My comment was to tie up a loose thread from 1 of many extremist media outlets which get advertisers and other supporters to pay for mass entertainment that nullifies the last 200 years of scientific advancement and destroys healthcare for current and future generations.

What?

Honorary pilodinal cyst of 4F by Tea, “97.   PayasYouStargaze Says: September 19th, 2011 at 2:18 am I’m a bit concerned that that bot keeps going after me now. Only a bit though, it’s ramblings still make no sense.”

“The Left’s Math Makes No Sense … September 20, 2011” and then, “A Loveable Little Fuzz Ball … September 27, 2004 … When you talk plagiarism out there, it’s hard to remember any right-winger plagiarist. I’m sure there have been. I just don’t remember any” (the old, ugly and evil Rush “looting” Limbaugh with Hannity/Noory how to guide of extremist Republican and Christian outlets for creating legal illnesses, murders for hire, and failed antebellum states with willing accomplices and sham brides and sex tours, another GOP human trafficker by harvesting humans like Esso-Koch whose products kill people; unable to sell – NRA gun/other erection products, hair/other plugs, winter clothing except Mittens Romney, disaster insurance, Nazi products ‘cept Exxon chemicals, crayon-ready denier college textbooks/manifestoes, spontaneous abortion office products, while conserving the flames of the new aristocracy; rushlimbaugh.com).

Phil, you keep saying this, and when pressed say that usually there is good reason for it. Can’t you just break free? When libertarianism and science clash, science wins, every time. Get over it.

What is difficult about it? Way up the pros and cons, like with anything else. It is actually not very difficult as decisions go.

Say what you like QD, at least that was a time of big ideas (some of which actually succeeded, like stopping a war), as opposed to today’s world of tiny, self absorbed ideas; blind obedience; and shiny gadgets.

Well, maybe so, but . . .

Oooh !!! Shiny Gadgets !!

This hatred of hippies always astounds me. Wow, a group of people who tried to make the world a more tolerant, even loving place. They failed, of course, but even so, we certainly have no room for evil goals like that.

More power to the uber rich, I say!

Yes, and if anyone tries to tell you how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, nail them to a tree. Just like that last one, about 2000 years ago.

I don’t see how an HPV vaccine is any different from a herpes or syphilis vaccine. They protect against diseases contracted via sexual intercourse.

I think you need to specify that you are referring to genital herpes as effected by the Type II Herpes Simplex Virus, not herpes keratitis that is caused by the Type I Herpes Simplex Virus (incidentally, most of us carry HSV-I anyway but we are usually asymptomatic. Occasionally, one can get herpetic ulcers in the mouth, particularly when on a course of antibiotics, or one can get the cold sores which are the commonest symptom of herpes keratitis).

How did things get so bad in the US?

Well, I’m sure the full reasons are quite complex and contain many subtle factors, but I’ve a couple of guesses:

(1) TV commercials (and televised debates). Because parties are allowed to screen any old crap on TV with (IIUC) the only limits being the amount of airtime they can buy, every major election is turned into a lowest-common-denominator popularity contest.

(2) Every democratic system in the world whose culture is focussed on personal gratification will always end up with the election winners being the ones who promise to deliver the most to the broadest range of people. Even if they repeatedly fail to deliver.

Here in Oz fundamentalist Christian churches (apparently taking the lead from their parent organisations in the US) have organised boycotts of the vaccination program offered to year 8 girls on that grounds that removing the fear of contracting cancer later in life will lead to girls being more promiscuous.

I tried to get my head around this statement. Does this mean that those churches actually believe that fear of cancer is what prevents girls from being promiscuous in any way? Seriously?

Oh, wait. I get it. They’ll say any old stuff to support their bid for notoriety.

@84 dave mundt: Many people who are against universal care say that they do not want a faceless bureaucrat at a governmental desk, deciding what treatment they can receive. They do not seem to realize that right now, even with their insurance, they already HAVE a faceless bureaucrat making that sort of decision about their health care.

EXACTLY. I hear that argument all the time, and it bugs the crap out of me. Given the choice between a faceless bureaucrat who’s under pressure to make money without regard to my circumstances, and a faceless bureaucrat who’s at least theoretically supposed to be representing me, I know which one I’ll pick…

Amen to both of you! It is a complete mystery to me why anyone would think that an employee of a private, commercial insurance company whose job security probably depends on minimizing the amount of money his company has to pay out could be more trusted to do the right thing than a government bureaucrat.

“If you believe that than you may as well believe that seat belts serve no useful purpose, and are only installed in vehicles to make the vehicle and seat belt manufacturers more money. No one in their right mind would entertain such a ridiculous notion, unless perhaps you’re someone who thinks like Michelle Bachmann.”

I agree. Equally foolish is Senator Imhofe’s contention that the main (or even sole) motivation for promoting green technologies, conservation, and the development of renewable energy sources is a selfish desire to enrich the executives of recycling companies and the companies that manufacture wind and solar solar power generation equipment, and appease wealthy lobbyists who represent them.

“Heartland Institute … a science-free zone where cigarette smoke harms nobody and the earth is cooling. … offered $1,000 plus travel costs and expenses and placement of the speech in a book for a short speech at an anti-global warming conference in NYC. The American Enterprise Institute (a conservative think tank) offered $10,000 to anyone who could write something to undermine an IPCC report on climate change. Both organizations are backed by big oil. Big time. … These payments are aypical for legitimate scientific conferences” (“Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Who Resigned Over Global Warming Had a Motive”; By Over_L; my.auburnjournal.com, 9/15/11).

The 1 step sciency method of von Bachmann of claiming a vaccine causes retardation (in someone else) was pioneered by Big Tobacco which was taken it beyond by none other than Dr. Roy ‘d-rage’ Spencer – a public fund-sucker at UAB. “Jul 17, 2010 … My Global Warming Skepticism, for Dummies … By Dr. Roy Spencer … here’s a list of basic climate change questions, and brief answers … it only takes one of us to be right for the IPCC’s anthropogenic global warming (AGW) house of cards to collapse. … the way the researcher community used to operate, before politics, policy outcomes, and billions of dollars got involved” (reality abuse by Joseph ‘EIB coli cocktail wiener’ D’Aleo, CCM, IUD, IED, BMF, STD, H1N1, SIDs, failed state free lunch predictor, laundering t-GOP via paypal, HIV, and ExxonKoch approved TV weather presenter aka another pseudo-scientist, denier, and corporate whore; new web crimes against humanity, nature, and big oil & small snake wrestling with Joe Bastardi since March 11, 2011; icecap.us). Roy’d has the genderless, ubiquitous gandmotherly headshot while on the boards of the Cornwall Alliance and the George C. Marshall Institute to funnel extremist Republican and Christian payola to the Looter Limbaughs for paid endorsements of an “official climatologist” supporting investments in global destruction via the Exxon-Kochs – neither has yet to predict anything but a free lunch nor offer free fertility/STD drugs.

What does it mean when it says that I’m not big on medical prevention? Is that prevention of medicine or the medical prevention of something? Clearly posted timelines? Those seem like a good thing. I’d take that as an attempt to strawman my position, but it doesn’t really say anything and I never said anything about my position.

I don’t know if the rest of that before the PS to neon is aimed at me, but that’s probably because it makes no sense at all. It’s like a bad anagram of some sort. Well the first word makes sense. “Crazy!”

During the last Republican debate on CNN, did you notice how Perry weaseled out of his responsibility to protect young people from developing cancer, by essentially agreeing that his executive order was a mistake? Instead of standing up for helping to prevent disease, and thereby saving lives through the application of vaccinations such as the HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine, he tucked his tail between his legs and obediently sat down to chastise vaccines along with those who accused him of doing it solely for campaign contributions.

We need to make an important distinction here. Yes, he accepted money from Merck (and either lied or forgot the amounts received) and I understand the implications of his doing so. BUT let’s not unthinkingly agree with Bachmann’s anti-science/anti-reality stance by saying that this is a plan to needlessly vaccinate kids for no other reason other than monetary gain. If you believe that than you may as well believe that seat belts serve no useful purpose, and are only installed in vehicles to make the vehicle and seat belt manufacturers more money. No one in their right mind would entertain such a ridiculous notion, unless perhaps you’re someone who thinks like Michelle Bachmann.

Please allow me to bring up one more subject I’ve heard discussed on Fox News and read on Right leaning blog posts/comments. Repeatedly, despicable keeps coming to mind. Because a young person is given the HPV vaccine it won’t cause them to run out and have sex with everyone in their neighborhood. There are a number of other sexually transmitted diseases such as herpes, hepatitis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, bacterial vaginosis, HIV/AIDS, pelvic inflammatory disease, syphilis, trichomoniasis, and other STDs that they should be worrying about before thinking they are invincible porn stars because they had one vaccine. The ‘promiscuity license’ is a preposterous idea raised with the intent to push the emotional hot buttons of those who think (or want YOU to think) a disease preventing vaccine is solely designed to encourage teenage promiscuity and irresponsibility for one’s actions. Nothing could be further from the truth or from reality. Give your kids (that you as parents fed good and helpful information, hopefully) more credit and faith for choosing intelligent decisions for themselves that can also directly affect the health of other people.

Crazy is a typical extremist distraction much like using server farms to posting similar names to mine with mug- shots on search engine images. Whereas, noting simple dates on a calendar and counting on fingers (and toes if from LSU) is basic science that precedes the scientific method. Environmental racism includes withholding medical care and providing unlimited AGW. Predicting AGW quakes is the quickest way to prove what extremist Republicans and Christians claims is a hoax. Especially since, “Why Earthquakes Are Still Impossible to Predict” (Lars Ceranna, German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources; editor: Thilo Kunzemann; knowledge.allianz.com, 4/7/09).

PS – noen, I am looking forward to my 2nd medal in life after getting the 1st 1 for showing up to a junior high school band performance!

I will also say I don’t understand that POV. I live in a country where there is universal health care. I also have private health care. At no point have I ever been denied any kind of medical attention/treatment due to any faceless bureaucrat. In fact, I’ve never had to submit to any kind of questioning, application or other form of request, for any treatment that I have ever required. And I’ll never get turned down for “pre-existing conditions”. And I don’t have to worry about changing my job and losing company health cover; because my insurance isn’t related to that.

Whenever I travel to the US I make sure I have travel insurance for health. I’d hate to think of what would happen if I ended up needing medical attention there. No matter how bad my local experience of doctors/hospitals has been (and lately it has sucked), I just thank FSM I’m not in the US. Especially because my bills are already getting high due to lots of tests/appointments, and that would bankrupt me in the US after the first couple of trips to the doctor.

I’ll take “faceless bureaucrat” universal healthcare over “insurance/treatment too expensive” anytime. All I need to do is provide my healthcare number and my tests are covered (heck, for the basic ones, like blood tests, I don’t even need to fill out any forms, just provide the doctor’s referral); and my doctor/hospital bills are subsidised heavily, even with the expensive specialists.

Americans seem to spend too much time worrying about their own personal freedoms and not enough time actually looking at how universal healthcare has been implemeted in other places. I have *more* freedom here to choose doctors, treatments and hospitals (and change jobs) than I would in the US. And yet people in the US freak out about becoming more like us “socialist” countries…. I will never understand it.

(Now if I could just find some way to get my local pharmacy to get rid of all the woo natural crap and ear candles, I’d be happy)

EXACTLY. I hear that argument all the time, and it bugs the crap out of me. Given the choice between a faceless bureaucrat who’s under pressure to make money without regard to my circumstances, and a faceless bureaucrat who’s at least theoretically supposed to be representing me, I know which one I’ll pick…