Feb 23 2007
Politicians Are Not Doctors And Should Stay Out Of Health Decisions
Texas Governor Rick Perry has done the unthinkable for a Republican, he has mandated a health care decision and is now forcing young girls to take a vaccine for cervical cancer. This is just wrong. I understand the precedents with the smallpox and TB vaccines, but those where deadly childhood viruses. The one Perry is addressing is a teen-adult virus that is sexually transmitted. In other words, a person can protect themselves as children from being sick through behavioral decisions. The TB and other viruses are notorious for being rapid outbreak diseases. Perry is establishing one of those precedents we don’t want in this country – the government regularly inserting itself into our decisions. And he is getting flack for it. If Perry wanted to do this right, he would have offered the vaccine for free (government subsidized) if he felt it was so important. He should never have mandated it. That is the difference between the right way, and being under the boot of the government.
But you can’t necessarily protect yourself from the bad decisions of the man that you marry. Recently the daughter-in-law of our friends died at age 35 of cervical cancer, leaving 2 small children and her husband. Who wasn’t promiscuous during high school, but did some fooling around. Do more women have to die when there is a vaccine available?
It’s a good call on Perry’s part, I think.
Wiping out a form of cancer is a good thing – and Perry’s got guts to make that call.
Folks,
I said the preferred solution was for Texas to make the vaccine available to everyone. Saying Perry has no role in demanding a health care choice (vaccines carry risks – all of them do) is not the same thing as saying the vaccine should not be available. Read Slower!
Cheers, AJStrata
AJ
I believe from what I read there was an opt-out provision in that decision.
But I agree we shouldn’t have to make choose your will decisions from whatever silly issue is presented. Especially if it presents a default course of action.
Considering the after effedts of other government mandates “for our own good” it would seem that they would wait to see how many disastrous side effects show up before they mandate our children to be the guinnea pigs on more drug tests. Does anyone hnow how many little people have been beheaded by mandated air bags? Or how many rear end collisions have been caused by mandated head rests that block your view so you can’t see when you try to back up? Or how many infants have died while strapped in infant seats in the back seat, as mandated by law, where they are out of sight and easily forgotten if there is a break in the parents regular routine? Does anyone have any idea of all the adverse health affects, in addition to our obesity epidemic, which began with the mandate to put flouride in all our drinking water? The list goes on and on. Personaly, I would like to be in charge of what medications I am dosed with. If I don’t really need something I don’t want to to be force fed or forced to take ti. When these boondoggles backfire and the risks begin too outweigh the hoped for good results, those responsible should be forced to defend their actions in a court of law.
Any choice of government action should require that the person opt in.
To do otherwise gives to much power to do wrong things just because someone wasn’t paying attention.
Lightbulb moment
I just described our current government.
Shuffling off to the other side of the room, and hoping they will just go away and stay there.
Gee, an opportunity for BO to comment during his speech here in Austin today…Could have scored points with the libs at UT, but he decided to comment on V.P. Cheney…
I’ll be he looked clean and sounded articulate; I had to re-arrange my sock drawer, so I couldn’t make it to Auditorium Shores… B-o-o H-o-o.
Every time I think of a politician I think of Charles Dunnam’s portrayal of the governor in “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and his hilarious scene “Ooooh I like to sidestep”. That is exactly what they like to do and a good many of them are none too swift or to put it bluntly not the sharpest knives in the drawer (re Joe Biden). It’s no wonder politicians are way down on the food chain. They are completely untrustworthy. There must be something in the water in DC that changes these people but maybe it’s just the cocktail circuit.
The problem is they think we are stupid and many of us are witness we keep re-electing them. I wonder if the people who elected the “moderate” democrats have woke up yet.
Barb
I have a suggestion that will forever change the field of view how we view these lice.
Since they get soooooooooooo much money from all their donators they can pay us a bit of the grift.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrinnnnnnnnnnnng
Alarm going off because I realized that was already the democratic thing.
Good ideas sometimes get ahead of themselves.
AJ’s right on. Govt should make it available, but this is a parental decision. And as Momdear points out, the risks and side effects are not fully known. When the girls become adults (18?), they can decide for themselves.
Wiley
Some of the first stories I read on this issue put up the red herring that giving young girls an anti-cancer injection set would lead to promiscuity.
I never saw that side effect listed on the label of this drug.
Whoever wrote that article and the editor who passed it on really had to have an agenda of their own so strong they should not be allowed withing 1000 feet of a day care center.