I’d get them proofed against bubonic plague,if I could. It’s not outside the realm of possibilities, you know?
Completely absent in this debate is the elephant in the room. Male carriers are completely asymptomatic. Meaning a man, promiscuous as a young adult and infected, may settle down into a monogomous marriage, but still pass on the disease. Now a non-promiscuous woman has an elevated chance of developing vaginal cancer. Is it too much to ask?
I am very pleased with Bachmann’s performance(s) of late. Soon than later, she’ll return to (just) being my rep, voting as I want and driving the local elites nuts.
One thing you won’t hear mentioned out loud, but that is an undercurrent in all of this, is that Gardasil is basically an inoculation against the effects of irresponsibility, or poverty- depending on one’s particular interpretation of the problem, I guess.
Keep in mind that the clinical risk factors for cervical cancer are these: smoking, HIV and other immune conditions, promiscuity, and not getting regular pap smears (which allow abnormalities to be easily treated before they are even cancer). Pap smears are an outstanding success story in the war against cancer and are responsible for making the rates of cervical cancer drop like a rock over the past 40 years. Currently, the lifetime risk of dying from HPV-related cervical cancer is about 1/600, HIGHLY concentrated among lower socioeconomic groups. I expect that number will drop even further with modern Paps that incorporate HPV testing.
As for your basic, responsible middle-class female, the shot is more of an inoculation against worry. Heck, they still even have to get regular paps, since around 30% of cancers are not related to HPV. Ironically, these very low risk women are the ones who both want the vaccine and have the means to pay for it.
Happily, the vaccine is nearly risk-free, and at around $300,000 per cancer death prevented by my rough estimate, a pretty good deal as long as you don’t mind Merck making approximately $800 million dollars a year for it.
“Gardasil is basically an inoculation against the effects of irresponsibility, or poverty”
Wow. Really? I suppose you consider HIV a dirty dirty amoral disease that only those filthy gays get as well?
I also said “OR (an) inoculation against poverty, depending on one’s particular interpretation of the problem, I guess.” Do you know which particular interpretation I hold or are you so desperate to overlook the fact that this is, indeed, a disease STRONGLY correlated with lifestyle risk factors that you are willing to cast aspersions on the first person who mentions it?
Because those are the facts. Cervical cancer is very rare among middle- and higher-class whites, for a multiplicity of reasons having to do with better health habits and compliance with pap smear testing. It is strongly correlated with high-risk behaviors, and rare where those behaviors don’t exist, just like HIV. Your assuming things about my motivations will not change those facts.
It’s got nothing to do with being filthy, dirty or amoral- those are your words, not mine. What I’m doing is pointing out that HPV is not the whole story here- it’s only part of it, and for a lot of people it’s not even the most important part.
I WANT my researchers driving to their jobs in fancy cars. I WANT my doctor driving a fancy-ass car to his 24 hour shift at the hospital. It is a cruddy life in their teens and twenties, gearing up to be a clinical researcher or a highly skilled doctor. I WANT BIG, SHINY OBVIOUS TOYS so I can point them out and say ‘ do your homework- and you can have it, too.’ I want their wives to stay home, workout and have kids. I want them having a happy, active, prosperous sheltered life. I want them concentrating their ego, their id, their curiosity, their intellectual firepower on their big work problem, not basic survival skills.
800 million dollars is cheap, for long life and good health. Women didn’t get the vote, or substantial literacy, or freedom, until they solved childbirth issues. Making maternal cancer decrease- that can be measured in an economy, like you wouldn’t believe. 800 million will be chump change.
It works out to about $250,000 dollars per cancer death prevented, and those tend to be younger women than most cancers. In the world of cost/effectiveness analysis that is, indeed, chump change. We pay a lot more for considerably less effective treatments all the time.
This is a new vaccine that has not stood the test of time. Merck needed guinea pigs from the public and Rick Perry handed them over. God helps us if down the road this vaccination has horrible side effects. The government has no place in telling the people what to do with their bodies or childrens bodies. That is not and should never be governments job. If Rick Perry had/has in his consciousness that he has the “right” to do/mandate such a thing, it is the way he thinks and I do not want a President that thinks the way he thinks.
How well was the opt out proceedure explained to parents????