At the end of October the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended that boys as young as 11 should receive the HPV vaccine to protect against the sexually transmitted disease that can cause anal and throat cancers. After Michele Bachmann’s high-profile attack on Gov. Rick Perry for signing an executive order requiring 11 and 12 year old girls to be vaccinated, it would be no surprise if the topic was raised again in November’s GOP presidential debates. But if the discussion about the merits of vaccinating young girls against the disease is anything to go by, the argument won’t be based on facts, reason or medical science.
On September 13 2011, Michele Bachmann recounted a story to viewers of The Today Show on NBC. The day after the Republican Presidential debate in which she had attacked Gov. Rick Perry for signing an executive order mandating the HPV vaccine to 11 and 12 year old girls she said:
“I had a mother last night come up to me here in Tampa, Fla., after the debate and tell me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered from mental retardation thereafter”
Those who saw it as just another amusingly bizarre anecdote in a litany of ridiculous statements made by the Presidential candidate were missing something far more worrying: the power held by someone with a microphone to purport conjecture as fact has a huge impact on public behavior, especially in matters of public health.
If Bachmann had looked at the facts behind the vaccine and the diseases it is designed to prevent, she would have found out that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that the HPV vaccine be given to girls and young women between the ages of 11 and 26 and that the US Food and Drug Administration has approved two form of the HPV vaccine as being safe and effective. She would have known that more than 75 percent of Americans will contract this human papillomavirus at some point in their lifetime and that HPV is the main cause of cervical cancer, a disease that kills about 4000 women a year in the US.
So why did Bachmann stand up on national TV to attack the vaccine, especially given that her argument did not appear to be based on medical facts or scientific findings? Well, it appeared to be the next step in her argument with her Presidential rival Gov. Perry. It was an golden opportunity for the Tea Party favorite to attack the Texan for signing an executive order requiring 11 and 12 year old girls entering 6th grade to have been immunized against HPV.
Criticism of his executive order comes from two camps. First, the fear among many on the right is that vaccinating young girls against HPV will encourage sexual activity at a younger age. Opponents of mandatory vaccination who speak of “family values” argue that it should not be championed as an alternative to abstinence. But even some who claim not to object to the vaccine itself oppose any state mandate that may require girls to get immunized. They believe that the decision should be left in the hands of parents. But either way, playing with people’s health is surely not something that should be used as a tool for political point-scoring. Especially not on national TV.
The dangers of playing it fast and loose with medical facts was made painfully clear in 1998 when Dr. Andrew Wakefield wrote in the Lancet medical journal claiming that the triple Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine was linked to an increase in autism among young children in the UK. The World Health Organisation had certified the safety of the MMR vaccine, which had already been offered in the UK for a decade, but the scientific evidence from decades of study were tossed aside in the face of Wakefield’s allegations. When it was discovered that Wakefield’s evidence was falsified, people remembered the sensationalist headlines but seemed to forget why the MMR vaccine was offered in the first place.
So not for the first time (nor sadly the last), the headlines overshadowed the facts. MMR vaccination rates fell by 12 percentage points in less than a decade and have still not truly recovered. Although the vaccination rate rose above 90 percent for the first time in 13 years in 2010, it is still less than the 95 percent required to contain the virus and incidence of the measles virus in the UK had already increased to worrying levels. So it should, perhaps, have been no surprise when, in 2006, a 13 year old boy died of measles. This was the first death from the disease in the UK for 14 years.
Even more than the MMR immunization, the HPV vaccine is already a politically sensitive issue in the US. Supporters of abstinence only sex education (because that’s been proven to work so well!) oppose it because they fear it encourages promiscuity in young children. Opponents of big government say it is not states’ role to mandate such an immunization and choice (the watchword, as ever) should remain with parents. But surely, no matter what Michele Bachmann says on national TV, the HPV vaccine should be judged on scientific facts alone. A soundbite from uninformed conjecture should not be allowed to distract from decades of medical research and an innovation that might just save a young girl’s life. Healthy debate is a crucial part of the policy making process; using unfounded conjecture to scare people is not. It’s just plain dangerous, and it certainly isn’t presidential.
Established in 1995, the Georgetown Public Policy Review is the McCourt School of Public Policy’s nonpartisan, graduate student-run publication. Our mission is to provide an outlet for innovative new thinkers and established policymakers to offer perspectives on the politics and policies that shape our nation and our world.