When anti-vaxxer comments become a problem for Republican candidates, Fox News is there to immunize!
In case you’ve missed it, Governor Chris Christie and Senator Rand Paul, each a 2016 presidential hopeful, have created controversy with their comments about vaccinations in the wake of a measles outbreak.
From Politico:
The Disneyland measles outbreak has forced a reckoning on the politics of vaccination: Likely GOP presidential candidates are stumbling over the issue, President Barack Obama has forcefully weighed in, and several states are pushing to make it harder to exempt children from vaccinations.
On Monday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had to backpedal on the question of parental choice in vaccinations. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul drew fire for connecting vaccines to mental disorders.
Late Monday night Hillary Clinton chimed in with a pro-vaccine message on Twitter: “The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork. Let’s protect all our kids. #GrandmothersKnowBest”
But Fox is there to help!
On Tuesday, host Megyn Kelly had a little chat with Fox's conservative contributor Brit Hume about the “fallout” over “a parent’s right to choose whether or not to vaccinate,” as she put it in her scripted introduction.
“But is this really a Republican issue?” Kelly “asked.” Her tone was so overtly skeptical, you’d have to be an idiot not to foresee the answer.
Before Hume appeared, reporter Trace Gallagher made a point of noting that during the 2008 campaign, Clinton had “called for more research into the link between vaccines and autism.” As if saying “vaccines work” and calling for more research into possible side effects are contradictory.
Gallagher continued, “The numbers show that this so-called conservative problem as having a liberal outbreak.” His so-called proof was that 92 of the 102 measles cases are in “very Democratic suburbs” and that vaccination opt-out rates for California schoolchildren are very popular in “exclusive preschools and daycare centers used by many in the entertainment industry.”
Gallgher concluded, “The bottom line, Megyn, is it’s very far from a one-party problem.”
Actually, the real bottom line is that the people under scrutiny are running for president. That point also seemed to escape Kelly and Hume. Furthermore, nobody seemed to have noticed that Christie took quite a different stance on the far-less contagious Ebola just a few months ago when he forcibly quarantined nurse Kaci Hickox merely because she had treated Ebola patients in West Africa. Hickox never came down with the disease.
Kelly’s voice dripped with sarcasm as she said to Hume, “Joy Behar is sick and tired of the Neanderthal behavior by conservatives …like this very well-known conservative man who’s been one of the most outspoken on the issue of vaccines.” Kelly played a clip of Robert Kennedy, Jr. saying there’s a link between vaccines and autism.
Hume suggested that Kennedy is a bigger voice than Paul or Christie because Kennedy wrote a book on the subject and the two Republican candidates haven’t.
However, not long after, deep into the discussion, both Hume and Kelly seemed to acknowledge Christie and Paul had really stepped in it.
Kelly said, “If these candidates come out and say you should have the choice and it shouldn’t be mandatory, then they’re effectively saying that non-vaccinated children should be allowed to go to school with vaccinated children and that’s A-OK with them. That is politically controversial, no?”
Hume agreed, saying, “There are serious public health reasons why certain vaccinations should be mandatory.”
But, then, perhaps as Fox News "balance," Hume added, “I don’t think that it’s reasonable, for example, for The New York Times to say, that conservatives, largely speaking, don’t buy that.”
Actually, that’s not what The Times said, at least not the article cited in the segment. In that article the paper specifically reported that the vaccination controversy does not break down along party lines. However, it also cited Pew polls showing support growing for vaccinations among Democrats and falling among Republicans. Neither Hume nor Kelly offered any evidence to refute that.
Hume continued:
There are people on the right and, as you have demonstrated very ably here, Megyn, on the left as well, who are skeptical of the whole idea… but the idea that that is a view that is very widely held among conservatives is unsupported by any data that I know of or anything that the New York Times reported in its story which was clearly an effort to tar, I think, conservatives and Republicans with this idea.
I think it's pretty clear that Paul and Christie tarred themselves.
Watch it below, from February 3, The Kelly File.
CORRECTION: This post originally said that Hickox had been exposed to Ebola. As one of our readers pointed out in the comments section, below, there was no evidence Hickox had been exposed to the disease.
In the context of your piece here, It is noteworthy that she was not sick, she had no known exposure, and yet Christie took draconian quarantine measures against her anyway — if he’s willing to lock up someone who might become sick someday, it’s easy to imagine he would be willing to take similar measures with families who refuse to vaccinate, or become sick with the measles or other infectious disease.
More importantly, with both Nurse Hickox/Ebola, and this current measles/vaccination issue, he has demonstrated his ignorance in regard to infectious disease and public health. I hope he will listen carefully to public health and epidemiology experts, and ensure that public-health policy is firmly grounded in science and not just whatever falls out of his mouth on a given day.
Thanks for all you do, Ellen! Rock on!
Now, if all these GOPers who’ve come out as “pro-choice” on the vaccination front would be willing to give women a choice on abortion instead of making their choice more difficult……..
