Video: The Story Behind Rick Perry’s Gardasil Mandate
Fox aired this interview earlier today, with two friends of Heather Burcham. She died at the age of 31 due to cervical cancer, but in her last months she became an advocate for Gardasil, the 100% effective HPV vaccine. Gov. Rick Perry and Heather Burcham became friends in her dying months. Though he was governor at the time, Perry made time to check in on Burcham and visited her away from the glare of the press.
Watch the interview with Burcham’s friends, and decide for yourself if anything that Michele Bachmann has said about Perry, crony capitalism and Gardasil makes any sense.
She was deeply religious, quick-witted, loving, with a quirky sense of humor; and she was determined to save other young women. Her passion for a cause made her a “Person of the Week” on ABC’s “World News” program in 2007. Heather likely would have been shouting from the rooftops in frustration, listening to the current political debate about the HPV vaccine.
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Her words to ABC News in 2007 still resonate, in light of the current debate in which this one face of the disease has been lost amid the political rhetoric.
“I don’t want to have died in vain,” she said. “I don’t want my life to have no purpose whatsoever, and if I can help spread the word about cervical cancer and the HPV vaccine, then I haven’t lived in vain.”
None of this makes the mandate ideal policy, and critizing Perry on the executive order is fair game. But crony capitalism? It’s easy to forget during the course of our blogging day that the accusations hurled back and forth involve real people. Politics should not leave us incapable of being ashamed for going too far in criticizing each other.
Until you’ve seen a special photograph, Craig Wilson says you don’t know the whole story of Rick Perry’s HPV vaccine decision.
“She’s happy as hell. I mean, she is just unbelievably ecstatic,” Wilson said. “Here she is on a beautiful ranch somewhere, riding on a motorcycle, which she’s never really done, with the governor of the state of Texas.”
The guy driving the motorcycle is Governor Rick Perry. The young woman on the back is Houstonian Heather Burcham, who was at that moment just 31 years old and a few months away from dying of cervical cancer.
Heather said in an interview prior to her death, “I feel like I’m not going in vain, because I can tell others about it.”
Oh well that’s OK then.
Obama’s got a million stories. One for each law.
I, for one, am eager for Big Government MANDATES to provide cures for all diseases so that yes we can all live forever youthful perpetually in Utopia where the free unicorns roam.
Are we in America or has America left the planet and is orbiting unattainable Pandora where Blue tribes live on a planet called Purely Perfect?
I’m kind of glad never to have suffered from polio, mumps, rubella, measles, diptheria, and tetanus.
I just can’t muster up outrage about vaccines.
In which case you ought to be thanking your parents rather than feel gooey about the government. Most of the anatgonism comes from there. The we know better than you attitude is typically “democratic”. Given Perry’s history one can wonder if the Borg still control his mind, even after separation.
Actually I helped my doctor father hand out sabin oral vaccine at the local school on at least 3 occasions the vaccine was put on sugar cubes and dispensed in little paper cups. The government paid for and distributed the vaccine.
I guess I should thank my father for participating in a program that distributed 1000s of doses of protection against polio.
I saw the piece this morning. Boy, did it make Michele Bachmann look small. He made a mistake with the opt-out issue, which he’s admitted to. The fact he drove to her bedside speaks volumes for his character. Like GWB visiting Fort Hood w/o fanfare, Perry is a good man. Let’s see how everything else shakes out, but if this is all they’ve got… Bring. It. On.
Bryan – He admitted that he made a mistake on the mandate (which is more than most politicians are willing to do). What do more people want of him?
The only one damaged in the debate the other night was Michele Bachmann. Until that moment, I had been supportive of her, even if she wasn’t my candidate of choice.
I have never seen a Republican candidate look or sound more smug, uninformed and sanctimonious that Michelle Bachmann did in the last debate. She was so awful and such a demagogue, not only do I not want her near the Presidency, I hope she loses her Congressional seat, as long as it doesn’t cost the Republicans the majority house.
I wouldn’t vote for her for dogcatcher now.
And to think, intellectual giant Dr Krauthammer declared on TV that she was the ‘intelligent one’.
I’ve been disappointed in Bachmann with some of her criticisms in this campaign. I assumed she would be above it but again I deal with my naivety. Her implications and intent with this are disgusting. Thank you Brian.
I am as conservative as they come, and a mother of three. I homeschool, but I vaccinate. (I say that because it’s becoming popular in my circle to not do so.)
I am starting to look at some hard things that happened to me, and I think mandating an HPV vaccine wasn’t a mortal sin.
Thankfully, my own case was caught in time, but it involved a gruelling freezing of the cervix procedure at 23. I waa raised in a Christian home. We knew not to have extramarital sex, but I never knew you could catch HPV until a nurse told me I had it. And I’d been to public school and to college, but I still had no idea.
I’m thankful every day to have recovered. HPV is a nasty disease. I’ll probably vaccinate my girls, but I fully intend to teach them about abstinence. But disease and death is a harsh punishment for messing up.
I’m not disagreeing with you at all regarding teaching your children abstinence but vaccinating them nonetheless, however by your logic shouldn’t you also teach them sexual education?
Perhaps you already do, I don’t know. I just have a problem with teaching abstinence only and having children vaccinated against a sexually transmitted disease ‘just in case’.
A governor standing up with a story like this, and using the dignity of his office to persuade his people to save their own lives using a beneficial product is a Leader, who demonstrates Virtue, and proves his worthiness to lead free men.
A governor who abuses the powers of his office to coercively insist that the product be taken is a tyrant, who demonstrates depravity, and proves that he is not worthy to lead free men.
The line is thin, and it is sharp, and it may not be too late for America to remember that there is a line, and why it exists.
Is it too late for Rick Perry? I honestly don’t care. I’m much more interested in whether it’s too late for America.
oh ricky perry is a “compassionate conservative” loser. bush 2.0. go away big gov’t types.
Both Congresswoman Bachmann and Governor Palin dropped in my estimation over this episode.
Why would Gov. Palin drop in your opinion. She took issue with the possibility of crony capitalism. Last I checked, the sad story of this now deceased young lady does nothing to alleviate these concerns.
To the contrary, we now know that instead of the alleged $5,000, it was $30,000 in direct Merck funds and some $350,000 channeled to Perry from some $4M in Merck contributions to the Republican Governors Association, of which Perry headed at the time.
You know, I just keep thinking, what if we inserted small pox or polio into this discussion in place of gardisil, none of us of my age were allowed to go to school without those vaccinations, so now it is suddenly some heinous offense to require a vaccination? This is a small issue.
one word — Contagious
HPV isn’t contagious?
Rick Perry : Compassionate Conservatism v2.0
Barack Obama should do a video like this to justify his ObamaCare…..or has done that ?
The difference between ObamaCare and PerryCare ?
None.
Both seek to force big government healthcare down the veins of ordinary people with or against their wishes.
Haven’t seen an opt-out for ObamaCare yet (without a shakedown).
Opt-out NOT Mandatory. English isn’t your first language. Or second.
I like they are asking for proof. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
I want to like Rick Perry and I vaccinate my child. But I fail to understand why it is 100% completely taboo to discuss possible side effects of vaccines.
It reminds me of climate change: The science is settled and anyone objecting to the idea that the science is settled will be immediately subjected to all manner of smug and self-righteous creatures crawling from the woodwork to inform them how “they just know” that all batches of a particular vaccine are safe and all talk against vaccination is evil and and broached by those hate children.
Thalidimide was on the market for a decade before someone was able to make the connection of its terrible birth defects. More than 10,000 children were born with deformities such as phocomelia as a consequence of thalidomide use.
All I am asking is why? Why is it that anyone who even touches the idea that a particular vaccine causes side effects is immediately treated as if they denied climate change?
I know the answer. It’s for the children. It’s NEVER, EVER, EVER, about the Benjamins. THe science is settled, so shut up and get your shot. It’s for the children.
Not sure where to start.
First, I don’t have a problem with scientists investigating potential side effects of vaccinations. That’s just good science. However, there are currently no compelling reasons not to vaccinate a healthy child, and I *do* have a problem with parents endangering their children (and potentially others) by giving in to the latest mass hysteria.
Do bear in mind that most of the more hysterical anti-vaccination camps were influenced initially by a study linking vaccinations to autism – a study which the researcher later admitted was fraudulent. Further studies have disproven this claim.
I would also point out that even if those claims *were* true, the risk of not vaccinating your child far outweighs any potential risk the vaccinations themselves carry. For a more thorough (and visual) explanation of this, watch a short video of Penn and Teller explaining: (For those unfamiliar with Penn and Teller, warning – Language advisory, NSFW).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfdZTZQvuCo
Apply that to your children and leave mine alone for me to make the decisions. Unless my lack of action endangers your child, I can then see big brother rolling in.
To achieve “herd immunity” requires a 93% immune level. Parents like you are guaranteeing we won’t achieve it… and thus breaking down public health.
Of course, you probably also believe that dying of malaria is better than DDT.
You are confusing vaccine with Big Government authority.
Case in point: Big Government Authority banned DDT-despite 20 years of scientific evidents showing DDT is harmless-yet millions of babies die each year because of the ban on DDT.
Though I expect it from Liberals, it is weird hearing ‘conservatives’ and ‘libertarians’ attempt to make the case that any and all vaccines MANDATED by Government MUST BE GOOD on the principle that ‘if government can save one life, it is worth MANDATING’
There is justified reasons as to why Texas legislature STOPPED Perry’s Gardasil actions.
“herd mentality” cannot exist when only half of the population is vaccinated-males are exempt from the mandate yet are they not participants in the spread of HPV?
Let’s say all 12 year old girls are vaccinated against HPV, what then will you do when they spread AIDS to their partners?
Just as we forget a gene can’t do anything without a chemical, we also forget another simple principle about meds: “If it didn’t have a side effect, it wouldn’t be a drug.”
The polarity about vaccines is very unhelpful, as is the concretization of the issue. As in most instances of medicine, the application of the technology is as unstable as the patient it is applied to, and the moment of effect represents an equally unstable dynamic. Fortunately, as robust omnivores we tolerate insult and variation quite well. Until we don’t. That’s where crisis separates the remarkable physicians from the insurance doctors and medical industry lurkers.
We have crossed a threshold with mercury toxicity in our modern civilization. We will begin to hear and see more about the model of mercury excretion on which policy and risk assumption is based has been found to be badly flawed, perhaps catastrophically. The predicted elimination of mercury from our bodies is instead being entrained, returned and potentiated, to which is added other ubiquitous sources of mercury exposure encountered during course of everyday living. There are serious questions if the current methods of quantifying human mercury retention are understating the mercury bioburden because of the entrainment phenomena which have turned the model upside down.
Biochemically, our physical being represents a hysteresis of over 5,000 metabolic processes churning away in any given moment of our life. We are robust omnivores, but we are not “evolutionarily complete” nor is our physiology comparatively bioidentical. There is so much supposition in medical science that many refer to the phrase “medical science” as an oxymoron.
There is profound bioindividuality. The ultimately controlling scientific disciplines of based in molecular biology, biochemistry, cellular biology and toxicology are still in their relative infancy.
In those events where mercury biocides are present in a vaccine formula, the matter of spontaneous illness and adverse events are not singularly a product of the vaccine, if indeed an adverse event was actually triggered thereby. As the mechanisms appear to be not as well understood as prior believed, any conclusive finding of direct causation will be illusive; riven with circumstantial and anecdotal presumptions.
However, to claim no threshold effect risk exists from additional mercury loading into a patient is a leap of supposition that no responsible toxicologist would make. That such claims masquerade as assurances and trivializing conceit from factions in the medical and public health bureaucracies is mostly evidence of how little professional interaction occurs on their part with competent toxicologists who have specialized in mercury toxicology; especially paediatric and developmental toxicology involving heavy metals and bioavailable metalloid forms.
The proverbial elephant in the room is the INSANE federal policy of replacing incandescent lighting with mercury-laden products. Such is not only a rapidly scaling solid waste nightmare unfolding on an unprecedented national scale, this soon to be “explosion” of global non-point-source mercury contamination will be ubiquitous in modern society, and in our children, and it’s seditious infiltration will not be benign. It will be decades, if then, before the “dilution is the answer to pollution” wisdom eventually returns our human use environment to the prior lower levels of chronic mercury exposure. These bulbs are a rogue epidemiological experiment in human evolutionary biology.
What will the policy become if the science resolves as it appears it may, and the traditional assumptions about mercury toxicity, retention and excretion in human adults and children are found to be wrong by orders of magnitude?
The issue is mercury, not vaccines. We each are uniquely vulnerable to this toxin in ways medicine is only beginning to understand. It is a profoundly disruptive pernicious systemic toxin.
As for the data touting vaccine safety, it’s predictive for groups – not for eaches. Rick Perry’s paternalism was badly misplaced; as misplaced as the trust he vested in the protagonists who urged him to trample the rights of others on behalf of the greater good. I don’t think Perry’s likely to make that mistake again.
Look, either we’re a free people or we’re a bunch of subjects presided over by a paternalistic government. When faced with an emotional issue (giving a *lot* of benefit of the doubt here), Gov Perry’s reaction was totalitarian. Just like his reaction with TARP was totalitarian. Good intentions, bad intentions, doesn’t matter. When the going gets tough, Perry’s initial response is to play God with people’s lives. How many of his totalitarian impulses would we have to put up with as President?
Next year, the GOP will have the rare opportunity of facing an incumbent they could beat by running against it with a bag of week-old fish entrails. When you get a fat, hanging pitch right over the middle of the plate you swing for the fences. Voting for Al Gore’s former State Campaign Chairman is not swinging for the fences. And don’t worry – Obama doesn’t even know what a change-up is.
AMEN
Our country is in a horrible condition with multiple threats. Arguing about the HPV vaccine is somewhat like arguing about the wine list on the Titanic while rowing away in the life boats.
Let us do our best to avoid the looming iceberg and we can resolve the other questions while safely in port.
The vaccine is a no-brainer. The risk benefit ratio is clearly in favor of it. People get vaccinated all the time as a matter of public health. The disease is horrid in the extreme.
People need to just stop being divided over this and concentrate on more important things.
I have lost all respect that I had for Michele Bachmann over this issue. Her tantrum at Iowa after Perry showed up on “her” day, as well as her performance at the debates show how petty and childish she is. She would not even LOOK at him while making her accusations, for gosh sake!
The only reason Perry went with the “opt out” option instead of an “opt in” was because the insurance companies and medicaid would not pay for the vaccine if you had the “opt in” and the cost to parents would have been over $300 for the vaccine. Plain and simple.
We elected Rick Perry to govern Texas. We chose him to be our chief executive, to make the decisions, to “run the state”. He did the job, made the decisions. Sometimes we disagreed with his decisions. Sometimes he backed away, sometimes we backed away, but HE NEVER FAILED TO DO THE JOB WE ELECTED HIM FOR. He made the decisions required of the position of Governor of Texas. I fully expect he would do the same as President.
I do not understand why some of you claim you want a leader, then sit in your chairs and nit-pick and back-stab and quibble when someone steps up and LEADS.
So what?
I see the Kochdrones have already chimed in on this. The only surprise here is that Perry is actually capable of acting rationally, at least once in a while.
This segment was very touching… No matter how difficult, it’s my experience that we make a lasting impression when we are actively seeking how we are connected to the good; rather than rising up, on our differences….. This is true, in all we do…
We must take the time to hear from the Candidate, if we are to be truly objective… It is truly sad when one’s opponent has to look bad, for the other to look good…
Perhaps this incident might have been researched much better; instead of used to drag one-another down….Especially as the Media continues to play off of divisions…
The way forward, as we see a tiny slip in the polls; is to do less tearing-down; and MORE building… After all we’ve been through all of the tear-down tactics; leaving our Nation trust in shambles…
Let’s not become ungovernable…
It would also be less believable to tear-down ones opponent; and then, put their support behind them, later…
Thanks for reading… May our Nation build Unity…
This segment was very touching… No matter how difficult, it’s my experience that we make a lasting impression when we are actively seeking how we are connected to the good; rather than rising up, on our differences….. This is true, in all we do…
We must take the time to hear from the Candidate, if we are to be truly objective… And it’s sad when one’s opponent has to look bad, for the other to look good…
Perhaps this incident might have been researched much better; instead of used to drag one-another down….Especially as the Media continues to play off of divisions…
The way forward, as we see a tiny slip in the polls; is to ‘do less tearing-down, and more building… After all we’ve been through, and all the tear-down tactics; our Nation needs to have trust… That we do not become ungovernable…
It would otherwise be less believable that one could tear-down their opponent; the one they put their support behind, later….
Thanks for reading this, and may our Nation build Unity…
Oops. double post; 2 min delay…
This is in bad taste Rick Perry is nobody’s friend and this poor woman was just a political tool they used who was obviously paid and cared for very well in her last days in return for her effective testimony and sense of dying cause, I weep for her sincerely, but despise the tools in which the Perry campaign uses to sensationalize and deceive in the attempt to ruse the people (yes, ruse from Clerk’s dammit) blindly into having all of our children subject to large scale pharma testing, Whites Blacks, Latinos, Asians, etc., wake up before we won’t want to.
It doesnt even vaccinate against all forms of HPV. This was a pure emotional decision by Rick Perry. Yet another reason he isnt leadership material. This is now the second case Perry has shown a complete lack of leadership prudence, rushing and making an emotional decision. This doesnt help Perry’s credibility as a leader. It now shows him to be the closet liberal, emotionally motivated, person he is. So someone he knows dies and he just rushes to force the vaccine on the little people. Nice! Another Fail for Perry and another reason not to vote for him in the primaries. Looks like I am staying home in 2012 yet again. Why dont we just run John McCain again because you will get the same result as you would with these clowns. 2012 Republicans will lose and they will keep losing if they continue to run Elitist Big Gov RHINO’s like Bush, Perry, Newt, and the rest of the Republican closet liberals.
none of this helps Rick Perry. This is a two-fer for the democrats. They get to mock Bachmann as being a back country gomer and they get to point out that Rick Perry FORCED young girls to take a relatively new vaccine. No one with a healthy fear of government or big business likes the fact that he MANDATED it.
Here’s another thing I don’t get. All of these people who get high and mighty about how much they care about the children and get all snotty about how those who don’t vaccinate threaten the lives of their children – these same people never seem to mind that hundreds of thousands of unvaccinated cross the mexican border and prepare our food, work in brothels, are enrolled in schools, etc., etc.
So they get ticked off at a very, very, small percentage of generally healthy folks who don’t like the idea of vaccinating – but never make the same complaint about the millions of undocumented who are far more likely to actually carry disease.
“she became an advocate for Gardasil, the 100% effective HPV vaccine.”
I am also a big cheerleader for vaccination, but I feel compelled to poing
out that no vaccine is 100% effective. *NOTHING* is 100% effective.
I have read all the articles and comments about Rick Perry and his executive order that was never implemented, and I have been puzzled by the vitriolic anger in some of the comments. As I understand it, NO “innocent child” was vaccinated because her parents were not informed enough to “opt out” of vaccination. There was no other drug effective against HPV and the threat of cervical cancer at the time of the executive order. I have read the comments carefully, trying to find a clue as to their reaction. And I think I know what it is.
Two words: Ron Paul!
He lied about how much they Donated to his campaign. I think i read it was $300,000. Why lie if you have nothing to hide? What also scares my is he admitted to attending a bilderberg meeting. He`s another one of the bankers beaches. He will not be for the people. (I know how to spell the B word, But it says no profanity)