Tuesday, September 13, 2011
So Michele Bachmann thinks the HPV vaccine causes “mental retardation.” Apparently this is based on a sample of one. First, in the Republican debate (which I did not watch) she slammed Rick Perry because he issued an executive order mandating HPV vaccinations for 11-year old girls in Texas. Bachamann asserted this violated the children and their parents’ right to privacy. I don’t know exactly what the order said, but it probably was related to school attendance. Later, Bachmann related that one lady came up to her after the debate, claimed her daughter received the vaccination, and forever after suffered from “mental retardation.”
I am tempted to say that if the woman is a Bachmann supporter, any developmental disability her daughter has is probably genetic. But that evades the issue. Why is Michele Bachman, and indeed so many on the far right wing of the Republican Party, so anti-science? They deny global warming is human-caused despite an overwhelming majority of scientists demonstrating that it is. They demand that “creation science,” an oxymoron, be taught in the public schools. And now Bachmann is anti-vaccination? At least Rick Perry, who I probably don’t agree with on anything, is not to backwards on this point.
Does Bachmann really think the road to the presidency is paved with anti-vaccination sentiment? Too bad she cannot engage in a discussion with former President Franklin Roosevelt, who lost the ability to walk from contracting polio, a disease now almost non-existent in America thanks to the Salk vaccine. Is Bachmann against other common childhood vaccines? Anyone with the only the most passing knowledge of history knows how childhood vaccinations have dramatically improved the health of American children. (This leaves out Jenny McCarthy, a person whose celebrity was achieved on the strength of her bust size and her willingness to share those assets with the world through the pages of Playboy. McCarthy is virulently anti-vaccination. Why anyone would give her credibility on a medical question when Nobel Prize winners are on the other side is a mystery to me.)
I have my problems with the Democrats, too. At least my disagreements with them are on policy grounds. I never have to wonder whether the President of the United States, a graduate of Harvard Law School, is making a stupid decision because he is stupid. I might disagree with him, but I know his IQ so far exceeds my own that if we engaged in a moot court I would be lucky to score any points. On the other hand, every time Michele Bachmann, who attended O.W. Coburn School of Law, a distinguished institution which survived for all of six years, opens her mouth I have to wonder how anyone of this diminished mental capacity passed the bar exam. (I never wonder about how someone of such limited intelligence gets elected to Congress because I spent five years working for a lobbying organization and had significant involvement with elected officials.)
The main problem with this kind of outburst from Bachmann is that she has many followers, maybe millions, who will believe things she says. Now parents will refuse to let their daughters get the HPV vaccine claiming they want to save their children from losing their mental faculties. Ironically, if they preserve their mental faculties they will want the vaccine.
I am tempted to say that if the woman is a Bachmann supporter, any developmental disability her daughter has is probably genetic. But that evades the issue. Why is Michele Bachman, and indeed so many on the far right wing of the Republican Party, so anti-science? They deny global warming is human-caused despite an overwhelming majority of scientists demonstrating that it is. They demand that “creation science,” an oxymoron, be taught in the public schools. And now Bachmann is anti-vaccination? At least Rick Perry, who I probably don’t agree with on anything, is not to backwards on this point.
Does Bachmann really think the road to the presidency is paved with anti-vaccination sentiment? Too bad she cannot engage in a discussion with former President Franklin Roosevelt, who lost the ability to walk from contracting polio, a disease now almost non-existent in America thanks to the Salk vaccine. Is Bachmann against other common childhood vaccines? Anyone with the only the most passing knowledge of history knows how childhood vaccinations have dramatically improved the health of American children. (This leaves out Jenny McCarthy, a person whose celebrity was achieved on the strength of her bust size and her willingness to share those assets with the world through the pages of Playboy. McCarthy is virulently anti-vaccination. Why anyone would give her credibility on a medical question when Nobel Prize winners are on the other side is a mystery to me.)
I have my problems with the Democrats, too. At least my disagreements with them are on policy grounds. I never have to wonder whether the President of the United States, a graduate of Harvard Law School, is making a stupid decision because he is stupid. I might disagree with him, but I know his IQ so far exceeds my own that if we engaged in a moot court I would be lucky to score any points. On the other hand, every time Michele Bachmann, who attended O.W. Coburn School of Law, a distinguished institution which survived for all of six years, opens her mouth I have to wonder how anyone of this diminished mental capacity passed the bar exam. (I never wonder about how someone of such limited intelligence gets elected to Congress because I spent five years working for a lobbying organization and had significant involvement with elected officials.)
The main problem with this kind of outburst from Bachmann is that she has many followers, maybe millions, who will believe things she says. Now parents will refuse to let their daughters get the HPV vaccine claiming they want to save their children from losing their mental faculties. Ironically, if they preserve their mental faculties they will want the vaccine.
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