Who Is the Anti-Vaccination Candidate For President?

By Gary Krasnercfic@nyct.net

January 3, 2011

TABLE of CONTENTS

1. Introduction2. The Rally in New Jersey3. The Lost Opportunity4. Lessons Learned5. Issues on the Federal Level6. My Criteria for Selecting a Candidate7. Here Are My “Surrogate Markers”8. My Analysis of the Republican Field9. Conclusion

The Iowa Caucuses will be held today. So with people’s attention towards national politics, I thought the best time to publish this article is now. And even though there’s no presidential primary this year for Democrats, they can still vote in over a dozen states’ Republican primaries (such as Iowa and New Hampshire), as Byron York reported this past week:http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/mischief-voters-push-paul-front-gop-race/276751

As Byron notes from the polling, Democrats will be voting for Ron Paul this week because he’s the most isolationist and anti-militaristic candidate, and because, if he’s nominated, he’s guaranteed to lose against Obama in the general (the “mischief” scenario). That would be a shame, because this November’s presidential election will be the first opportunity since the Carter-Reagan contest for Americans to answer the question:

Is America great because its government is great, or because its citizens are free from government? I hope most Americans believe the latter.

Having been a political junkie since the 1960s (20 years as a liberal; 20 as a conservative) and an anti vaccine activist since 1980, I’ve followed politics AND the vaccination issue for a long time. At the end of this article (i.e. section 8), I will assess the candidates for the Republican nomination for president, with respect to their likely instincts or inclinations on “vaccination choice.”

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And I’ll suggest a particular candidate whom we should support, based in part on a courageous stand he had taken in the early 1990s, which I witnessed and have never forgotten. And you can be sure that the CDC and Pharma hadn’t forgotten it either.

I should come clean now and admit that the title is a teaser. There will probably be an openly gay presidential candidate before we ever see one who is openly anti-vaccine. But we do have indirect indicators that have some predictive value, as I will discuss at length. And as I said, there’s at least one of the candidates who would likely lean in our direction, if my analysis is correct. And for the first time in the 17 months he’s been campaigning, he’s now in a position to perform a stunning upset in Iowa.

A note about partisanship. Being partisan is to subjugate all considerations in favor of party affiliation. It does not benefit anti-vaccination organizations to appear partisan. We are not influential enough for that to be an advantage to our movement. There’s even a risk in taking an official position in support of a presidential candidate, because it could make us appear partisan. Appearing partisan sends the message that we are not serious about the science against vaccination. And we obviously don’t want that perception of us.

But what if one candidate officially supports freedom of choice for parents? That would be a game changer. The public could understand why we would officially support such a candidate, and not penalize us for being partisan or “political” in that one instance.

I’m not saying we have such a candidate yet. But neither should we pretend that politics and political philosophies don’t exist. They exist and they affect us. This article is an analytical starting point for investigation and discussion. For parents for which the issue of “choice” overshadows all others, I felt I owed it to them to introduce them to ideas and analytical tools that would help them decide which candidate to support.

I realize that most of us will likely end up voting for the party and candidate that most reflects each of our political philosophies. But if you’re a Republican, or if you reside in a state that lets anyone vote in the Republican primary, wouldn’t you want to know who “our guy” might be?

This is by no means a definitive analysis, especially since major presidential candidates do not get into specifics on our issue. And because it’s not based on intensive research. Just my observations and impressions over the years, integrated with my political wisdom and experience. You may not agree, but you’ll at least read the rationales that undergirds my commentary.

I look forward to feedback from readers. I’ve tried to make arguments, and not pontificate. I would appreciate reciprocity. If you find the discussion of politics enjoyable, you will enjoy reading this article. But if political debate leaves you angry, perhaps this will not be your cup of tea.

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And why is politics worth discussing? Charles Krauthammer explained it this way, just the other day:

QUOTEThere could be no greater irony: For all the sublimity of art, physics, music, mathematics, and other manifestations of human genius, everything depends on the mundane, frustrating, often debased vocation known as politics (and its most exacting subspecialty—statecraft). Because if we don’t get politics right, everything else risks extinction.

We grow justly weary of our politics. But we must remember this: Politics—in all its grubby, grasping, corrupt, contemptible manifestations—is sovereign in human affairs. Everything ultimately rests upon it.

Fairly or not, politics is the driver of history. It will determine whether we will live long enough to be heard one day. Out there. By them, the few—the only—who got it right.UNQUOTE

Source: Are We Alone in the Universe? December 30, 2011http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/286792/are-we-alone-universe-charles-krauthammer

1. INTRODUCTION

There are many factors that influence our vote. Political philosophy being predominant. But all things being equal, the candidates’ positions on vaccination and autism services are no less important. The best time to review the candidates is now, when our options are widest. At this early stage, we have the greatest choice. Once we’re down to the Democrat and Republican presidential nominees, our choices are at its lowest point.

Obviously, Obama will be the nominee on the Democrat side. So there’s no value in a prospective analysis of him. We know his policies. He’s for big government, and its corollary, “government knows best.” But we also know more than that. In September 2008, candidate Obama said that he did not support parental choice on vaccination.

Thus, while a prospective analysis of Obama won’t yield anything of value for us, a retrospective analysis might. Because there’s an important lesson to be learned from 2008, and a lost opportunity that shouldn’t happen again. In other words, we need to know what to do as a movement when a candidate makes clear he is anti-choice (or conversely, clearly pro-choice).

So before I analyze the Republican field with respect to vaccination and related issues (i.e. autism), let’s see how we had failed to exploit a public relations opportunity, and hopefully learn from it to avoid a similar mistake in the future.

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2. THE RALLY IN NEW JERSEY

First, for those unaware of what had occurred, some background to the incident is in order:

On Friday, September 5th, 2008, Democrat Presidential Nominee Berak Obama and Governor Jon Corzine (D-NJ) were attending two private functions in Monmouth County, NJ. One of them was a dinner for 100 at the mansion of rock star Jon Bon Jovi in Middletown. Previous to that at 5:00 p.m., about 200 people, including the Bon Jovis attended the first fund-raiser—a cocktail reception at the home of Democratic National Committee (DNC) Finance Chairman Phil Murphy in Red Bank.

Two homes away from the Murphy’s, resided their friends, Ron and Louise Habakus—parents of two vaccine-injured children. Ms. Habakus became an activist earlier that year in support for reforms in government vaccination policies that included vaccination freedom of choice.

Louise had first learned on Wednesday that this reception was scheduled to take place. I became her mentor of sorts that year, and she contacted me and suggested that it would be a good idea to show support for vaccination choice when Obama arrives. I agreed. The idea was to have parents assembled on her front lawn with banners and signs. Nothing at all antagonistic towards Obama. The 4 banners that I designed for Staples (where Louise resided) to print out had read:

Informed Consent is the Right to Withhold Consent1:94 N.J. Kids Autistic, But Fully Vaccinated!Forced Vaccination: Only in AmericaVax Choice: Moms Know Best!

The rally was a success. Despite such short notice, over 100 parents and their children had gathered at the Habakus residence. A small number were members of my NYS coalition. Obama’s motorcade could not miss the 28 foot-long banners mounted on the Habakus front lawn, displaying bold lettering 20 inches in height. Obama and Corzine arrived separately to the reception. Before entering the Murphy’s home for the reception, each of them waved from their limousines as it passed the friendly gathering of families lining the curb and scattered about on Louise’s lawn.

When we first discussed this rally, Louise and I had also hoped that a friendly, non-partisan gathering would induce Obama to meet with the parents, however briefly. One of the parents attending the Habakus rally, Claudine Liss, Esq. of Little Falls, New Jersey, paid the $2,300 ticket price to the DNC reception with the express purpose of speaking with Senator Obama. As Obama reached out to shake her hand, Ms. Liss said, “Senator

Obama, those people rallying outside are with me. And we want to know if you will

reform federal vaccine policy. Will you come out to speak with us?”

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His immediate and direct reply stunned Ms. Liss: “I am not for selective vaccination. I

believe it will bring back deadly diseases like polio.” Not relinquishing his hand, Ms. Liss leaned in and whispered, “Senator, do you see our European friends behind you? They

enjoy substantially greater vaccine freedoms in their country and deadly diseases have

not returned.” Obama did not specifically respond to that comment, but assured Claudine that he would personally read the information package she handed him, and that he was committed to funding more research if it was required.

Obama left the DNC fund-raiser and headed to the dinner at Bon Jovi’s home, without speaking with the parents outside. Before following Obama to the second fund-raiser, Gov. Corzine stepped out of his limousine and walked over to Ms. Habakus and the people still gathered on her lawn.

“How are you all doing? I’m listening and I’m going to study, OK? I understand that

there’s a lot of debate on this issue.” Corzine admitted, “We get more e-mails and

letters on this than any other issue other than tolls.” He offered them a meeting with his Commissioner of Health, Heather Howard saying, “We did homework on this and I’m

taking the advice of people I trust.” Ms. Habakus confirmed September 9th that a meeting with Commissioner Howard is scheduled. But the meeting date was later postponed until after the November elections.

See video of this encounter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ1gtq7gS_A

Ms. Habakus, who asked the Governor to personally investigate this issue, said to him, “our children are sicker than ever and the weight of the evidence demands caution. [...]

New Jersey residents will evaluate Corzine’s legacy by the personal courage underlying

the decisions he made—not by the people to whom he delegated.”

3. THE LOST OPPORTUNITY

I give tremendous credit to Louise Habakus for executing a flawless event. A hundred things could have gone wrong, but she didn’t let any of them happen. But there was one pivotal mistake that was made during my collaboration with her. One which didn’t become apparent until she called me Sunday evening—two days following the rally.

I thought she was calling to give her thoughts on the final draft of the press release. Instead, she shocked me by saying she didn’t want to issue any press release at all, let alone the one we had spent 2 days perfecting. Many of my colleagues reacted angrily, but I assured them that I would try to make her reconsider her decision.

I didn’t get the chance to do that. Without my knowledge, Louise emailed people on the list claiming that I hadn’t received her prior permission to draft a press release on her behalf. Yet the emails I sent to her Saturday morning contradicted her allegation.

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Thus, the mistake—after Louise contacted me for assistance—was that I assumed we were on the same page on our actions following this event. But it turned out we weren’t. As a result, there wasn’t going to be a unified effort to exploit—for our cause—this news making event.

I had assumed that Louise would take maximum advantage of our day in the sun with a national press release following the event, chock full of the photographs she took of the banners and parents who gathered at her home. And that was my assumption even before I learned that Obama had taken an unequivocal position on ‘choice.’ But now, having taken an explicit position, Obama catapulted our issue into high orbit (assuming we could exploit it). Since Senator Obama was a national figure running for the highest office, whatever position he may have taken on this issue would become national news. An issue potentially affecting every American—not just those gathered on Louise’s lawn in NJ. All we had to do was announce to the media what had occurred: The rally and Obama’s anti-choice statement. And to announce it in the right manner.

I thought Louise would be too exhausted from the previous evening’s event (plus the previous day’s preparations) to write her press release, so the next morning (Saturday), I produced a draft for a national press release and emailed it to Louise Saturday morning. I told her I would soon post it for proof reading and suggestions to my Advisory Panel––about 40 parents and activists in my NYS organization, and a few national activists. All people whom I knew well and whose judgments I trusted. We all collaborated in producing a great press release that subsequently had been ready by Sunday afternoon.

We adhered to first principles. Our two greatest strengths as a movement were our non-partisanship, and our inherent rights as parents to decide what is best for our own children. So the press release we drafted simply opened with an objective fact (not an attack), but framed in a way that would grab people’s attention and force a response from Obama:

Obama Declares: “I am not for selective vaccination.” Feels that parents should not have the right to decide which vaccines are administered to their own children.

Following that were quotes from disheartened parents (i.e. voters!) at the rally, with the photos of them holding the banners, etc. There were no direct attacks or criticism of Obama in the copy. It just contained facts, with a passive-aggressive tone (i.e. parents being disappointed he didn’t come to talk with them, and for opposing “choice.”)

What was the objective? It was to thrust the issue before a national audience, before election day, when we had the most leverage, and the most media attention. Leverage for what? To demonstrate there were enough disaffected voters to warrant a reconsideration of his anti-choice stand. It didn’t matter which candidate ended up wearing the black hat. In fact, we hadn’t expected either candidate would be so blunt on this controversial subject. Nor would we be the ones who would declare either one the bad guy. We would

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leave that assessment to the reader, following statements (we hoped) from the candidates. All we had hoped was that our issue might become national news from any attention it garnered from the nominees running for the presidency.

But Obama exceeded our expectations: His response was explicit. For the first time, vaccination awareness activists had an opportunity to get national mainstream media to cover the issue of informed consent. Six weeks before election day, a presidential candidate from a major party stated unequivocally that he didn’t believe parents should be able to withhold consent for vaccinations—the central tenet of our movement. It was a singular and unique opportunity to attract national media coverage of the issue, because the national media was intensely covering Obama and McCain. It was handed to us on a platter.

But the only way to ensure that we would receive mainstream media attention was to heighten the sense of conflict. Not just by announcing what occurred, but by adding spin to the delivery. Specifically, our press release headline had to be worded in such a way as to sufficiently tweak Obama to a point where he could not afford (politically) to leave his first on-the-record position as is. That, along with showcasing quotations from dejected parents—some with special needs children—it was hoped would have induced Obama to reinforce, clarify, amend, or walk back his unsympathetic position on choice.

It didn’t even matter in which direction he would have jumped—either doubling down on it, or retreating from it. Any follow-up statement would have sufficed. That would have been an invitation for McCain to respond and seek to exploit the issue. (He and Sarah Palin had already made commitments to parents of special needs children.) The result would have been perhaps only a couple of days of national news coverage, but the nation would have been alerted to a controversy, and a legitimate policy issue, unrealized previously. That was the sole objective. This issue was not going to determine the winner of the election. It just would have brought our issue to national attention for a couple of days at most. But for us, it would have been unprecedented attention.

The press release that my panel had drafted that weekend contained all those essential elements, and more. Louise had been copied over the next day and a half in real-time throughout all the email exchanges, as the editing was taking place. All the comments, suggestions, and drafts were being fed to her email box. By Sunday afternoon, I was awaiting Louise’s approval to sign off on the final draft of the press release, in which she and other attending parents are quoted. And to obtain her photos of the event. Obviously, an important consideration was that Louise’s reaction to Obama, and comments from the participants of the rally, would be in line with the reaction from other state vaccination awareness groups, some of whom participated in the drafting of the press release.

Why was consensus important? Because one of my biggest fears, on a strategic level, has always been that when our movement is introduced to the mainstream public, it would appears as disorganized, squabbling groups who are not even able to identify their primary public policy goal. The biggest weakness in Occupy Wall Street was the lack of one

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affirmative policy goal or legislation. Lots of complaints, no legislative solutions. In other words, aimless, weak and ineffective, thereby easy to divide and conquer. In the affairs of nations, it’s been the mere appearance of weakness that has been a provocation. Weakness is also a cue to the media that we can be ignored without penalty. That would be a ditch none of us would want to dig out from. That’s what I feared. That's why I seek consensus.

4. LESSONS LEARNED

But as we now know, nothing of note had transpired following Obama’s remarks. We did not exploit that incident to our advantage. Why? What happened?

As I alluded to earlier, assumptions were made with respect to unification of purpose. As many people know, Since 2008, I’ve been forcefully advocating that any and all complaints about vaccines and vaccination policy can and should be publicly voiced, but only one solution should be on the negotiation table. All factions of this movement must identify a single unifying goal: “Choice.” That’s the baseline of my own state coalition. I can work with any autism activists who are not “anti-vaccine” and wish to argue that vaccines are unsafe. But I will not work with anyone who doesn’t agree that “the right to refuse vaccination” must be our first and sole negotiating demand.

In 2008, I encountered two separate learning experiences which made me realize how important it is that we agree upon a goal and commit ourselves to it. This Obama rally was one of those experiences. It reinforced for me the importance of identifying one’s goals, and making sure everyone’s in agreement with it, before actions are taken.

When Louise approached me with the idea for the Obama rally, I learned that her goal was to obtain media attention to our issue by way of their coverage of the Obama campaign. I agreed with that. But we didn’t drill down to every contingency. I didn’t anticipate that Obama would give an honest answer: That he would forthrightly state his opposition to “a parent’s right to choose which vaccines are given to her own children.” That was a game changer.

And that is also how the issue must be framed—the right of a parent to choose. Perhaps it’s because I frame the question in that way that I’ve never received a categorical refusal to permit this parental right. Certainly not from a politician. But Obama had given that answer! Why would a skilled pol do that? Was it because of the way Claudine Liss had framed her question? I don’t know. I only know that the last thing I would have expected was for Obama to walk up to moms holding their vaccine-injured babies—and banners that pleaded for their rights to protect them—and tell them they have no right to such control over their own children.

But there was no prior agreement on how to exploit the response that Obama had given. I didn’t expect that response. That was the error: Not planning for all the variables and obtaining agreements on our response prior to the event.

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The outrage was there. Why else would parents show up for the rally? What was lacking was an organizer willing to exploit anything that occurred for the movement. What had occurred? A national figure expecting to be greeted by a large group of concerned parents (the Secret Service was forewarned about the rally). A national figure who refused to walk a few yards to meet and talk with them. A national figure who told a representative of the group that parents should not decide what chemicals are injected into their children’s bloodstreams.

Rather than allowing himself to be seen facing parents and telling them to do as they’re told (about vaccination), he behaved as a coward: After he took the money of his supporters, and as he was leaving the fund-raiser, candidate Obama had NJ Governor Corzine—former CEO of Goldman Sachs, the world’s largest investment banking and securities firm—walk over to the parents at the rally to placate them. Louise didn’t hit him with the “choice” question, and with it, the difficult issue of parental rights. Instead, she allowed Corzine to set the agenda: She would be allowed to meet with his state commissioner of health—after the election, when we had less leverage—to discuss vaccine safety!!

The mistake of an amateur. We’ve seen this tactic before where politicians refer us to their advisors. It provides them political cover from the fall-out, while allowing their subordinates to take the rap. The trick is to get us bogged down in the minutia of conflicting and irresolvable medical studies, then offer a meager concession designed to placate just enough people in our coalition to divide and weaken us—such as ‘rescinding an unpopular vaccine mandate’ here, or ‘assigning one of our parents to a vaccine safety panel’ there. Just enough concessions to make them—the vaccine police—appear reasonable, and make us, if we reject it, appear as fanatical.

The ultimate goal of officials like Obama and Corzine is to steer parents away from obtaining an unrestricted right to withhold consent, which is the only genuine form of control available to parents. But Louise had allowed Corzine to make a clean getaway, by avoiding the unpleasant question of “choice” and parental rights, let alone promising anything of substance.

Why didn’t CFIC or other state activists involved with drafting the press release go ahead without Louise’s cooperation? Some had advocated that. But as I said, I feared the appearance of disunity with our first appearance on the national stage. The press release we drafted contained quotes to be attributed to Louise and other parents attending the rally. Had Louise or her NJ colleagues subsequently disavowed any of them, it would be a PR disaster. And the question of why she—the leader of the rally—hadn’t issued the press release herself would be raised as well. As late as Sunday night, Louise didn’t wish to release any press release about Friday’s rally. By that evening, after she had erroneously learned that I was planning to issue an amended press release of my own, she privately lobbied the other activists to persuade me to discontinue that effort. She even alleged that I hadn’t obtained her prior consent to work with activists in drafting a press release—a claim belied by the email exchanges I had with her Saturday morning.

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Her actions created a schism among my panel, and with that delay in forming a consensus on another draft, Louise had time to unilaterally write a watered-down press release and publish it in the Age of Autism blog by Wednesday. I preferred to keep the infighting and divisions she had caused out of the view of the public, so I didn’t issue a competing version of events. The moment for striking had passed anyway. Without the cooperation of the leader of the rally concerning the main message we wanted to deliver, the differing approaches would have made us appear fractious.

To this day, Louis Habakus has not explained her actions to me. Perhaps she supported Obama to the extent that she didn’t wish to publicly pressure him on “choice.” But then why hold a rally where he was to appear? The media reports on conflicts and opposing interests. Pleasantness holds less interest. What Obama had uttered was newsworthy. It should have been exploited for the interests of our children, with our political preferences taking a back seat.

The lesson? Reach agreement on your goal and how to attain it. Work with those who support it. Don’t allow partisan political concerns get in the way of that.

5. ISSUES ON THE FEDERAL LEVEL

Before I provide my rundown of the Republican field, we should understand what possible proactive policies are possible, at the federal level, that would advance parental freedom to refuse vaccination for their children. Something a president can influence.

There are no federal laws mandating vaccination for any child in the U.S. Why? Because powers that are not enumerated to the federal branches are reserved to the states. Public health laws are not mentioned in the Constitution, so it is the jurisdiction of each state to mandate or not mandate vaccinations. But the federal government can make recommendations. That’s why the CDC drafts “model” legislation, and lobbies states to adopt it.

The reason local schools—also the jurisdiction of states—were given enforcement, or “gatekeeping” powers is because schools are an existing government system through which most children intersect. And public health conceivably has justification wherever people—or in this case, children—congregate. The reason states had enacted and periodically amended “no shots, no school” laws to conform to CDC recommendations is partly to obtain federal inducements and avoid federal penalties.

Thus, while not directly involved, the federal government plays an important roll in vaccine requirements for school. The question is, what could a president do on at the federal level to help us? I can think of three:

A. Stop rewarding state health agencies who most forcefully compel parents to vaccinate their children. IN OTHER WORDS, remove the MONETARY

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INCENTIVES in federal grants which provides proportionally greater funding to states with the highest vaccination rates.

B. Stop the CDC from lobbying states to rescind state vaccination exemptions. Instead, make the CDC furnish states with model legislation for philosophical exemption provisions to school vaccination laws.

C. Remove the protections from civil lawsuits that vaccine makers obtained under VICP in 1988.

6. MY CRITERIA FOR SELECTING A CANDIDATE

Obviously, politicians don’t voluntarily voice their views about “vaccination choice.” Even after you ask them. Why? Because it represents conflicting interests—one of whom he will surely alienate if he takes a firm position. On the one hand are parents who want exclusive rights to decide about vaccines for their kids. On the other hand are people who are vested in the belief that vaccination is the salvation of mankind.

Salvation from disease and other misfortunes used to be the exclusive domain of providence. I find it ironic that secularists still possess that basic human need to embrace a belief, despite mounting evidence that undermines its efficacy. And the irony extends to the fact that there are laws that permit religious people to exempt themselves from this competing “religion” (i.e. the belief in vaccination). In other words, the true believers in God are now viewed as heretics by society at large! See the irony?

A good analog to our difficulties is the abortion debate. There you have conflicting interests too: The life of the fetus vs. the right of the woman to control her body. Our society has chosen sentience as the point at which “life” begins. Each side of the debate is still pushing for what they believe is right. But the difference is that each side has been loud enough to force politicians to take a position on the matter. I hope that someday soon, the parental right of choice on vaccination would emerge to the same level of prominence.

Until then, how would one know if a candidate today would side with us once elected? There’s one way. It’s not a certainty by any means. It just provides a barometer on how an elected official might react if faced with the “vaccine choice” issue or the next SARS or West Niles (etc.) CDC scare story. The determination process uses several factors, including their positions of other issues, and other previous behaviors and attributes they’ve exhibited. We create a profile.

I refer to these other issues, attributes or behaviors as Surrogate Markers. What are “Surrogate Markers”? In science, they are lab measurements that substitute for direct measurements. In AIDS, for example, serological tests measure CD4 levels or antibodies to HIV. Not the direct measurement of pro HIV virus—the direct proof that HIV currently resides in the body. Why make indirect measurements? Because surrogate tests

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are considered associated or correlated to the disease being considered, and because a direct measurement is either non-existent, too expensive, or otherwise impractical.

In the case of vaccination, we just don’t have any direct indication of where candidates stand on “choice” (except for Obama, who opposes ‘choice.’). So we examine surrogate indicators, or markers. These markers provide a profile of the candidate that we may use to predict future behavior with respect to vaccination policy. Again, it’s hardly an exact science. I doubt any one of the 7 markers (which I created) on their own would account for much in the way of predictability. But what if the candidate scores correctly on all 7? That might be significant, and thus that candidate, I would argue, should be under our consideration for support.

Political Theory:

Before I describe each of these surrogate markers, I should get some politics out of the way first. Because 4 of the 7 favorable surrogate markers are clearly associated with politically conservative positions or attributes. My liberal friends might wonder why there are many conservative “markers”, and no markers associated liberal political attributes?

That’s actually two questions. Let me start with why most of the “pro choice”

markers are associated with conservatism. This will be a long discussion, but I hope

you find it educational.

First, understand that this article is about aiding us in assessing candidates. It requires us to understand how political philosophy affects public policy, because (1) state vaccination mandates is public policy, and (2) every candidate will govern, more or less, from his/her own political philosophy. Until we get a Democrat or Republican nominee who has a vaccine-injured child, one’s political philosophy will probably remain one of the best overall predictors.

Let’s begin with a simple thought experiment. The governor of your state has determined that blueberries contain ingredients that are good for you and will reduce healthcare costs for government. His law mandates that every resident purchase one pint of blueberries each week. More liberals than conservatives would support that law. Conservatives would more likely oppose the entire mandate. Liberals would more likely want to merely tweak it. They might want to reduce the schedule by which blueberries must be purchased, or they might want the blueberries be free of pesticides. Or they may suggest an alternative to blueberries, which would accomplish the same end result (raspberries?!). But they wouldn’t oppose the mandate itself.

How do I know this?! Because it happens every day! In 2010, for example, NYS Governor David Patterson wanted to impose a sales tax on soda beverages. Their high refined sugar content is not healthy. Patterson claimed the mandate would be good for everyone’s health, and would reduce healthcare costs for government. Public employee unions, the largest supporters of liberal Democrats, plastered the media with ads in support of the tax. Why? Because big government meant they would keep their jobs and

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generous benefits packages? That was part of it. But the reason liberal elites like Mayor Bloomberg supported the bill was because they believe government knows best and should impose its beliefs on the public. You might disagree, but government knows best. You might wish to reduce your sugar consumption by cutting down on sugared breakfast cereals instead of sugared beverages. But government knows best. Conservatives agreed that excess refined sugar is bad for health, but they also believed that freedom of choice in the marketplace is as important as the right to vote. The freedom to market a product or service, and the freedom to buy it. Liberals saw no problem with government coercion to influence outcomes in the free market. Conservatives did.

That was the reason for the split. Political philosophy. If you’re are a liberal, and you believed the sole reason was as cynical as Republicans just wanting campaign contributions from the beverage industry, then you have an inaccurate caricature of the other side.

There are expedient moderates, to be sure. But there is a real philosophical difference between left and right. The former favors statism because it trusts government to wield power, and the latter favors personal freedom because it distrusts the power of government. A legislator in either category begins with a philosophy, and looks upon each issue and legislation through that lens. If it coincides with collateral benefits, all the better. Their decision is easy. If not, they struggle with the dilemma.

More recently, in August 2011, The MTA proposed huge hikes in commuter ticket fees and bridge and tunnel tolls. The public employee unions bused in large numbers of union members to testify in support of the fee hikes at the MTA’s public hearings. Why? Again, big government is the preference of those who have faith in it, and those dependent upon it.

And of course the best parallel is Obamacare. Liberals want to mend it (i.e. expand it), while conservatives—as with the “blueberry mandate”—want to end it.

Big government and its mandates are no less fiercely defended than by policymakers themselves, albeit for self-preservation, but also for ideological reasons. Documents obtained by Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act request show that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spent over one million taxpayer dollars promoting Obamacare in coordination with the 2010 mid-term elections. The documents include correspondence between HHS officials and representatives from The Ogilvy Group, the public relations firm hired to drive web traffic to an HHS site promoting Obamacare as “the Affordable Care Act.”

“There is nothing special about November 2nd other than the fact that it was Election Day,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told The Examiner. “What possible reason could the Obama HHS have for maximizing their propaganda dollars in the seven days before Election Day other than to elect Democrats? This seems to be a blatant violation of the Hatch Act, among other laws. http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/obama-hhs-caught-campaigning-democrats

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But that’s just about tactics. With respect to philosophy, it’s no different. Obama, like Governor Patterson with his sin tax on sugar, claimed the Obamacare mandate (to purchase private insurance) would be good for you and will reduce healthcare costs for government (note: According to CBO projections, costs will increase). Liberals want to expand Obamacare: To actually have government compete with private insurers, for example. Conservatives want to end all of the government mandates and have free market policies replace the long-standing government sanctioned monopolies in our healthcare system.

But why? Answer: Differing philosophies of government. You’ve probably learned in civics class how conservatives favor “negative liberties”, as had our Framers, while liberals favor “positive liberties.” But to be more relevant to ‘freedom from vaccination’, I would just reduce the issue to the fact that government is all about mandates.

Thus, Obamacare will not allow me, for example, to purchase a high deductible policy—through law. Similarly, the allopathic medical establishment will not permit me to receive insurance coverage for non-drug, holistic treatments of my choice. How can a private entity control my life that way? Simple: government backs one player over another, through force of law.

It is most often government policy that constrains us—not corporate policy. Corporations simply supply goods and services that we desire and are willing to pay for. Government supplies goods and services that Government deems we should have, and charges some people for it. And it forces us to do things. It was government policy that forced people to discriminate by race: If you had been a white resident of several southern states, Jim Crow laws forced you to provide separate facilities, even if you personally opposed racial discrimination.

In an open and free civil society, private individuals and groups get each other to do things through persuasion—through lower prices, or better service, or reasoning with you, in the way I’m doing now with this article. I’m helping you understand a point of view. You don’t have to accept it. Government, on the other hand, gets it done through threats to deny you freedom or extract your wealth. That’s the essential difference. Where the free market influences behavior through quality, prices and services, government accomplishes through laws. Parents who wish to refuse vaccination have come to understand this.

Liberals would ask, in a democracy, how could government be so bad, and force people to do things they don’t like? Doesn’t it exist and act with the consent of the governed? As I will mention later, one answer is that agencies of the executive branch have wide discretionary powers. But another reason is that in a democracy, there are competing interests. Conservatives understand this and want government to refrain from taking sides, whereas liberals forget it, or seem unaware of it, until government takes the side of their opponents. Then they’re miserable. They were miserable for 8 years when Bush was the government.

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Liberalism Supports Government;

Government Supports Mandates:

So that is what government does to impose its will on its citizenry. It takes the side of one faction over another. It takes the side of whatever faction empowers it (like the super wealthy) and whatever makes citizens more dependent on it. Let’s examine how that occurred for our issue: Thirty years ago, vaccine makers were forced to discontinue the sale of their product in the U.S. They claimed injury lawsuits made it unprofitable. The competing interests then were the majority of the public who supported the mainstream medical claim that vaccines were necessary for public health, versus those who wanted the freedom to decide for themselves. A subset of the latter group supported at least the theory of vaccination—that some vaccines may be efficacious.

The categories of competing interests then is similar to those we have today. The injuries today is mostly autism, and vaccine makers are witnessing growing opposition to mandates. They realize they will have to shed their growing pariah status sooner or later, or else abandon their dream of doubling and tripling the current vaccination schedule. Because the situation today is similar, what vaccine makers will do to (a) overcome their pariah status and (b) impose their will on a doubting public today, may be similar to what they had done 30 years ago. What had they done?

What they did 3 decades ago to deal with (a), their pariah status, was to persuade and co-opt a new and naïve leader, of a newly-formed parents organization, to the view that vaccines must return to the market, and with government help.

How they were able to (b) impose a new regime on the public was to advance the common liberal justifications that it was for the common good, (i.e. public health and disease prevention for all children) and that its being done with good intentions.

Government coercion is most effective when government is large, powerful and bloated with bureaucrats looking to justify their existence. The coercion is usually justified based on the primacy of the “common good.” The actual argument could be flawed or totally invalid. But that doesn’t matter. Government makes laws, and laws must be followed, like it or not. The mutual benefits of NCVIA were in place: Government expanded it’s power over the people, and vaccine makers profited financially from it.

After vaccine makers were successful in obtaining government protection from lawsuits and government-funded compensation for injuries from their products, they had to get people to use their products, and in large numbers to maximize profits. For a product that still had a PR problem, only government is able to achieve all that. The free market had already been subverted by having government socialize the costs (of vaccines) and privatize the profits. Now people had to be forced to take the vaccines, and more vaccines had to be mandated by the states, and each state’s no shot, no school laws had to be upgraded with more vigorous enforcement mechanisms. The central government fostered that through block grants and helpful model legislation.

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And how was all this coercion justified? The primary arguments to maximize vaccination compliance through government mandates were the same liberal common good arguments (i.e. public health) that was used to help enact NCVIA. Only this time, the pro-vaccinators required arguments to exclude easy opt out provisions in the mandates. After all, what good are mandates if anyone can refuse to comply with them? And with government promising to compensate the injured, a major rationale to decline vaccination was now gone.

So what justifies restrictive opt-out provisions in state mandates, such as in NYS? A subset of the liberal common good justification for coercion is the liberal free-rider

justification. As parents who don’t vaccinate, we’ve all been hit with the free-rider argument at one time or another: Pro vaccinators argue that unvaccinated children are free-riders, and that’s the reason all parents must be forced to vaccinate. It is claimed that the unvaccinated child is getting a “free ride” on the backs of children who are vaccinated. They base that argument on a medical myth that the unvaccinated gain protection through “herd immunity.”

The free-rider argument may have a familiar ring to you. It was used to justify the health mandates in Obamacare. Under Obamacare, the IRS compels Americans (illegal aliens and many public employee unions are exempt) to purchase “government-approved” health insurance.

Contrary to common notions, we currently do not have a free market in healthcare, given government involvement through regulations and funding. Controls over prices and resources under Obamacare will merely shift more of it from a private monopoly towards a government monopoly. But that aside, its proponents claim that the individual mandate on people to buy insurance are justified because there are too many free-riders. Free-riders are the uninsured who take advantage of free emergency-room care at taxpayer expense.

Obamacare, progressives promise, will bring the benefits of health insurance to all—and fine or jail those who don’t purchase it. It’s unavoidable, they claim, if we are to cover everyone’s pre-existing conditions. Nonsense. Health insurance in the U.S. isn’t “insurance.” People who do not own an automobile are not forced to buy auto insurance. And auto insurance companies do not compensate you for pre-existing conditions: They do not pay for your cracked windshield before you subscribe to their service! Real insurance doesn’t work that way. Real insurance assesses risk BEFORE the injury or loss occurs.

And they deal with uninsured drivers through high-risk pools, without forcing non-automobile owners to pay for it. Healthcare can do the same, with non-consumers of the drugging profession being left alone, unless and until they decide to use those services. The argument that someday, everyone would surely require some service that allopathic medicine offers, doesn’t hold up when you realize that the same argument would apply to many products and services that one doesn’t routinely use. Some people may someday

have an urgent need to fly on a plane for the first time. Does that mean government can

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force that person to take out an insurance policy to pay for that potential expense?! One day someone will demonstrate the vital need for a chiropractor or a tax attorney. Would we then be forced to insure ourselves against those eventualities?!

Bringing “benefits to all” will also have a familiar ring to parents who are trying to avoid vaccination. But as with the free-rider myth, as it is used in support of vaccine mandates, most Americans are unfamiliar with the reasons why it’s a myth with respect to healthcare. An article that thoroughly explodes Obama’s free-rider myth is Myths of the “Free Rider” Health Care Problem, by Avik Roy, 2 Feb 2011, at http://blogs.forbes.com/aroy/2011/02/02/myths-of-the-free-rider-health-care-problem/

That covers how liberalism and government mandates reinforce each other. The themes of the common good are not novel to most people. But why is liberalism so compatible with government coercion? The rationale, or pretext, of good intentions is a key part of the answer.

The real reason Obamacare and vaccine mandates are broad and uniform is for control of the population, and to make them dependent on the good graces of government bureaucratic elites. That leads to a less rebellious citizenry, who would think twice about criticizing a president or his administration. Would a women’s group, for example, find fault with a president knowing he could remove his mandate on insurance companies to cover cervical or breast cancer screening? Would blacks, knowing they could lose coverage of sickle cell anemia services? Gays, with respect to HIV? Etc. Our health is far too personal a matter to invite greater government involvement in it.

Yet that is one important political (not even a market-based argument) drawback to single-payer government-controlled health insurance. That is where Obamacare is heading, with the Secretary of HHS being given plenary powers in private healthcare markets, to a point where they will wither and fade away, leaving only government. It is all based on the paternalistic liberal philosophy that the locals are idiots, and the central government knows best. Families get it wrong, so “it takes a village” in order to get it right.

Obamacare specifies those provisions that they claim makes for a good insurance policy, regardless of what medical consumers may believe. It prohibits provisions which do not conform to that ideal, whether medical consumers agree or not. Because liberal “theology” teaches that what is good for one is good for all. That philosophy is akin to “one-size-fits-all”, because—as progressives believe—if we all have equal civil rights, then we must all have the same wants and needs and dreams (i.e. the rationale of socialism). And based upon that paradigm, a vaccine that is safe for one is safe for all.

Complain all you want about chain stores and corporate conformity, at least it’s done through persuasion—by attending to the price and quality of their product or service. Under socialism, it’s done through government fiat. This is what everyone gets; take it or leave it. “One-size-fits-all” exists in all its glory under liberalism and socialism. In

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tangible terms, note the difference in how you’re treated at the Department of Motor Vehicles, versus say, a popular restaurant.

Finally, the second question would be, why are there no markers associated liberal

political attributes?

In other words, you may get my point about the opposing philosophies of government and economics. But why are there no markers that favor liberal attributes? Surely there must be pro-choice political attributes that is associated with liberalism?

There are. At least two. But I do not include them as surrogate markers because they’re insignificant, for the following reasons:

One marker is the politician who is a big advocate for consumer protection, specifically being in favor of natural ingredients, safe drugs, and so forth. But I didn’t include it as a surrogate marker. Why? It’s not because I’m a conservative politically. It’s because such a candidate would be a strong advocate for safer vaccines. Not necessarily for freedom of choice. Indeed, the perennial promise of safer vaccines has diverted and/or placated too many, thus weakening the demand for ‘choice’. (Yes, it does come down to zero-sum, given limited resources and time.) Whereas anti vaccination groups don’t care if vaccines can be made safer. Safety is a concern solely for parents who vaccinate their kids. In a free market, they have that right. It’s just not the agenda of parents who prefer freedom over safety.

I also don’t use “civil libertarians” as a surrogate marker. Why? Because it’s a poor predictor. For example, Richard Gottfried is the Chairman of the powerful Health Committee of the NYS Assembly. He’s the prime sponsor of two of my bills: One that amends the medical waiver that would make a physician’s clinical assessment of risk veto-proof. The other would make religious exemptions self-executing declarations. (No more intrusive interrogations by school administrators.) He supports the former based on medical efficacy. He supports the later based on the First Amendment Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses.

Gottfried is a man of conscience, and he happens to be a liberal Democrat from Manhattan—if anyone is wondering. But he opposes parental rights to decide vaccination on grounds outside the control of (allopathic) medical bureaucrats (government knows best), and outside the confines of religious liberties.

Indeed, since 2005, Gottfried has not supported my philosophical exemption. Why? Because he’s a staunch supporter of vaccination and because he believes government knows best. Then why does he support my religious exemption amendment, for example? Because he’s a staunch civil libertarian, and religious freedom is guaranteed in the Constitution. Unfortunately, parental rights and freedom from medical tyranny are rights NOT included the Constitution. Thus, he thinks ordinary parents, absent of religious rationales, should not be able to refuse vaccination, based on their own reasoning and intelligence. Gottfried is the government, and the government believes that it’s views (on

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public health and herd immunity) supersede that of parents—even for their own children, even if their views are well-considered and reasonable.

Conservatives are more concerned about our “negative liberties”, the rights of the individual to be free from government power. Liberals tend to favor “positive liberties” more fiercely, the moral obligations of government to serve—and impose upon—the individual. With respect to vaccination mandates, civil liberties doesn’t trump that for liberals like Richard Gottfried.

These are all generalizations. Exceptions are duly noted. But if you still think my criteria is skewered, I offer this thought experiment:

Today, and for the last several decades, government health bureaucrats have insisted that vaccines are safe. Tomorrow, after the “green our vaccines” coalition succeeds in forcing government to perform safety studies on all vaccines, and subsequently the very same government health bureaucrats proclaim that vaccines are therefore safer now, liberals would generally tend to believe them. They have more faith in government. Conservatives in our movement would tend not to believe them.

Having said all this, we need to accept the fact that most Americans on the left and the right generally support the practice of vaccination. And we can accept that there are a good portion of people on the far left and far right who may be inclined NOT to vaccinate for reasons having nothing to do with political philosophy. Typically, they may be parents who eat organic food, homeschool their kids, and limit the amount of television their kids are exposed to (etc.). Indeed, they probably don’t even vote in elections. What motivates them is more their anti-establishment bent, and distrust of all authority and experts, whether in government or not.

In other words, I’m proposing a way to profile politicians. Not the general public.

7. HERE ARE MY SURROGATE MARKERS

(1) Fearlessness. A President who is unafraid and unintimidated by government bureaucrats and technocrats may also be unafraid and unintimidated by government HEALTH bureaucrats. Past experience in government, and knowledge of history and public policy is helpful here. Look for a candidate familiar with the beast and has dealt with it, and has faced it down in the past.

(2) Conscience vs. Expediency. “Past is prologue” is a key predictor of this marker as well. We hate politicians because they pander to prevailing public opinion. But politics is a career to them. Isn’t it true that you flatter your boss at work? Thus, acting on conscience is a rare trait, especially for pols. If the candidate previously held elective office and risked it by taking an unpopular position, then he may risk opposing consensus medical opinion as well. And as we know, medical consensus always supports any new

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vaccine, and it’s instrumental in the fear mongering towards promoting the current “epidemic of the month.”

(3) Conservative. Small government conservatives are better than big government liberals. Government influences our behavior solely through coercion. And what is “vaccination policy” anyway? It’s GOVERNMENT policy. The liberal notion of the “common good” means “mandates” for everyone, because what is good for some is good for everyone. “One size fits all” is liberalism in a nutshell. It is the reduction of individual liberties until the liberties are equally applied to all. Large public health bureaucracies are staffed by liberals, as they are the true believers of the common good, which includes public health measures like vaccination.

(4) Personal Involvement. Does the politician have a special needs child, or a child on the autism spectrum? All things being equal, this factor would make the candidate more sensitive to ‘risk to the individual’, than ‘risk to public health’. Thus more likely to be passive on government vaccine mandates.

(5) Religion. No pol in office admits to being an atheist. But we know some are more religious than others. Social conservative candidates may be more religious (I’m an atheist, BTW), and thus may be more likely to favor parental rights against medical mandates. A net plus.

(6) Pro-Life. I hesitate to include this, given the many exceptions, but perhaps being pro life on the abortion issue might, on average, might make a candidate more inclined to reject the utilitarian ethic of universal compulsory vaccination (i.e. herd immunity will lead to “collective salvation”, and instead embrace the moral ethic (i.e. individual right to refuse vaccination).

Parenthetically, the term “collective salvation” (which I borrowed here) is a term Obama invented, and used in speeches in years past to laud the role of citizens to organize collectively, using government as their instrument, to obtain what they want or need. just his version of, “it takes a village.” This in reaction to the conservative ethic, which champions individual initiative, personal responsibility and accountability, family-centric authority, parental rights, etc. Note: There are many pro life pols who are not considered “social conservatives” (e.g. Rudy Guiliani)

If abortion is too hairy an issue, let’s substitute the personal mandate to purchase health insurance, which is a primary objection to Obamacare. That too has analogs to the “collective” (e.g. “it takes a village”) as a necessary means to salvation. Here, the proponents allege that everyone must participate (i.e. purchase health insurance) for everyone to benefit. Very similar to herd immunity theory—the central justification for compulsory vaccination laws.

(7) Challenged The Consensus. My final political trait to note would be a pol’s tendency to NOT be unduly influenced by the promises of “modern” medicine or other science issues that have built up a consensus of support. That he/she doesn’t reflexively

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defer to the majority of medical experts, nor the consensus on medical issues. If, for example, they showed skepticism about CDC’s phony outbreaks, such as West Niles virus, SARS, Swine Flu (circa 2009), etc., then perhaps they would also give parents the benefit of the doubt and support vaccine choice.

Since pols are too fearful to speak up against CDC alarms about outbreaks, I doubt any of the current Republican candidates had spoken up against, what we know were, phony infectious disease outbreaks. I recall some had challenging questions about the administration hyping the 2009 Swine Flu warnings. But probably no substantial medically-based opposition to the CDC’s actions. So perhaps we can examine the closest thing to vaccine and infectious disease issues—such as other science-related issues?

Two such surrogate marker issues for which we have a record for each candidate are global climate change and stem cell research. Like vaccination, these two science issues became politicized, and as a result, quickly garnered an apparent scientific consensus. “Apparent”, in the same way AIDS=HIV became the consensus: Government moved in to take a position on a scientific issue, and made the cause of AIDS official policy. Research grant applications, to succeed, had to conform to the government’s assumptions, constructs, and biases about the science. That stifled dissent and triggered the juggernaut towards an inevitable consensus that favored the government’s edict.

Three general points must be made with respect to these markers I’ve chosen (climate change and stem cells), because they hold valuable lessons for us (yes, more lessons!):

FIRST, Science by government fiat is very much what occurred with vaccination, fluoridation and AIDS=HIV, for example. The science became dogma. What distinguishes science from dogma is that a theory in science can be proven wrong. A dogma cannot. When the government-backed theory begins to appear flawed scientifically, it’s virtually impossible for scientists working in government, or receiving government grants, to back away from the theory, and admit it’s invalid. More than just egos are at stake. Careers and income come into play. That is why climate change and stem cells are regrettably no longer about the science.

SECOND, I do not have any special insight to know which side of the debate is scientifically valid. I just have my biases, and they are not relevant here. Being right or wrong is incidental to this analysis. Then what is the purpose of this analysis? Prediction. Only politically courageous pols will take positions in opposition to scientists and medical doctors. Those pols are likely the only ones who would also champion our side of the vaccination issue. So identifying such surrogates is a worthy exercise for our overall analysis. Political courage is part of it. Why waste your time with a pol who may agree with you on the merits, but is too fearful to stick his neck out going against “learned” scientists?

Thus, a pol who had taken a position in opposition to the established scientific consensus on climate and stem cells is the salient factor here. Especially if that pol was among the first brave souls to do so. Pols who opposed that consensus might also oppose consensus

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on vaccination policy. And how would I know this? Because there were so-called surrogate markers that predicted these legislator’s positions on both the climate change and stem cell issues!

I, for example, had correctly predicted that legislators who were pro life (on abortion) would be more receptive to the science that favored adult stem cells. And I also correctly (it turns out) expected conservatives (who favored economic growth) to lead the opposition to the catastrophic climate change scenario. Because I’m clairvoyant? No. Anyone could have seen that those legislators simply reinforced their preexisting constructs. We all do that. We look for evidence that supports our views. That is the sole purpose of the analysis on these surrogate markers—to predict how pols might act on vaccination choice.

THIRD and finally, having said that the efficacy of the science is incidental here, it still would be helpful to understand the actual points of contention on these two issues. Because for too many liberals, their only understanding of what conservatives think is from listening to idiots like Sean Hannity or other fixtures on Fox News and the attention deficit, dumbed-down cable news shows. And yet the science for both issues are very complicated, with no easy answers.

Stem Cell Research:

Let me begin with stem cell research. And this is what I consider my most brief commentary on this subject:

First, there had never been a law that prohibited any private person from investing in embryonic stem cell (ESC) research. There was only a ban on the federal government from funding it. The ban existed under Clinton and Bush. Bush later partially lifted the ban with an executive order (arbitrary, in my view) banning federal government research solely that involved new cell lines from aborted human embryos. Not the existing cell lines. Still, a very limited restriction, because at no point in history was private investment in ESC research prohibited by law.

Then how did it become such a big political issue? Necessity is the mother of invention. Democrats needed wedge issues that would win them a majority in Congress in 2006 and the presidency in 2008. Stem cell research seemed perfect. It reinforced the perception that Republicans were anti-science, religious nuts who are indifferent to miracle medical cures for children. Very similar to the way anti-vaccine are labeled by their opponents.

Democrats had a motivated ally: The ESC industry that could not attract enough funding for research from the private sector. That left only funding from the federal government. How do you obtain it? By helping Democrats demagogue the issue. If they win the election, you get the funding. Obama won in 2008, and they got government funding in 2009. Democracy at work.

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To elaborate, after decades of study, there had been no progress in embryonic stem cell (ESC) research, while adult stem cells (ASC) had already cured dozens of diseases in human patients. Consequently, private investment in embryonic stem cell work had dried up, because unlike adult stem cells, embryonic stem cells faced the age-old problem of foreign protein rejection http://www.fumento.com/biotech/stemcell2009.html.

Institutions already heavily invested in embryonic stem cell research then realized that they could bypass the scrutiny of private investment sources, by getting funds from the federal government. Getting taxpayer funds through legislative fiat—rather than demonstrating the scientific promise of embryonic stem cells—proved to be a simpler task. All they had to do was hide in the background, while Democrats alleged Republicans were religious fanatics opposed to scientific progress.

Science writer Michael Fummento said it best:

QUOTEThe reason private investment dried up for ES cell research is because it’s a dead-end scientifically. Foreign protein rejection hasn’t been solved in over a century. Even the magic of OBAMA won’t change the fact that he threw your tax money down a rat hole, for the sake of placating the far left who bought into the election year demagoguery of the religious right standing in the way of scientific progress.UNQUOTE

Anti-vaccine activists might see a couple of similar parallels to our issue.

First, similar to what had occurred with vaccine manufacturers in the 1970s and 80s, the commercial interests behind ESC could not succeed in a free market environment, so they got government to step in and save them. Specifically, those vested in ESC and the blood/tissue transplant industry couldn’t attract private investment based on scientific merit and performance, so they obtained government funding—by co-opting Democrats, and enabling the next Democrat president (Obama)—to hand them billions of our dollars. Government has a legitimate role in our society. This certainly wasn’t it. But that’s the legacy of our government’s contribution to stem cell research—that of pouring good money down a rat hole.

Second, the protein component in vaccines are rejected by our bodies as foreign, and they also decompose in the bloodstream in the absence of digestive enzymes. The resulting endotoxins from the decaying cells and proteins are among the causes of vaccine adverse vaccine reactions. Our bodies reject foreign proteins for a reason—self protection. Researchers in ESC, but not ASC, are stymied by this problem.

The Democrat scheme worked, and it increased cynicism among an already politically cynical public. At least for Republicans. But something good may have come out of it. We may have made friends among some Republicans and some of the candidates running

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for president. They may see the two parallels I just described, and take a principled position with us on “choice.”

There’s a third parallel as well. A political party adopted a political position favoring the moral ethic, and rejecting the utilitarian ethic. Republicans began with the pro-life (re abortion) predisposition—or the moral ethic. By building on that existing construct or bias, they ended up opposing the utilitarian ethic that appeared to be backed by “consensus science” (i.e. ESC research). By opposing that perceived consensus, it helped to enable Democrats to defeat them in 2006 and 2008. The good thing for us is that Republicans were treated by the media in the same manner we are often treated—as unscientific nuts who are indifferent to the utilitarian ethic of public health. We gained a philosophical ally. We may just need to remind them of the stem cell demagoguery of 2006.

And I made it a point to witness it unfold in real-time. I watched the long 2-day floor debate in the Senate. Unfortunately, the public never saw Republicans making scientific arguments in that senate debate, because nightly news programs found it more convenient to sound-bite only the moral and religious remarks that were made. That was much easier than having to explain the complicated scientific ones. Several Republican senators showed a remarkable grasp of the science—reading, for example, from medical journals on the promise of adult stem cell pluripotency. But thanks to the MSM, the public was left with the false impression that it was all about religion, by just showing clips of a senator reading from scriptures.

Political demagoguery succeeded, and science was the loser. I had written about it here in 2006: Media Bias in the Stem Cell Issue, http://americandaily.com/article/16463.

But we don’t have to be left with those false portrayals by the media, anymore than we should accept the false portrayals of us. Regardless of political party, we should acknowledge that we gained a philosophical ally from this affair: Politicians mounting moral and scientific arguments against consensus medical science. They got a taste of the way we’re treated.

The embryonic stem cell method required cell cloning, which in turn lacks the prerequisite bioethical laws in any possible applications that stem from it. All these arguments dominated the senate debate—made by Republicans. I viewed every minute of it. Democrats hadn’t a clue. They weren’t prepared to debate the science. They were expecting religious arguments. They made the mistake of believing their own press releases. But then, why bother to study the science when you have the demagoguery?

The Republican concern was that the demand for aborted fetuses for their stem cells would fuel a burgeoning industry in the research—and if successful—the growing and harvesting of cells and organs. All this would occur PRIOR to we, as a people and society, would have had the opportunity to consider the ethical and moral implications of where all this may end up. These bio technologies have galloped well ahead of codified legal and ethical rules for their application.

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Long before George W. Bush became president, progressives expressed deep moral and ethical consternation when biomedical firms were permitted to patent specific genes. The concerns liberals had expressed over that had sounded very similar to that which President Bush later expressed about ESC: If you can own genes fabricated in the lab, you can own new forms of life or species of animals. Where is the cut-off point between lower life forms and sentient beings? And once you legalize patents on genes, the consequent entrenched industrial juggernaut that develops around that technology would be too powerful to derail, even after adverse ethical implications are realized later.

Liberals back then had justly worried about the commodification of plant and animal species. But later, under President Bush, they didn’t have similar ethical quandaries that could arise when human tissue cells become commercialized with regards to human embryos. Perhaps they should have been reminded that the reason animal shelters must kill millions of cats and dogs—who are more self-aware than fetuses—is because these animals are considered ‘property’ by government fiat.

A lesson for us: We must resist the urge to accept political demagoguery, whose sole aim is to flame antipathy towards the opposing party and politician. We should think through these issues for ourselves and not be manipulated. Because the abuse of the utilitarian ethic should concern all of us, left or right, whether it concerns vaccination, stem cells, cloning, patenting life, etc.

And as for vindication, those Republican senators turned out to be right. Technological breakthroughs occurred in adult stem cell pluripotency not long after those floor debates. And more recently:

Geron Abandons Embryonic-Stem-Cell ResearchNovember 14, 2011 11:52 P.M. By Wesley J. Smith

Geron Corporation was the big hope for embryonic-stem-cell research. After years of promises, its first-ever human trial using an embryonic-stem-cell-derived product for acute spinal-cord injury made huge headlines internationally. But now, the Washington Post is reporting that Geron has abandoned the field altogether.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/stem-cell-pioneer-geron-exiting-such-research-laying-off-staff-to-focus-on-cancer-drug-tests/2011/11/14/gIQA7V26LN_story.html

This is an atom bomb of a story that will have a serious effect on the entire regenerative medical sector. And it should embarrass the critics of President Bush; the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which bragged about its part in funding a scientist involved in the research; and,

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perhaps most of all, the fawning media that have acted as press agent for both the field generally, and Geron specifically.

Global Climate Change:

Before I make my point, let’s first understand the state of the debate. With respect to climate change, both scientific and popular consensus has shifted a bit. In the last 5 years, there was a drop from 77% to 66% among those who consider global warming a significant issue. Still, at least one declared candidate I know was an early skeptic (discussed later).

What is the skeptic’s position on it anyway? Basically, we were indeed in a warming phase for the last century, up until 1998 it seems. At any given time, the earth is either in a cooling or warming period. Greenhouse gases have an effect on climate warming. But its significance in relation to other factors is in dispute. Conservatives opposed the EPA policy to treat CO2 as a toxin, because it is not toxic to animal life. It’s considered dangerous based solely on the catastrophic scenario of the ‘warmists’.

Studies show that if every nation adopted “Kyoto-like” measures, it will stem the increase in warming over the next 50 years by a small fraction of a degree. That would be insignificant. What conservatives argue is that it would disproportionately hardship the poor the world over, needlessly suppress economic expansion, which in turn would delay scientific advances in alternative (to fossil fuel) energy technologies—the very thing that will ultimately reduce greenhouse emissions, and presumably save civilization. The same reasons why conservatives oppose Cap & Trade legislation.

That’s the simplest distillation. The debate is NOT about who “believes in global warming.” The dispute is between those who favor the catastrophic scenario, versus those who believe the situation is either not catastrophic, or else that the solutions which the catastrophic crowd suggests will be ineffective or counter-productive—because, it is argued, the ultimate means of ever hoping to solve the problem—technological advancement fueled by economic growth—will paradoxically, be technological advancement fueled by economic growth.

Just as an aside, I just came across an article I read over 6 years ago, when few people were challenging global warming alarmism. It was written by a respected science fiction author, Orson Scott Card. Notice the parallels to mainstream vaccination researchers, in his review of the fraud and dishonesty perpetrated by the community of climate scientists who promoted the supposed consensus view: http://www.ornery.org/cgi-bin/printer_friendly.cgi?page=/essays/warwatch/2007-03-04-1.html

But a recent brief update on warming myths and rational public policy is here: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/275396/perry-and-global-warming-jim-lacey

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But getting back to the surrogate issue aspect: If I had to prime a political faction towards greater skepticism of mainstream—and politically connected—science, I could not have invented a better issue for conservatives than the climate issue.

First, it was an issue of science that became politicized for its demagogic utility. In her fine update on the issue in November 27, 2011, Karin McQuillan wrote in Scientists in Revolt against Global Warming:

QUOTEGlobal warming became a cause to save life on earth before it had a chance to become good science. The belief that fossil fuel use is an emergency destroying our planet by CO2 emissions took over the media and political arena by storm. The issue was politicized so quickly that the normal scientific process was stunted. We have never had a full, honest national debate on either the science or government policy issues.UNQUOTE

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/11/scientists_in_revolt_against_global_warming.html#ixzz1fFVqQgqz

And second, as we hope to do with the “science” of vaccination, and for some of us, the “science” of infectious disease, the climate issue has been scientifically discredited.

Indeed, it has been so discredited, that its proponents have repeatedly retreated from one slogan to another. Charles C.W. Cook wrote in December 2011 that “having careered wantonly from “global cooling” to “global warming” to “climate change,” the greenies eventually settled on the rather dramatic “global climate chaos,” a neatly eschatological term that has the delicious benefit of being so vague as to be unfalsifiable.” (Like Intelligent Design and Creation Theory, I would add. –GK)

Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/284635/climate-cataclysm-not-nigh-charles-c-w-cooke?pg=1

And third, another parallel to vaccination is the urgent necessity argument. The argument that a certain preferred action be undertaken, simply because it’s urgent and must be done immediately. Whether or not the action itself is efficacious must not be debated—because there’s no time to debate it. Or to assess it’s scientific merits! More than one conservative has complained about this. But it was Charles C.W. Cook (again) who expressed it well. He cited the following:

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of

tyrants; it is the creed of slaves!” (British Parliamentarian William Pitt, 1783)

“The whole aim of practical politics, is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence

clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of

them imaginary.” (H. L. Mencken)

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Then Cook concluded, “It is still a matter of debate whether there are any hobgoblins at

all, but if they do exist, the tallest among them are disappearing at a rate of knots. As

they go, we must insist that so too do the invitations to be led to safety, for without

necessity we have no reason to be slaves.”

If the parallels to vaccination policies are not apparent from that, then imagine that we obtained the private email exchanges among pro vaccination scientists and mainstream journalists, and read their discussions of how justified they felt in falsifying and destroying research data, solely to promote their bias that everyone must be vaccinated. Would that be enough for our agenda to prevail? See these two posts:

Climategate 2.0 emails – They’re real and they’re spectacular! Posted on November 22, 2011 by News StaffA link to where to download the new FOIA2011.zip file is posted:http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/22/climategate-2-0/

And a short summary & analysis of the Climategate 2.0 emails:

Scientists Behaving Badly: More nails for the coffin of man-made global warming, by Jim Lacey, Nov. 28, 2011http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/284137/scientists-behaving-badly-jim-lacey

As you can see, any conservative seduced by the political demagoguery, the promise of cures, and urgency to enact vaccination mandates, or to otherwise throw government support towards any vaccination initiative, need only be reminded of the climate and stem cell issues.

For the purposes of our analysis here, those are the two “surrogate issues” I look for in a candidate: How they stood on those two issues early on, before a consensus among conservatives had formed. That would be the best forecast of that candidate’s proclivity on vaccination. (As you will see in the next section, Newt Gingrich, for example, was wrong on both issues, while Rick Santorum was right.)

Whether you agree with my position on each issue is not important. For the purposes of our analysis here, they are just a barometer that may predict how a pol will react to the vaccination issue, which—like global warming and stem cells—is a science tarnished with political bias and entrenched interests. But most importantly, like vaccination, they both claim an imposing mainstream consensus of scientists. Any candidate willing to actually study the science of these issues, and openly challenge the mainstream consensus, will likely be fearless enough to take an honest position on vaccination.

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8. MY ANALYSIS OF THE REPUBLICAN FIELD

Those are the 7 political “markers” I watch in assessing the candidates. Profiles that help us predict future actions. We know where Obama stands. Now, finally, I will profile the potential Republican nominee.

GARY E. JOHNSON

Libertarian. Former 2-term governor of New Mexico and has impressive personal accomplishments. Smart fellow; has the aforementioned ‘fearlessness’, and ability to dissent from mainstream medical consensus. He also wisely favors decriminalization of illicit/recreational drugs. All good omens with respect to vaccination. But he withdrew his candidacy December 27th, so he’s out.

RON PAUL

Conservative-Libertarian like Johnson. Paul opposes vaccine mandates based on political philosophy—not on the merits of the science. But he’s also a long-shot, with a lot of bad political baggage on other issues.

Paul is right, for example, that the US had no business getting involved in WWI. But WWII?! Paul’s “Fortress America” policy went out of fashion 70 years ago, when Adolph Hitler demonstrated that our security is based upon what happens beyond our borders, more than what occurs within them. Paul erroneously condemns U.S. “occupation” of other nations! In fact, nations of the world—even Muslim nations—have signed treaties with the US to host our military bases, to thereby benefit from the US security umbrella. These voluntarily contracted arrangements are so valued that our troops are granted immunity from local prosecutions during insurrection or other states of armed conflict in those countries.

Before a single American was killed by the Axis powers, FDR understood—what Paul doesn’t—that nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were existential enemies of the US. And just like our democracy and freedom of conscience could not co-exist on the same planet with nazism, Paul fails to grasp that our values cannot co-exist with expansionist and supremacist Koranic literalism represented by Sharia law and Islamic jihad today. Paul, armed with hindsight, would have done nothing while Hitler armed Germany, and invaded its neighbors, and while Imperial Japan invade China and southeast Asian countries. He seems oblivious to the fact that Iran and Hezbollah had been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans decades before 911, and since. He seems oblivious to the fact that Jews have an unbroken connection to the middle east for 3,000, and they share our values and national interest. He doesn’t accept that her attackers are also our existential enemies as well.

No surprise that Paul has a lot of wacko “Paulbots” supporting him, including 911 Truthers. A 72 yr-old pol who supported Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney for president against John McCain, and who doesn’t mind if Iran obtains a nuclear bomb, is

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not going to get the Republican nomination. Google political pundit Warner Todd Huston on Paul’s political deficits. There are many. Recently, Paul’s newsletters from the 1990s have received media interest, because of its rank racism against blacks. And then there’s his anti-Semitic streak: http://spectator.org/archives/2011/08/23/ron-paul-and-the-neoliberal-re

Thus, count Paul out as being not viable. But he will obtain 100% of the isolationist, anti-militarism vote. And he will cause some havoc. As Byron York observes, while polls in Iowa and NH indicate that only about half of Paul’s supporters are Republicans, those non-Republicans and Democrats can vote in many Republican primaries in the US. And they will vote for Paul to ensure an Obama victory in November. Refer to:http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/mischief-voters-push-paul-front-gop-race/276751

RUDY GUILIANI

(Unannounced.) Rudy’s moderate profile is unmistakable. A big government Republican just like GW Bush. But it gets worse. New Yorkers may recall Rudy’s promotion of the seasonal flu vaccines when he was mayor. Each year he would bring his health commissioner to one of his town hall meetings and in public, receive his flu shot. Only someone unduly influenced by infectious disease experts would actively promote flu vaccines to that degree (see category 3 above). Rudy would not be our ally on parental choice. He’s a neocon bigtime “government knows best” man. Too late to enter the race, but could be a VEEP choice by the eventual nominee.

JON HUNTSMAN

Mormon with 7 children. Politically moderate, big government Republican. Indeed, he refuses to label himself “conservative.” Many say he was a flip flopper as Utah governor. No known attributes, other than he speaks Mandarin. His billions of dollars were earned by his father. That means his early diplomatic appointments were earned by his father. There are too many self-made men and women Republican candidates for voters to be impressed with him. He supports global warming theory, solely because he claims the consensus of scientists supports it, and warns, “the Republican party cannot become the anti-science party.” He said emphatically on the Larry Kudlow Show on Sept. 3 that he goes with scientific consensus all the time. (Red flag folks!)

He gave up influential elected office (governor of Utah) to hitch his wagon to the Obama Administration, accepting Obama’s offer to be American ambassador to China. Republicans will rightly ask why he didn’t resign in protest in 2009 when Hilary announced to China (and the world) that human rights will take a back seat to China’s economic development (i.e. trade and investment in the U.S.), or after Obama snubbed Israeli PM Netanyahu and consistently undercut his negotiating leverage. Plus the betrayal of our other allies, like the UK over the Falkland Islands. All reasons why the liberal media can’t stop talking about him as a promising candidate. He did make pro human rights speeches about China. But in case he claims he privately opposed Obama’s policy

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of ignoring human rights in China, or Obama’s overall foreign policy, there are private letters that have come to light in which Huntsman praised Obama’s policies to the heavens. In fact, since he supports Obamacare and Cap & Trade, and other Obama government mandates, most people can’t figure out why he wants to run against Obama. The liberal media loves him, but his profile on the surrogate issues, and on expediency and betrayal of principles, makes him a poor choice for us.

TIM PAWLENTY

(Withdrew his candidacy.) Two term governor of a liberal state, like Romney, made Tim very popular among the liberal MSM. He was a Romney look-alike, who was busy minimizing his compromises with liberalism to win the nomination. He used to think that personal healthcare mandates was a “worthy goal”, and had been in lockstep with the scientific consensus when it favored global warming (early supporter of Cap & Trade). After being nominated, he would have felt comfortable moving back to those liberal positions. Pawlenty had garnered the support of far too many Republicans who are big supporters of John McCain and Lindsay Graham and other mushy Republicans. Consequently, I don’t trust this fellow.

One example was when he was governor of MN in 2008. Against the protests of conservatives and some moderates, Gov. Pawlenty introduced and enacted a law that committed state resources to accommodate and assist Muslims to purchase homes in compliance with Shariah Law. (Violent jihadists and “peaceful” Islamists want to replace the US Constitution with Shariah, and Shariah Compliant Financing funds their terrorist groups.) It was a simple procedural scheme that gave Muslims a pretext to claim that they were not paying a mortgage (Muslims are prohibited from paying interest.) Nevertheless, it was in violation of the wall of separation between government and religious institutions, and it promoted a fascist, misogynist, totalitarian ideology. If Pawlenty didn’t have plenty enough testicular fortitude to stand up to the growing population of Muslims in MN, how could we expect him to stand up to nerdy doctors in the CDC?

HERMAN CAIN

(Withdrew his candidacy.) Former president of a local federal reserve bank and successful entrepreneur. Great in sound bites. But his set speeches were poorly written. Indeed, his most important one—announcing he was a candidate—was awful. He claimed that he didn’t follow politics (that showed!), but decided to run for president after his grandson was born. Today, following several episodes in which he demonstrated appalling ignorance of government, history, public policy and current events, he went from first place in the polls to last, finally dropping out following several accusations of sexual harassment and infidelity.

It’s clear to most by now that this talk show host took a flier in his decision to run. What I found most disturbing was the number of conservatives willing to take a flier in supporting him, before knowing anything about him. My discussions with some of them demonstrated that to me. But when Cain was interviewed by Chris Wallace, it

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demonstrated to others that my caution was well-placed: Cain pretended he was familiar with the issue of Palestinian “right of return” (a political experience deficit), but it turns out he actually never heard of the term before. Later, he even showed ignorance that China was a nuclear power!

The reason these are severe governing deficits is because while he would have felt confident on economic issues as president, Cain would have deferred to the health bureaucrats on medical matters relating to vaccination policy. GW Bush was confident in some areas, but he was led around by his nose on issues by agency bureaucrats in which he had zero experience, knowledge and confidence. In stark contrast to him, we learned over a decade after he left office, from his private correspondence, that Ronald Reagan had a firm grasp of policy issues. One of Reagan’s letters from the early 60’s, for example, contains his detailed prescription for toppling the Soviet Union, which he successfully carried out 20 years later as president.

RICK PERRY

Longest serving governor in TX history. A climate change skeptic, but only after it became safe for a Republican to declare it. Liberal on immigration policy (even uses some Democrat talking points on it!). After watching his first two speeches before he had declared his candidacy, I knew he would be unable to beat Obama: His speeches were poorly written, and his delivery and mannerisms are very similar to GW Bush’s. (ABC News political pundit Matthew Dowd noted it as well.) Independents will not like that. Aside from reminding us of Bush, his emotive speaking style appears as phony as a 2 dollar bill.

Perry was considered a favorite, until others realized what a bad candidate he was, in the debates particularly. Even I hadn’t imagined how verbally challenged he would prove. In 2000, had candidate GW Bush gone through the debate competition and scrutiny that Perry had, we might have had another man elected and have been spared the flaws in Bush’s personal limitations (Recall that we were told by Condi Rice and other Bush cronies that Bush was a lot smarter than he appeared to be in public. Apparently he wasn’t smart enough to know that failing to defend his administration during his lame duck years would insure a Democrat rout in 2006 and 2008.)

But here’s why he is not right for us: He’s too pro vaccine. He drove the Gardasil and meningitis state vaccine mandates—through an executive order. As conservative Michelle Malkin had written in 2007, and again on August 17, 2011, Gov. Perry engaged in the most disgraceful demagoguery to override parental rights to decide about vaccinations for their kids. And it was HOW he had done it: As underhanded as Obamacare and other lawless, agency overreach tactics under Obama. As she concluded in the latter piece, “The Perrycare executive fiat was not simply a one-off mistake explained away by lack of ‘research.’ It exposed a fundamental lapse in both political and policy judgments, an appalling lack of ethics, and a disturbing willingness to smear principled defenders of limited government who object to the Nanny State using their children as guinea pigs.”

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http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/274812/rick-perry-s-bad-medicine-michelle-malkin

Malkin is right. I watched one of his early townhall meetings in New Hampshire. He admitted making a “mistake” on Gardasil. Though not the meningitis vaccine. And he described the ‘mistake’ ever-so-simply as “getting too far ahead of the legislature.” Nothing about violating parental rights or principles of informed consent. His wife is a nurse and her parents were MDs. I listen to Perry and he sounds too much like GW, Rudy and Newt—economic conservatives who are far too enamored by the medical boys and their supposed miracle cures. (Except that Perry is described as being more of a social conservative.) Parents will never get the benefit of the doubt under President Perry. Pharma and the medical establishment would.

As of September, Perry continues the demagogue and lie about this issue:http://www.naturalnews.com/033671_Rick_Perry_Gardasil.html

Note 1: One should be cautious not to rely too heavily on partisan (i.e. party) generalizations. Gov. Jerry Brown proposed and enacted an HPV and hepatitis b vaccine mandate for students, without parental consent. (Texas has an easy opt out provision.)

Note 2: I mentioned Perry’s immigration position to help conservatives make their decisions. But liberals should know, whether they choose to believe it or not, that being pro “border security” and pro “English as an official language” are not anti immigrant or xenophobic. Rather, it’s intended to preserve American culture, values and sovereign interests—a concern among the Framers as well. In other words, it’s the same reason virtually every other nation of the world have those two laws for themselves—Mexico included.

MICHELE BACHMANN

Firebrand. Shoots from the hip. Andrew C. McCarthy, whom I respect and trust, and whose opinions I agree 99 percent of the time, believes Bachmann has tremendous smarts, wisdom and authenticity: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/269550/re-bachmann-smart-media-dumb-andrew-c-mccarthy

Seems like voters too had considered her a serious candidate, according to that early Iowa straw poll. But the media is always sniffing around for gaffes. And on more than one occasion, what the media thought was a gaffe turned out to be factually correct. In direct contrast, the MSM tries to conceal or minimize Obama’s many gaffes. They also compare her to Palin, although Bachmann has more depth (albeit that’s not saying much for “depth”). But it’s a shallow comparison: They are both physically attractive, charismatic, conservative, women. Some pollsters say women voters don’t vote for attractive women candidates. And the constant media focus on Bachmann will inevitably force, or fabricate, gaffes. But like Palin, she has solid principles and stands by them, and her personal story is great and she comes off as genuine, albeit sometimes unpolished.

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Cervical cancer is supposedly infectious (it is not). But it is not communicable. Yet it still garners support by most people. So I felt that Bachmann put her neck on the line by attacking Perry on his state mandating executive order on HPV vaccine for 12 year-old girls. That point was something Bachmann touched on, though she got the terminology incorrect. But the main point is that Bachmann may have known beforehand that attacking Perry would ultimately—once the exchanges escalated—require her to attack Gardasil and Merck. She called the vaccine “dangerous” and a “government vaccine”—which is what a vaccine mandate actually is! She deserves a lot of credit, even though attacking Perry was a necessary strategically anyway, as Perry scooped up many of her voters after he announced his candidacy.

Unfortunately, Bachmann has since retreated a bit from that early attack on the vaccine. At the GOP Jewish Coalition Presidential Candidate Forum on December 7th, she responded to a question on the matter by saying, “I would like to see the creation of more vaccines and medical cures.” She explained that her sole concern over the Gardasil controversy was Gov. Perry’s “crony capitalism”—that he allowed the vaccine maker’s money and influence to determine his policy to mandate their vaccine.

Bachmann gave birth to 5 children and has 23 foster children. Like Sarah Palin also, her only “fault” is her perceived (by Beltway pundits) unelectability, whatever that means. I feel that she will be perceived as a lightweight because she’s a woman. Just a fact of life. Don’t blame me for it.

If she can get elected, life might be good to us, given her social conservatism—Home schooling and parental rights—not to mention her solid small government position. However, she’s on record as favoring the teaching of Intelligent Design in science classes. That would make her a constant joke on SNL and late night comedians. This is a strike against her in a national election (trust me, it is, like it or not).

MITT ROMNEY

Mitt is a big government republican, and former governor of the nation’s most liberal state. He’s flipped on abortion, global warming (early supporter of Cap & Trade) and other conservative positions, so his credibility (or foresight) is very tarnished. He would not reform the Federal Reserve System in any way, or establish a sound money system, with a gold standard or whatever. This eliminates him for a lot of libertarian and independent voters. He supported single-payer government health insurance, and personal healthcare mandates as governor of MA, so he holds the same deficit as Newt, regardless that is was Constitutional on the state level per the 10th Amendment. He’s not a “personal liberties” guy. His history shows him to be more like a “government knows best” guy to me. And unfortunately, they’re often also “mainstream medicine knows best” as well.

I hope I’m wrong about that, because he’s considered the odds on favorite. Obama won the support of investment banking and securities firms in 2008. This time, they’re

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supporting Mitt. But he will be better than Obama, particularly for the economy. But that’s not an anti-vaccine endorsement by any stretch.

On a personal level, it’s been reported that if he’s elected, he may be a president who has created more businesses than any previous one. He was also extremely generous with his partners and business associates, and gives enormous amounts of his earnings to charity. But he’s more frugal with his own children and himself, though. He doesn’t drive late model cars or spoil his kids. Mitt’s father was the president of GM and governor of Michigan, but Mitt says he wasn’t coddled growing up.

NEWT GINGRICH

Gingrich’s campaign looked like a disaster shortly after he announced. Then he reached the top tier by November, based on good performances at the debates. He was able to showcase his vast and deep knowledge of government and history. But negative ads by Romney and Paul pulled him back down to the lower tier again. Newt is a gaffe machine extraordinare. Lot’s of good, out-of-the-box ideas, except that a few of them are wacko ideas. That’s one reason he has the reputation of being a loose canon and doesn’t stick to the game plan.

Unfortunately, he once favored personal healthcare mandates; sponsored the original bill for the Fairness Doctrine; and initially supported the catastrophic global warming scenario before conservative consensus formed in opposition to it. As for my view, show me a man who feels government knows the best health insurance provisions YOU should pay for and receive, and I’ll show you a man who feels government knows best which vaccines are best for your kids.

What accounts for his flip flops? On science and medical issues, I feel Newt is pre-programmed to support the mainstream, establishment consensus. Thus, before a solid conservative consensus had formed against global warming, Newt went with the liberal mainstream science. Apparently, he was clueless that is was a Democrat election tactic to increase the general perception that conservatives are religious Neanderthals on science. He was also OK with taxpayer support for embryonic stem cell research, before conservative opposition had formed against that as well. So Newt has long been enamored by establishment medicine. (Second only to Sen. Orin Hatch and Representative Henry Waxman.)

To be fair, Newt suffers from the same misunderstanding of medical issues as his Republican peers: They have no conception how drastically our healthcare system must change. The part of the market that’s private works fine. Those people who want quick and easy fixes choose mainstream medicine. That, and it’s fee-for-service model, is what helped allopathic medicine emerge supreme over the last 100 years. You wait for a problem to occur. You get it diagnosed by an expert (for a fee). You obtain the drug to suppress the unpleasantness (for a price). Or you opt for surgery to remove the unpleasantness (for a fee).

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That’s freedom of choice, as far as it goes. If that’s the kind of healing approach you prefer. But we don’t have a free market in healthcare. Not when treatments we desire are not covered by insurance, or are even outlawed. And the reason for that is government favoritism (of allopathic medicine), and government control of prices and resources. One casualty is price inflation: Lack of competition keeps prices high. Permitting third parties to choose what kind of treatment should be available to you is another perversion of free markets that keeps prices high. If you were insured for bananas, would you give a damn whether you obtained them from a store that sells them for 50 cents a pound, or one that sells them for 90 cents a pound?

Any insured product or service will increase the price of that product or service. That’s why conservatives prefer only catastrophic healthcare be subject to insurance. And to argue that “profits” are the problem with healthcare in the U.S. is to argue that they’re also a problem with food, clothing and shelter—which I could argue are more essential for life than a doctor’s visit or a drug. I haven’t taken so much as an aspirin in 45 years. How am I still alive?!

There are more perversions, but suffice to say that the end result is that a good idea in a free market could be a disaster under the system we have now. Take for example Newt’s idea last week that we should invest in brain research. Why? Because the prevalence of dementia and Alzheimer’s is a major treatment cost for Medicare today. So it’s a good idea, right? Wrong. Under our current system of government-sanctioned monopoly of allopathy, the only research that would be conducted for brain diseases would be the search for a patentable drug. That would be fine if a drug turns out to be the solution to brain diseases. But what if it’s the result of a protein deficiency, or some other easily available nutrient? That’s when we have a problem—when a solution to a disease falls outside the preference of the government-preferred healing system.

And don’t blame pharma for this. Pharma is just a player who played the game and won. The blame must go to the party that fixed the rules of the game that allowed pharma to win. Blame government. It was government, for example, that favored biased studies that led to states outlawing Laetrile—a non-drug cancer treatment—50 years ago. It is government that tells us vaccines are safe (regardless of what we believe). It is government that compels everyone to take them (regardless of what we prefer). Conservative political philosophy enables most Republicans to understand the efficacy of free markets better than most Democrats. But ignorance of the limitations of the drugging profession, and it’s government-granted monopoly status, can render even good healthcare ideas futile, and possibly harmful.

The other reason Newt occasionally strays from the conservative reservation is ego. Beltway liberals get the lion’s share of favorable attention in the media. Newt has a big ego, and as a conservative, he resents being denied that attention. So he’s tried to make common ground with liberals on some issues. Not unlike GW Bush when he declared he was a “compassionate conservative.” He’s made great efforts to become a member of the Aspen institute and other big government liberal institutions. Trying to gain acceptance in

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liberal circles is the hallmark of a Republican who cannot be trusted by parents’ rights groups.

On a personal level, I’ve gathered that while Newt can go off the reservation without warning his colleagues, he’s a genial, forgiving person. Never holds a grudge for long, as witnessed by his past alliances with Hilary Clinton (on healthcare) and Speaker Pellosi (on climate change), after they savaged him in the 1990s when he was Speaker. And he’s a notorious animal lover. Newt was adopted by a military servicemember and grew up poor or of modest means. A self-made man. On the negative side, according to many who knew and worked with him, Newt is considered unfocussed, undisciplined, and self-centered. This critique from NRO captures some of his faults:http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/285596/myth-new-newt-rich-lowry

RICK SANTORUM

Last but not least: Rick Santorum is my top choice. Last week, he surged to third place in the Iowa polls from near the bottom. But as people on my private political list know, he’s been my favorite since he declared he was a candidate on June 6, 2011. But I didn’t explain with any details my reasons. Generally, I believe he would side with parental choice over medical demagoguery. For example, he scores 100% on all 7 “political traits”, described in the previous section. Before I make the case, just this brief biographical background first:

From blue-collar Catholic roots. Grandfather immigrated to the U.S. and worked in the PA coal mines. Staunchly pro-life. In 1990, Rick Santorum at age 32 was first elected to the House of Representatives, and four years later rode an anti-incumbent wave into the Senate. He won re-election in 2000, but after a bitter and expensive campaign, lost his bid for a third term in 2006 against his Democratic challenger, State Treasurer Bob Casey, in that anti Republican, anti Bush wave. Mr. Santorum had been the third-ranking Senate Republican, one of his party’s fastest-rising stars who was a brash favorite among social conservatives. He had a staunchly conservative voting record, and jumped into debates on flashpoint issues like the war in Iraq and same-sex marriage. Since then, Mr. Santorum has worked as a Fox News commentator and written columns for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Rick is one of those fearless pols. More so for him, since he didn’t pull his punches in a state that looked like it would go Democrat in 2008. But he stuck to his guns on many issues that Dems demagogued, like enhanced interrogation of jihadists. He was not a flipper and doesn’t flinch on issues of conscience. On Nov. 2011, Quin Hillyer reviewed those campaign issues and concluded:

QUOTEOther conservative senators have told me personally they advised Santorum to hedge his bets on issues that year—but that Santorum said that in a brutally tough election year, if he couldn’t win by standing on principle, he wasn’t going to win anyway. Can anybody doubt that he was correct? That’s the sort of attitude that can attract and inspire voters in

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the more-Republican year that 2012 promises to be, when the energy of Tea Partiers and social conservatives alike will be needed to be at a high level to counteract Barack Obama’s planned $1 billion campaign. [...] Perhaps the most refreshing thing about Santorum, from the moment he entered the nationals scene in 1990, is that there’s no fakery about him. His genuineness is palpable. His sincerity is unquestionable. His conservative bona fides are superb.UNQUOTE

Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/282738/why-not-santorum-quin-hillyer

Santorum acted no differently against medical and scientific demagogic clashes. In the senate, he was among the first, along with Senator Inhof (R-OK), to challenge the scientific orthodoxy of global climate alarmism (i.e. the idea that mankind can make a dent in climate increase). And Rick was one of several senators who effectively advocated the scientific efficacy of pluripotent adult stem cell research over embryonic stem cell research—the latter being the unpromising black hole into which Dems wanted to dump public funds (merely to demagogue their way to 2006 Congressional electoral victories). The CSPAN library has video of those senate floor debates. Look at his recent Meet The Press interview on June 12, 2011, where he gave a full-throated defense of home schooling—another “surrogate marker” issue.

On item #6 of the “political traits” section, for example, Rick scores big. He may be the most pro-life candidate, and for the longest time. Same with the individual mandate on healthcare insurance. In the 1990s, when he was in Congress, he opposed mandates on people to buy health insurance under the regime at that time. Gingrich had supported the mandates. What Newt Gingrich couldn’t understand then, and Rick could, was that the pathology of the system was having third parties (government, employers, and insurers, interposed between the medical consumer and the medical supplier. There’s no sector of commerce where that has succeeded (e.g. to keep prices low). Rick wisely cosponsored an alternative bill that would have allowed people to create personal healthcare accounts to pay for non-catastrophic care. All Republicans realize this now. But Rick realized this THEN, in 1994: Free markets require freedom of choice, or they are not free and will not function as intended. True fact, whether you believe that universal healthcare is the answer, or universal vaccination.

Rick was a stand up guy. He didn’t waffle on the issues during his 2006 senate race, despite knowing that his mostly Democrat state would bear the brunt of the anti Republican wave that year. And in his current primary bid for president, he’s not pandering for votes either. In a profile piece in the Washington Examiner last month (Nov. 7th), correspondent Byron York made this observation of Santorum in a campaign stop in Iowa:

QUOTEThree voters, three questions Santorum could have danced around, perhaps leaving the voters with the impression that he agreed with them

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without explicitly saying so. Santorum didn’t do it, and probably lost support in the process. But he said what he believed.UNQUOTE

But the main reason I support him today is because of something I witnessed while I

was watching CSPAN in the early 1990s, when Rick was a newly-elected US

Representative. Why is this incident so important? Because it was a true act of

“profiles in political courage” by Rick. And relevant to our issue.

It was a House floor debate. Democrats (mostly) wanted to appropriate more millions to the CDC’s childhood immunization program (Hilary Clinton’s “baby”). Rick was the sole legislator standing against it. He argued that the CDC had announced that it had already achieved it’s desired goal of 90+% vaccination compliance levels. I don’t remember his other arguments, but I do remember his tenaciousness. And unlike his stand during the senate floor debates against government funding of embryonic stem cell research many years later (yes, he was among the leaders of that debate against the consensus science establishment), Rick was standing alone to deny CDC that extra funding for child vaccinations. No other legislator stood beside him then.

Why was this a courageous stand?

Because every pol knows never to vote against the apparent interests of children. Childhood vaccines supposedly prevent infectious diseases. So any pol that votes against vaccination programs must not care about children. That is every candidate’s nightmare opposition advertisement. Rick was aware of that form of demagoguery, yet he persisted, and persisted alone. He knew that no other legislator was scheduled to speak in support of his position. It demonstrated to me a high degree of moral character then, and after watching him over the years following that incident, he has never disappointed me. And I did watch him.

That’s all the evidence I have. But it’s all the evidence I need. It’s all we’re likely to get too. Even with 1 in 50 children now in the spectrum, no national candidate is going to be explicit about vaccination choice. Not yet.

I should point out that from 1990 to 1999, I had gone from being a liberal to being a conservative. And I’m still an atheist. I don’t agree with Santorum’s religious outlook. But I find him sincere. That matters to me. I’ve had to actively research Rick’s personal life to learn anything about his family situation, which I found admirable. He really walks the walk on the pro life issue. He and his wife opted to have a baby knowing she would be severely disabled. (They have 7 children–all were homeschooled.) You can research that on your own. Although this short column touches on it. Rick considers disabled children a national priority: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/284128And he’s personally well-liked: http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/09/rick-santorum-snags-endorsement-from-iowa-secretary-of-state/

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So that’s my assessment. As a junior member of the House, long before the controversies about vaccination, Rick stood up to CDC (and its puppets in Congress) vaccination propaganda. That is primarily why I believe and hope he would have the courage to stand up to it as President.

9. CONCLUSION

There is no real answer to the teaser heading, “Who Is the Anti-Vaccine Presidential Candidate For 2012?” We don’t live in a society in which a candidate can advocate a strict anti-vaccination position, and remain viable. But I promised to suggest a candidate who we can support with confidence. Rick Santorum demonstrated fearlessness against the CDC, and he believes parents know what is best for their own children. He sticks to his beliefs against countervailing winds. And scored favorably on all 7 of my surrogate markers. For us, it doesn’t get better than that. Maybe in the close scrutiny candidates receive in Iowa, voters see something genuine in him.

My other intention was to discuss politics, which, as my liberal friends know, I love to do. I’ve argued here that being opposed to vaccine mandates garners more ideological justification from conservative, than from liberal, political philosophy. But that merely aids in profiling politicians. Not to be used to judge each other. There are as many liberals in our coalitions as conservatives. The fact that they oppose vaccine mandates in spite of their liberal philosophy has no operational relevancy. If anything, it demonstrates they can rise above ideology to discern truth from fiction.

Intelligent conservatives are also able to recognize the merit of exceptions to their political philosophy. That would be the case for all people who do their own thinking and reasoning. And I hope this article made you think.

—————————————————Gary Krasner is Founder and Director of Coalition For Informed Choice (CFIC), which numbers 5,000 parent-members in NYS, who favor the right to decide which vaccines are given to their children.

If “informed consent” means that parents have the right to refuse consent, then why does the CDC claim that it supports informed consent, while it lobbies state legislatures to rescind religious and philosophical exemption provisions in school vaccination laws?

© Copyright Gary Krasner 2012

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