http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070202/ap_on_he_me/cervical_cancer
"AUSTIN, Texas - Bypassing the Legislature altogether, Republican Gov.
Rick Perry issued an order Friday making Texas the first state to
require that schoolgirls get vaccinated against the sexually
transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer."
There are issues with this vaccine (as with all vaccines, but
especially with this one), but the big issue here is the idea that
people can be forced to be vaccinated. But wait! there's precedent:
"Perry ... has said the cervical cancer vaccine is no different from
the one that protects children against polio."
Well, yes; it really is. But see how one 'success story' can be used
by the state to impose more and more crap on people, at the behest of
Big Pharma who's pocketing craploads of cash to churn out this
patent-protected junk that people will be *forced* to buy?
And if forcing people to take the polio vaccine had been a disaster?
Well, maybe it was:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPV_AIDS_hypothesis
Fascinating stuff. Pardon me while I indulge in a moment of self-revelation.
It's amazing how even though I began to REALLY understand that forcing
people to do things 'for their own good' was wrong almost a decade ago
(I've had a retarded development, I'm afraid; I'm envious of those who
seem to be 'born libertarian'), there are still so many of the actual
individual attitudes of my early decades I still carry around as
baggage. Despite thinking (*knowing*) that forced vaccination was
wrong, I still thought "Well, but at least some good came of it,"
which is *true*, but I haven't in most cases stopped to consider what
*bad* may have come of it as well besides the actual imposition of
force (notice I said 'forced vaccination' - I'm not at all a
bio-Luddite).
Lots of Libertarians, I think, are in this boat. Sure, the draft is
evil - but WW2 saved the world!? Or did it? Sure, Lincoln was a
tyrant, but without him, the slaves would not have been free? Really?
Sure, the FDA is a bunch of totalitarian busybodies, but at least
people were saved from Thalidomide? But really? And what about the
people who could have been HELPed by Thalidomide in all those decades?
I remember laughing at anti-fluoridation folks, but even there I
realize now there's a good chance that mass fluoridation is doing more
harm than good.
I feel like in many areas now I'm filling in the gaps - the pieces
where even after I changed my broad understanding of freedom I
accepted the stupid rationalizations and prejudices of the people who
forced these things on folks. I even realized last weekend that Jane
Fonda might not be such a bad person. Long after I had accepted that
much (if not all) of what she said about Vietnam was true, I'd kept
thinking of her as some sort of foaming-at-the-mouth anti-American.
Wrong! I still disagree with her on many things, I'm sure, but not
that she didn't care passionately, do her homework and some real
thinking about the situation (which is more than most people could
say), and get totally blacklisted as thanks for her concern.
OK, moment of self-revelation over.
The relevance to NC? Here:
"Merck is bankrolling efforts to pass state laws across the country
mandating Gardasil for girls as young as 11 or 12. It doubled its
lobbying budget in Texas and has funneled money through Women in
Government, an advocacy group made up of female state legislators
around the country."
Watch for it here!!!
--
Susan
