[quote=davidcpa]When I testified before the Florida House in favor of a Gardasil vaccination Bill that would have allowed free shots to those that couldn't afford them; was to be covered by all insurance carriers in Florida and was to be given to all girls entering the 6th grade UNLESS THEIR PARENTS SAID NO WITHOUT HAVING TO STATE A REASON (Opt Out feature added the night before the vote), I was appalled to call myself a Republican as the vote went 100% along party lines with every Democrat voting in favor of it and every Republican voting with the Republican Speaker voting against it. The bill was defeated because the Republicans held the majority. The same conservation comments were advanced by the Speaker even though other STD bills had passed years before mandating, without an Opt Out feature, shots for Hep before attendance to Fl public schools is allowed. BTW not one person spoke in objection to the Bill and 12 of us spoke in favor of it including the American Cancer Society; a past President of the Florida GYN Society and the Chairman of the Florida Dept of Health. Give me a break. [/quote]

Politicians apparently don�t know squat about science and apparently are proud of it. I am not a hard core liberal by any stretch of the imagination, but this extremist attitude really gets me going. If you are even a teensy little bit into reason and rationality, then you are likely to wince every time you open a newspaper, surf the web or watch television. I try to prepare myself for the usual denial mixed with narrow-minded statements that proliferate the media. There is absolutely no excuse for this level of ignorance by prominent elected officials. It is of course natural to disagree on political issues; it is even ok to be skeptical of a scientific consensus on the basis of one�s own honest understanding of the situation, the Republican Party has become guilty of flagrant unethical and willful ignorance not just on this issue but many others as well.

/Stepping off soapbox