The Gardasil Debate

When it comes to decisions about kids, I believe parents have the ultimate right to decide how things are going to go as long as they're not putting the kids in harm's way (beating them, pumping them full of cocaine, etc.). That's part of the reason the way Merck was lobbying to have Gardasil be mandatory for young girls to attend public school made me uneasy.

If God blessed me with a daughter, despite genetic predisposition to sons, I know I'd get the shot for her. As a vaccine it is 100% effective against certain strains of HPV that are known to cause cervical cancer, and over 70% effective against other strains which may also lead to cancer. The vaccine seems to be a no brainer to me.

As uncomfortable with with the government mandate as I am, it's come to my attention how some folks don't quite understand what's at stake here. You'll see comments like this from fathers:

When you are talking about 8, 9, 10, 11-year-old girls who are not sexually active and most likely will not be sexually active until their maturity, there is no medical necessity for that.

or this:

Parents are going to know the difference between that child, who, as you described before, may be 11 years old and in many circumstances no way, shape or form is going to be sexually active; and parents know other children, 15, 16 years old have been, are starting to be sexually active, in which case this treatment, the shot or what have you, would be appropriate.

There are several issues with this logic. First, it shows a complete lack of understanding of what a vaccine is. With Gardasil, as with any vaccine, a woman has to have it before contact with the HPV virus. Vaccines are for inoculations, and this particular one takes shots spread over a few months to be effective. It's not like picking up antibiotics at the pharmacy and all of a sudden you're inoculated. If the daughter has become sexually active, and she comes in contact with a "dirty dog" who either hasn't been truthful or hasn't been tested, it's game over. Since guys don't usually show any signs of the cancerous strains, they won't know they've got it and the vaccine is the only way to be sure a woman won't contract those strains.

The second issue is that both of these quotes were said by our very own Representative Scott Garrett the other night on the House floor. Obviously, I would hope my Representative would understand what a vaccine is. In addition, it is hypocritical that Garrett votes against a bill protecting parents from being forced to administer overprescribed drugs like Ritalin, but then say they can't be forced to prevent their daughters from getting cancer. Also, I would have hoped after the Terri Shiavo disaster we would have seen the last of members of Congress dispensing medical advice on the floor.

I still don't support the mandate, but with potentially fatal ignorance being entered into the Congressional Record I'm starting to have second thoughts. If you've never read a testimonial of those going through cervical cancer you can go to the National Cervical Cancer Coalition and read lots of them. No matter what level it is, it sounds terrifying. Granted, not everyone gets it like this, but ignorance is no excuse for not preventing this now that we have a vaccine:

I was diagnosed in April 2006, and underwent a radical hysterectomy in May 2006,
removing my uterus, cervix, upper part of my vagina, and some lymph nodes and additional tissue. Unfortunately, the lymph nodes and the upper part of my vagina came back positive for cancer, and I underwent 5 doses of Cisplatin chemotherapy and 28-30 doses of external radiation and 3 internal doses. That finished in July of 2006, and I thought all was well. In January of 2007, my pap came back abnormal. Then the DR. took more biopsies, and those and my CAT scan showed that my cancer had returned. I am now scheduled in early March to undergo a procedure called Pelvic Exenteration - where the Dr.'s remove my bladder, vagina, and rectum, leaving me with a urostomy to replace my bladder, and a colostomy to replace my rectum.

Garrett as Usual

As I pretty much expected, Representative Scott Garrett still hasn't posted an explanation on his website and said nothing on the House floor about why he'd be voting against the Katrina Aid. It's another insult to those who lost everything, another insult to those from our District who have recognized the need for Americans to help Americans, and an insult to those who expect accountability from our Representatives.

Garrett votes against Katrina Victims Again

In another 12 to Garrett vote, the New Jersey delegation stood up with our fellow Americans impacted by Hurricane Katrina. Once again, Representative Scott Garrett has voted against providing support to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Without a press statement, I don't want to put words in his mouth. I'll post more on this tomorrow after I have the chance to see what if anything he said on the floor before he voted against the Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act of 2007.

NJ's Rights Attacked (Again)

One of the fundamental beliefs I've held for the entire time I've been politically conscious is that while the Federal government sets minimum standards, it is a State's right to determine if those standards adequately protect it's population. Granted, there will always be issues where the interest of the nation leads to standards above what some States would like, the number of those issues is where the classic divide between Republicans and Democrats stands. However, up until the Bush Administration, it was almost unheard of that the Federal government would attempt to trump a State's right to enforce a more stringent safety standard than the Federal one. Now, for at least the third time in less than a year the Administration is attacking New Jersey's right to protect us.

First, it was an Administration supported bill aimed at eliminating New Jersey's right to label the food we buy at the supermarket as we saw fit (Rep. Garrett voted against this bill and it died in the Senate). Then, it was the EPA announcing an increase in the amount of pollutants like mercury and lead a company could dispose of in the environment before they reported how they did it. Now, it is the Department of Homeland Security continuing it's march toward an April 4th change in regulations that would weaken New Jersey's regulations on the chemical plants we have in our state that contribute to New Jersey being home to the "Two most dangerous miles in America."

At a hearing held by Senator Frank Lautenberg in Newark yesterday, a Deputy for DHS Lawrence Stanton had this to say:

"The federal government has a role to play as well as the states, and we believe as a matter of principle that these things can be worked out," Stanton said.

The Homeland Security Department plans to preempt a local or state rule only when the rule would "frustrate" Washington's ability to secure plants, he promised.

That's all well and good, and would make sense if it wasn't an established fact that our security regulations are the most stringent in the nation, so preempting only stands to make us less safe. With NJ's population density and seven plants within range of a million people, our tougher standards are intended to prevent another Bhopal disaster. In a worst case scenario at one of those seven plants, the loss of life from Bhopal(15,000) compared to what New Jersey would suffer is akin to comparing the loss of life from Hurricane Katrina (1,836) to the 2004 Tsunami (229,866). It would be Bhopal on steroids.

This dangerous change in DHS policy came before the Senate last year at the behest of the Administration, and they rejected the idea of endangering us by weakening our regulations. Still, the Administration announced the DHS regulations on their own, the Friday afternoon before Christmas (so no one would notice). And what noble cause, national security and public safety requirement dictates our State getting watered down Federal regulations: Corporate interests.

During the hearing yesterday, Stanton acknowledged that his understanding was that the chemical lobby would prefer to have the weaker Federal regulations trump our State's right to protect us. While corporate interests were not so explicitly rolled out with the DHS proposal initially, when the EPA rolled out the weaker reporting requirements they didn't mince words, citing the billions their proposal would save business. Seeing a jarring public health and safety conflict with relaxing the EPA standards, Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) requested the Government Accountability Office to look into how this rules change transpired. Here is a bit of what they reported to the Senate a couple weeks ago:

Although we have not yet completed our evaluation, our preliminary observations indicate that EPA did not adhere to its own rulemaking guidelines in all respects when developing the proposal to change TRI reporting requirements. We have identified several significant differences between the guidelines and the process EPA followed. First, late in the process, senior EPA management directed the inclusion of a burden reduction option that raised the Form R reporting threshold, an option that the TRI workgroup charged with analyzing potential options, had dropped from consideration early in the process. Second, EPA developed this option on an expedited schedule that appears to have provided a limited amount of time for conducting various impact analyses. Third, the decision to expedite final agency review, when EPA’s internal and regional offices determine whether they concur with the final proposal, appears to have limited the amount of input they could provide to senior EPA management.

They rushed the process not to protect the public interest or safety, but because they had already received over 118,000 letters in opposition (out of about 120,000) to the plan. There is no way this ever would have gotten through the House, let alone the Senate. The same mode of operation is being used with regard to the DHS attack on our chemical safety laws. They couldn't get it through the Senate, and now the Administration has decided to go through the bureaucracy.

I have no issue with the majority of chemical companies already doing business in our state. While some companies do resist increasing regulations further, the majority have been good partners in disaster planning with First Responders I've spoken with. I also fully understand and appreciate the contributions the chemical industry provides for our State and nation. That said, I also appreciate the fact that they are generating the billions they do with our tougher regulations in place. If other companies wish to tap into our talented and experienced pool of employees, they too can make a profit in NJ without subverting public safety via an overstep of Federal authority.

A large chemical disaster will have one certain outcome, citizen sickness and death. The question is, how many will die and how many will have died unnecessarily if the Administration succeeds? If they haven't already grown the moral fortitude to fight this plan, I hope our entire Congressional delegation will soon be loudly criticizing it, if not they should be held accountable next year.

BCRO Strikes Back

I discussed in an earlier post the jockeying for influence that goes on during the run up to the Presidential election between county organizations within a party. Following the Sussex County Republicans getting Anthony Carbonetti, a key Rudy Giuliani aide, the Bergen County Republican Organization scored a victory of their own: Rudy Giuliani himself is speaking at the BCRO's Spring Fundraiser.

It will be interesting to see if this can help springboard the BCRO from the position of weakness they've been in for the last few elections. With three Freeholder seats up for election in a year that has seen a number of large property tax revaluations in large towns like Hackensack taking effect, as well as another increase in property taxes proposed by the Democrats in charge, if the BCRO's smart they should be able to pick up a seat or two, maybe even all three. If they could get all three, they'd still be in a minority on the seven person Board, but that is better than having no check against Joe Ferriero's ability to use county taxpayer dollars to reward campaign donors with no-bid contracts.

The Republicans message last election cycle was to tear down the County government, which turned out to be a disaster. Folks would rather pay too much for services than not have them, and if the Republicans have learned from their mistake they may stand a chance. We won't be able to tell what direction the party is going until they announce their Freeholder slate in the coming weeks. However, attracting the biggest star in the Republican universe at the moment is a very good thing for the organization.

Let the Sunshine In

At times, trying to keep up with Representative Scott Garrett is draining. Commonsense stuff and decisions of principle should be no-brainers for Representatives, but not Garrett. Good government practices and openness are things Garrett talks a lot about, but as is often the case when given a chance to back up his words with votes he falls flat on his face. Voters should have guessed something was up when he chose to talk about arranging tours in his weekly newsletter, instead of discussing anything of substance. Now, I've been told when he has time he's gracious enough to conduct the tours himself, but he could have used the newsletter space to discuss why he voted against the clean water bills last week or would vote against the majority of accountability measures that came up this week. The disconnect really brings up one of the fundamental issues I have with his tenure as our Representative: An almost complete lack of accountability.

Maybe I'm too big of an idealist, but this is the information age and the people paying the salary of a Congressman and his staff have a right to know what's going on and more than enough tools exist for him to provide the information. During moments of the campaign when I actually allowed myself to think I might win (these were few), I often thought about the accountability issue. I basically thought about how my Saturdays and Mondays and the allotted District work periods would be spent in the District. Townhall meetings, regional mayors meetings, regional chamber of commerce meetings, visiting every school in the District, etc. Those are the old school techniques with which I'm familiar and are standard (not sure if Garrett does them, but all the good Congresspeople I've known have).

There were also the little things I wanted to do to harness the Internet and bring young folks into the fold. These are things Representatives could and should be doing in this day and age, but painfully few are. After running into so many folks my age and younger who have given up on the process after only having the right to vote for a small number of years, I wanted to find ways to engage more people in the process instead of promoting the institutional indifference we seem to be stuck with. Our generation is getting closer to running the show with each election cycle, and the fewer people engaged in the process, the fewer good leadership choices we'll have down the road and the worse off our nation will be.

While the consistency of his voting makes it relatively easy to guess which way Garrett will vote on our behalf, usually there are no quotes in the Congressional Record, no statements on his website, and no interview with the press explaining why. Other than a parody of his recent votes against increasing protections for whistle blowers, against increasing accountability of the Executive Branch, and against increasing ease of access to information about our government, there is precious little to go on.

To Garrett's credit, he did vote for increasing the transparency of who donates funds to Presidential Libraries (a slick way around the ban on foreign and corporate campaign donations) and for better federal contracting accountability. Unfortunately, I can't even give him a pat on the back for saying the right thing along with doing the right thing (a rarity these days). I'm sure there will be spin forthcoming about protecting taxpayers with his two votes, but what about the other three? On such a fundamental issue as accountability, batting .400 for the week is unlikely to get you into the Hall of Fame and it makes one question whether you believe in a government "for the people, by the people" being accountable to the people.

If Garrett opened up I still wouldn't like the rigidity of his politics, the effect he's having on our District, or the fact he has a blatant disregard for the opinions of the majority of voters in our District. That said, if he opened up and the folks of our District still embraced him, I wouldn't feel like the only reason he's in office is his being a practitioner of the sins of omission and evasion.

Garrett vs. Education in a Nutshell

This is from Representative Scott Garrett's speech from his Constitutional Caucus last night:

Contrary to common modern misconceptions, there is no constitutional right guaranteeing each citizen an education.

While it's true that under House Ethics Rules you cannot rebroadcast floor speeches, there's nothing in the rules about quoting the Congressional Record or reprinting it. This may prove to be one of the most damaging quotes Garrett's ever given, and he should get pounded on it in 2008.

Technically, he's correct that it's not spelled out in the Constitution, and whether or not education is deemed by the people to be covered under the "general welfare" part of Article I, Section 8 is fair game for debate (I'd place a bet on where I think most people stand). However, kind of like Garrett's vote against the 9/11 Commission Recommendations, technicalities won't matter. That just sounds awful.