Bio-ethicist puts bet against Bachmann

           I was browsing through usatoday.com and drinking my cup of green tea, when I found an article showing that Michelle Bachmann has made the news again. The Minnesota Republican representative made a statement during the Republican presidential debate regarding the safety of a cancer-preventing injection. During follow-up interviews, Michelle Bachmann recounted a conversation with a woman whose daughter developed mental retardation because of the HPV injection. In response to this, Sidney Caplan, a bioethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, offered to donate $10,000.00 of his own money to charity, if the representative can prove in one week that anyone can develop mental retardation from the injection.
 
         This article gave me a mixture of emotions. After reading the title to this article I was curious, so I read on. By the end of the article not only was I irritated, I had acquired a since of disbelief.
 
         Since, Michelle Bachmann had been in the news rather frequently,  the title, “Bio-ethicist bets against Bachmann’s vaccine claim,” peaked my interest. Apparently, during a TV interview, Ms. Bachmann stated she didn’t have any idea if the vaccine really caused mental retardation or not. I believe that she should checked her facts before she attempted to suggest that the injections would have this type of ill effect. The fact is the HPV injection is a shot given to a teenage girl to protect her from a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer. Bachmann played to the masses’ fear of the unknown and single -handedly attempted to undermine the possibility of saving thousands of woman’s lives. Unfortunately, her misleading statement could result in fewer girls being inoculated.  By the end of the article, I could not believe that Bachmann’s campaign didn’t even respond to Sidney Caplan‘s bet. Unbelievably, she didn’t even give a statement or even try to retract anything regarding this incident.
 
           I was filled with a variety of emotions when reading this article. I was both curious and irritated with Bachmann’s clam that the HPV injection caused mental retardation and I believe that she should donate $10,000.00 of her own money to cervical cancer research in order to make up for her irresponsible behavior.