Remember Michele Bachmann? Republican presidential candidate in the US? The one who raised a stir with her comments that the gardasil vaccine causes mental retardation?
Well, according to Benjy Sarlin at Talking Points Memo, she actually loves vaccines.
He writes:
Michele Bachman, who was condemned as an anti-vaccination conspiracy theorist after suggesting that Gardasil causes “mental retardation,” said Wednesday that she was in fact a big supporter of vaccines. Not only that, she thinks there are too many regulations on them.
She sees vaccines as “cures” which are a miracle and have changed the course of victory:
Bachmann told a gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Washington that cures for polio and other diseases “literally changed the course of history and this was good.” Until the government got in the way, that is: “[T]he problem is that bureaucracy has risen up to such an extent that today because of the FDA and other measures we’re no longer seeing the miracle of cures that were coming forward,” she said.
Thank you, Ms. Bachmann. I don’t know if this will undo the damage you caused, but it is a good step forward.
Left Brain Right Brain 
Good grief, the woman is a menace. There is no cure for polio and vaccines =/= cure. Too many regulations on vaccines?! Talk about an about face and a suspicious one at that.
re: Good grief, the woman is a menace
pols are a menance…
If you mean politicians, then no argument from me. Bachmann is just extra so.
My favorite Bachmann-ism so far is on gay marriage.
They just can’t marry the person they love.
Bachmann sees herself as gaffe-proof. If everything you say and do is insane or ignorant beyond words, pointing out a gaffe becomes a coal to Newcastle waste of time.
I suspect she hasn’t really changed her mind, just her audience. In the right crowd she would promise any number of contradictory things.
a) Anti-vax slimeballs: Safer vaccines or more study of settled science
b) Teabaggers: Less gov’t regulation
c) Christofacists: Prayer in school, jail or forced therapy for gays
d) Anybody: Anything
She is a politician and as such a liar. There are so few honest pols that their existence is almost mythic. Michele is uniquely unqualified for office in a way few others are. I certainly hope her district will wake up soon and recognize this fact.
@ Sullivan and MikeMa, I know she’s just so precious isn’t she? I hope her district wakes up because the alternative is just frightful; she represents a district who think just like her.
@Science Mom –
Hehe. Indeed. Did you know she’s on an armed services committee in Congress? Nice.
– pD
the way it looks to me, this Bachmann woman is a fucking idiot! end of!
comment in moderation. i think those of you who know me of old will know why. i have a low opinion of that woman ….
@David – I can’t decide which Republican candidate disgusts me the most. It’s as though the right-wing mind-hive uttered, “Send in the clowns”, and so this bunch showed up. The only one who seems like a decent guy is Jon Huntsman, but he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance. I’ve only donated $45 to Obama and the Demos, and am not giving any more, because if he can’t beat whichever chump becomes the Repub nominee, then he doesn’t deserve to win.
Clay, I am not going to tell you what to do, but people should not vote for someone because he/she “deserves” to win, but rather because a particular person winning would be better for the country and the people who comprise the country and also the rest of the world.
@daedalus – Oh, I’ll vote for him alright, but what I was saying was like, “If the Yankees can’t beat a minor league team, then they’d deserve to be laughed off the field.”
In ’08, I donated $1360, but he really shouldn’t need that much help from me this year.
Clay, I agree with you about the Yankees, but baseball is just a game.
The POTUS controls thousands of nuclear weapons. Some of the potential GOP nominees would have no qualms about using them, as only a true chickenhawk can. That frightens me as nothing else can.
@daedalus2u re: GOP nominees
off autism…but;
watched FDR’s “a day in infamy speech”, then the GOP candidates debate…the stark difference is truly unbelievable…
as possibly mentioned. “where have all the leaders gone, long time passing”
Go Sahhwk!
Not only is that hideously ungrammatical and ambiguous, it’s ignorant. Does she actually not realise why the FDA is in place?
On second thought, that’s a rhetorical question.