Bachmann: "Ravages of this Vaccine"

A concerned mother told Bachmann that the HPV vaccine caused her 16 year old daughter to have: chemical sensitivities, an irregular menstrual cycle, insomnia, headaches, seizures, temporary paralysis, and debilitating joint pain.

As a raised hand came up during the Q&A portion of Michele Bachmann’s stop here Monday night, so did a controversial vaccination issue that in September flooded the candidate’s campaign with both criticism and praise.

The hand belonged to Julie Weppler, a Sheldon mother who attended the event with her daughter:

“Michele, on behalf of myself and a lot of other mothers that have a child that’s sick from the Gardasil vaccine, I would like to thank you for the attention that you brought to it,” she said. “This is my daughter, Jessica, and she’s been sick for three years now from that vaccine.”...

..In Sheldon, Weppler went on to tell Bachmann that her daughter can’t go to school because of chemical sensitivities to everything from magic markers to certain cleaning supplies. She uses Skype, a video chat software, to attend high school classes from home

Jessica, age 16, began having headaches three years ago and described them to her mother as “a samurai sword stuck” in her head. Weppler said her daughter hasn’t gone a day without one since. Jessica also suffers from debilitating pains in her joints and spine, an irregular menstrual cycle and insomnia. She’s also experienced seizures and temporary paralysis, Weppler said.

“I praise you that you brought it to the attention of people, and I hope you continue to keep it in the forefront and educate people and try to get this vaccine pulled off the market,” Weppler said.

“Well, I thank you for bringing it up,” Bachmann said. “Parents have to make that decision for their kids because it isn’t the schools that are going to follow up with Jessica. It isn’t the schools that live with Jessica every day. It’s Jessica who’s having to have her body live with the ravages of this vaccine.”

Bachmann then decried Perry’s former chief of staff, Mike Toomey, who lobbied for Merck, the company that produces Gardasil, and gave $16,000 to Perry’s gubernatorial campaigns.

“And that’s a very big issue, and we can’t sacrifice the health of even one child on the altar (for) profits for some big drug company,” Bachmann said.

In an interview with The Des Moines Register, Weppler said she loved seeing Bachmann on television linking negative side effects to the drug.

She wasn’t upset when the Minnesota congresswoman later backed off on the issue. She said she’s happy with any negative attention the vaccine gets.

“I think she believes it’s having adverse reactions,” Weppler said. “That’s probably going to make me decide who I’m going to vote for: If I think a presidential candidate is getting bought out by a drug company, there’s no way I’m going to vote for that person.”

The Wepplers have traveled across the U.S. to meet with other families who believe they’ve been harmed by the vaccine. She also speaks daily with mothers in an online support group. She said they’d never support Perry.

“Oh gosh, no,” she said. “None of these families is going to vote for a presidential candidate who’s being bought out by a drug company.”

Bachmann gets it, Weppler said, because she too is a mother.

“I really like Michele. I’m sure Gardasil’s not something she’s investigated a whole lot,” she said. “I hope she does.”[1]

Assuming she reported this to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), she is one of about 1600 people that have had a serious adverse event after taking the vaccine.  As of September 2011 about 40 million doses of the vaccine have been given with some young people receiving multiple doses[2].  The FDA explains the risks this way.

Given the large number of doses distributed, it is expected that, by chance alone, serious adverse events and some deaths will be reported in this large population during the time period following vaccinations. Our monitoring and analysis of reports, including in-depth medical review, statistical data mining techniques, and analysis of reporting rates (number of adverse events/number of doses distributed) are designed to detect serious events that occur at rates greater than expected.[3]

Ms. Weppler may have acquired her condition from the HPV vaccine, however her condition did not occur at rates greater than expected.  Her condition could simply be the result of a chance correlation.  The thing is, we know that Bachmann knows this.