With the race for the Republican presidential nomination heating up, the past few weeks have seen extensive campaigning and passionate debates that have shed more light on the contenders. Watching contender U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., is like revisiting the 2008 presidential election.
Back then, vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin stole the media limelight with her photogenic image and down-to-earth, hockey-mom personality, traits that appealed to conservative voters nationwide. In spite of her gaffes, Palin became a godsend for conservative voters with her blind conviction and a bold assertiveness used to effectively quash reason.
Today, Bachmann reveals herself as a steed hailing from the same stable, except that she promises to be much more vicious than her clownish predecessor.
Perhaps the most striking facet of Bachmann's personality is the conviction with which she presents her arguments. It is hard to be anything but flabbergasted when watching her argue in Congress that carbon dioxide was ""a natural biproduct of nature"" and therefore harmless. The ""data"" used to support her claims also seem to have randomly drifted into her head as she was speaking, because the numbers she quoted do not originate from any scientific study.
This raises serious concerns about how potential leaders would be able to make decisions based on little to no understanding of the issues at hand. All Bachmann is doing is refuting scientific facts in favor of a belief system followed by her Tea Party voter base. Is this what she'd do as president?
After bashing one of her opponents, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, it seems the consequences of her careless rebuttal of facts may be very severe. Perry had mandated Texans receive the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, an act Bachmann has condemned. The HPV virus is a leading cause in cervical, vaginal and vulvar cancer. The vaccine is shown to help prevent the disease.
Instead of focusing on campaign donations Perry received from Merck, who manufactures the HPV vaccine Gardasil, Bachmann attacked the vaccination process itself, calling it ""a government injection"" that is forced upon innocent 12-year-old girls. She went on to argue that vaccinated girls can have a potentially dangerous reaction to the drug, citing a woman who claimed her daughter became mentally retarded after being given the HPV vaccine.
The case for vaccines was severely doubted after fraudulent data was published by British medical practitioner Andrew Wakefield in 1998, linking the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine to autism in children. Inevitably, this resulted in panic among parents who opted to not vaccinate their children, despite a string of studies disproving Wakefield's claims. The British Medical Journal has concluded Wakefield's discredited and now-retracted study has had long-lasting effects, as many parents are still skeptical about the side-effects of the MMR vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 2008 witnessed the highest number of measles cases reported in the country since 1997. Over 90 percent of the people infected were not vaccinated.
Anticipating like-minded parents will not give their children the HPV vaccine following Bachmann's careless, politically fueled statements, the American Association of Pediatrics called Bachmann's claims ""false statements"" and that there was ""absolutely no scientific validity"" to her point that the vaccine could cause mental retardation. The AAP pointed out that over 35 million doses of the vaccine have been administered and that the treatment has ""an excellent safety record.""
Roughly 12,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year. A further 2,000 women receive vaginal or vulvar cancer diagnoses. Most of these case are associated with the HPV virus, and almost all could be avoided by administering the vaccine Bachmann denounced. If parents listen to Bachmann's statements, too many young girls would become susceptible to deadly cancers.
It is worrisome to see a political leaders' beliefs receive more credence than government health agencies that back their statements up with facts and medical research. The emergence of politicians like Bachmann is a real danger to the scientific spirit and represents a pressing need to cultivate scientific trust among the general population. Science has been the engine propelling modern civilization forward for centuries now, and will continue to do so for many more to come, unless we continue to listen to people like Michele Bachmann.
Anurag Mandalika is a graduate research assistant in the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at UW-Madison. Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
