Given that Rs and Ds in DC are united on getting vaxxed, thank you Christie and Rand for uniting the country. Against you.
— @DemFromCT
If you're counting on one of the nutters in the GOP field to win, well, it's not going to be Rand.
Shane Goldmacher:
Rand Paul opens 2015 with an enviable base of support in Iowa from his father's two presidential bids. But as he tries to broaden his appeal beyond the hardcore liberty activists who lifted Ron Paul to a third place finish in 2012, the senator is encountering an unlikely roadblock: his own campaign team.
One of Paul's two top Iowa operatives, A.J. Spiker, is so deeply disliked and mistrusted by so much of the Iowa Republican establishment that party activists, officials and strategists say he is damaging Paul's credibility in the state.
"Toxic," Andy Cable, an Iowa Republican activist for more than thirty years, said of Spiker. "Rand Paul will get little or no exposure in the rural counties around Iowa and most of that will be directly related to having A.J. Spiker as his frontman."
Emma Roller:
Sen. Rand Paul thinks vaccines are great. But that doesn't mean he thinks people should have to use them.
Appearing on CNBC on Monday, Paul doubled down on comments he made to Laura Ingraham earlier in the day saying that he thinks vaccine use is a "personal decision."
"I think vaccines are one of the greatest medical breakthroughs that we have," Paul told CNBC's Kelly Evans Monday evening. "I'm a big fan and a great fan of the history of the development of the smallpox vaccine, for example. But you know, for most of our history, they have been voluntary. So I don't think I'm arguing for anything out of the ordinary. We are arguing for what most of our history has had."
By making this argument in the midst of a measles resurgence, both Paul and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are trying to have it both ways: to emphasize that, no, they would never dispute the science behind vaccines, while at the same time winking at anti-vaxxers who put a premium on having the choice to not vaccinate their kids.
NY Times:
Back in 2009, when Rand Paul was pursuing his long-shot bid to win Kentucky’s Republican Senate primary, he spoke to a small physicians’ association that has publicized discredited medical theories, including possible links between vaccines and autism and between abortion and an increased risk of breast cancer.
At the time, Mr. Paul, an ophthalmologist, was no stranger to the group, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. He boasted at its annual meeting that he had been a member for more than two decades and that he relied on its research, statistics and views about the role of government in medicine.
“I am not a newcomer to AAPS,” Mr. Paul said, referring to the group.
On Monday, Mr. Paul helped set off an uproar when he said amid a national measles outbreak that parents should be allowed to decide whether their children needed to be vaccinated, and that he had heard from parents whose children had suffered “profound mental disorders” after being vaccinated.
More politics and policy below the fold.
Due to bill Rick Perry signed, # of kids exempted from vaccines rose from 2,314 in '03 to 38,197 in '14:
http://t.co/...
— @Olivianuzzi
Dave Weigel:
By the end of Tuesday, Republicans from Dr. Ben Carson to Kentucky Senator Rand Paul were proclaiming their faith in vaccines. Paul even brought New York Times reporter Jeremy W. Peters along as he got a booster shot. Some of Paul's quotes ended up in a quick story about the strange political theater; some ended up in a Peters follow-up today, about Paul's long association with the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. In an interview, the AAPS's executive director, Dr. Jane Orient, suggested that the risk of mental damage from vaccines was real, and that "we have a lot of observations that are not otherwise explainable."
The Peters story (which came after an Andrew Kaczynski story in BuzzFeed) solved a small mystery: Where did Paul say he'd "heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccine?" Well, he was campaigning for Senate when the Tea Party was in full flower. The AAPS was a big presence at rallies against the Affordable Care Act, and at the time reporters asked why so many Republicans were associating with it. It was a controversy when Nevada's Sharron Angle appeared at an AAPS event, and when Paul did the same, the Courier-Journal's Joseph Gerth dove deep into its archives.
Jeb Bush joins the consensus:
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush could only avoid the vaccination debate for so long. After watching potential 2016 Republican presidential primary opponents Chris Christie and Rand Paul face criticism for their less than enthusiastic embraces of vaccines amidst a measles outbreak, Bush did his best to skirt controversy on the issue during a speech before the Detroit Economic Club on Wednesday.
“Parents need to make sure their children are vaccinated,” he said definitively to applause from the crowd in attendance. “Do we need to get into any detail of that?” he asked.
Yeah, that leaves Christie and Rand out walking the plank.
Ron Fournier:
His father was a post-Cold War statesman, loser of his 1992 reelection bid. His brother was a "compassionate conservative," a two-termer who left office wildly unpopular. Now it's Jeb Bush's turn—he thinks—and he's scratching out plans to revitalize the family brand.
The former Florida governor wants to be known as a 21st-century conservative—a leader who applies right-of-center policies to traditionally Democratic issues: wage stagnation, income inequality, and declining social mobility.
But Jeb has an albatross around his neck. See
Jeb ‘Put Me Through Hell’. [Added] In any case,
don't miss this interview.
NY Times on MS strict vax rules:
The Mississippi state epidemiologist, Dr. Thomas E. Dobbs III, stood in a crowded room at the State Capitol this week and waited for a legislative verdict on the law that fostered what he regards as a public health triumph in a place that has few of them: the country’s highest immunization rate among kindergarten students.
But in recent weeks, the nearly unbending nature of Mississippi’s law requiring students to be vaccinated has been in jeopardy, with two dozen lawmakers publicly supporting an exemption for “conscientious beliefs.”
The debate, coming as other states grappled with a measles outbreak, turned Mississippi into one more battleground between medical experts who champion vaccinations and parents who fear the government’s role in medical decision-making.
“We have been a victim of our success, and people don’t realize how bad these diseases are,” Dr. Dobbs said in an interview before lawmakers met on Tuesday to consider a bill that would have expanded exceptions to the vaccine requirement. “But by and large, I think there’s an increasing understanding of how important it is to maintain our invaluable defense against unnecessary illnesses.”
Autism Speaks:
Over the last two decades, extensive research has asked whether there is any link between childhood vaccinations and autism. The results of this research are clear: Vaccines do not cause autism. We urge that all children be fully vaccinated.
Rob Ring
Chief Science Officer, Autism Speaks