In debating Perry, Bachmannn called him out on his executive order that all school children in Texas receive the HPV vaccine. Fair enough, since this is reasonably a contention of philosophy. However, she couldn't leave it there; she had to add the vaccine caused mental retardation.To be accurate, she said a mother came up to her after a speech, and told her that the vaccine had cause her child to become mentally retarded. Gives Bachmann squirm room while compounding the point against Perry.
Chances are overwhelming the vaccine did not cause retardation, assuming the mother even exists, but correlation is not causation. She did not, of course, cover the factoid that any Texas parent could have opted out of the inoculation. She did let the assertion remain that HPV vaccinations can cause mental retardation, even though CDC lists the worst side effects as a rash around the inoculation site. She also did not bring up the factoid that her own children had to comply with Wisconsin's mandatory inoculation requirements to enter school.
Because of her assertions, how many parents--dozens, hundreds, thousands?--will not have their daughters vaccinated, leading in twenty or forty years to how many--dozens, hundreds, thousands?--of premature, unnecessary deaths. Bachmann will not be held responsible, and even the parents may not remember their irresponsible decision or illogical reason why their daughter died prematurely.
However, Bachmann, for a shallow political point, contributed to those premature deaths. If she is this ethically unconstrained with but the power of a microphone, I would not care to see her further empowered.
