DougTV offers another installment of creative political advertising this week.
Democratic state senate candidate Doug Harpool takes aim at the great "money merry-go-round" in Jefferson City.
Politics aside completely. This stuff is slick, innovative and downright witty.
But while Sen. Norma Champion begins her advertising campaign on television, the Harpool campaign is trying to make some waves on the Internet. The downside is the size of the audience. While Champion is reaching thousands, it's hard to tell how many are actually "watching" DougTV -- beyond supporters already pledging to vote for him.
"It's definitely a creative way to get their message out. A website is effective," said Champion spokesman Mike Barnett. But Barnett also said that the Internet campaign shows the state of Harpool's political campaign.
"I think the one thing it shows is that his campaign is having trouble fundraising, that's why he's attacking our successful fundraising," Barnett said.
When I asked Barnett about the issues raised in this current Harpool ad, including the money Champion has given to lobbyists and received from corporations like Anheuser-Busch, he said Harpool has his own issues regarding campaign contributions.
"I think he has some questionable ethics issues of his own. If you look at his contributions, a good share of the donations, besides being from unions, are from family. His 19 and 18-year old children are donating money. I can't imagine it is their own money," Barnett said. "There's nothing wrong with that, it just says something."
"Senator Champion is endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups, so it's not surprising that one of Missouri's biggest corporations support her. She's supportive of Missouri businesses and the state's economy," he added.
As a sidenote, the Champion campaign has agreed to a on-camera sit-down interview with me, to take place on Monday, Oct. 23rd.
9 comments:
Since she is going to do a sit-down you might be interested in asking her about her sponsorship of SB 503 last year. (I think that is the number, but might be in error). It prohibits children in Missouri, under three years old, from recieving a vaccine that contains the preservative thimerisol. The flu vaccine will contain the preservative.
And especially since the Centers for Disease Control have just announced that this age group is as important to recieve the vaccine as the cronically ill elderly.
I find this particularly interesting in light of her history of children's interests.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Champion sponsored the bill banning thimerosal because some experts have linked the preservative to the rising number of autism among children.
And if I remember correctly, California already placed a ban on thimerosal...and the hope among autism groups was that California's ban would drive drug companies to stop using mercury in the flu vaccine altogether.
I covered this story, but it has been a while. Help me out if I'm incorrect.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Champion sponsored the bill banning thimerosal because some experts have linked the preservative to the rising number of autism among children"
I am not sure about California, Michelle, but you have one element of the opposition wrong.
I only know of some self-appointed experts who hold that thimerisol poses any health risks. Indeed, the medical and public health communities have supported the use of thimerisol rather than run the risk of mass infections from contaminated multidose vials of vaccine, which lead to the deaths of about 95 children from one docs office in the mid thirties which lead to the intoduction of the preservative in the first place.
In Denmark, which has not contained thimerisol in childhood vaccines for about 4 years longer than the US the rates of diagnosis of autism have not decreased, but have increased. (The full data isn't in on the US yet, but preliminary numbers appear to show that the same is true in the US.)
Actually, this is only part of a larger anti-vaccination movement. Here are a couple of links to get you started on the story: Try a google search for "anti-vaccination liars".
http://www.quackwatch.org/03HealthPromotion/immu/thimerosal.html
http://www.healthwatcher.net/Quackerywatch/Anti-vax/index.html
There might be some single dose syringes around this year since a general shortage of flu vaccine is not expected, but they will be as much as 5 times as expensive as the normal vaccination from a mutidose vial.
I will wager that every physician will place himself in danger of prosecution of a violation of Aunt Norma's Law by going ahead and vaccinating children under three.
I might mention that this year's expected serovar of the flu is one that children are particularly susceptable to ... the last time we saw this serovar the death rates of children under 5 were 4 times the normal expected death rate from the flu. This is why this year the CDC has made such a strong reccommendation for vaccination of children.
Incidentally the common name for thimerisol (thimerisal) is merthiolate,
I remember that I wrote a fairly recent blog entry on this. It can be found at:
http://curbstonecritic.blogspot.com/2005/06/anti-vax-liars.html
Congrats to Justin Harpool--for earning his own money, deciding how to use it, and for having the courage of his convictions to not only stand up for himself and his dad, but to do so on a blog where someone with poor impulse control is likely to spout something hateful and ignorant in reponse.
Thanks, John. Did you ever read the book Evidence of Harm by David Kirby? The author is a contributor to the New York Times and says that after research, he bascially believes that thimerosal causes autism in children. His book gained a lot of national attention when it first came out. I don't have an opinon on the issue, but I was wondering if you looked at the book.
Michelle .. I haven't read it but I am very much aware of it. It was quite a topic among the medical and toxicology people at the time. Boiling it down -- it is not a credible source of information.
Actually, I think you are much better off, and it will be less work for you, when you do stories like this to go to a local physician, like an infectuous disease specialist, or a pathologist for toxicology information (since I am not sure that we have any toxicology experts locally), or to stick with nin-advocacy websites like CDC for your background and facts.
Actually, I should have mentioned this, but everytime I've covered a story concerning mercury in vaccines, I've turned locally to Dr. Robert Steele over at the St. John's Children's Clinic. He's a great source. At the time, he was the Chairman of the Advisory Committee for Childhood Immunizations for the State of MO. He says there is absolutely no scientific evidence that shows a link between mercury in vaccines and autism. And of course, the CDC says the same...Nonetheless, I think it is an interesting discussion because I've met a few parents who are so heartbroken about their kids' conditions and truly believe mercury was the cause. It's definitely an emotional issue and a lot of people are passionate on both sides.
Exactly right Michele, parents are devastated .. here is a report from Dr. Jim Laidler of his own experience. http://www.autism-watch.org/general/thio.shtml
When this first started coming up in the late 90's we listened to what the parents were saying. Their 20 month old was diagnosed with autism, and they had just had a vaccination, ergo, in the parents minds a connection had been made between the two. It was a pretty easy argument to dismiss scientifically, it was not so easy to convince a parent who was looking for a reason, or even a place to place blame at a less than perfect child. It was merely a coincidence of timing, not significant.
Here is a CDC page of Q & A...
http://www.cdc.gov/nip/vacsafe/concerns/thimerosal/faqs-thimerosal.htm
And I agree, Dr. Steele would be a great source, I would be very interested to hear if all the physicians are just going to ignore Aunt Norma's law. I suspect that is what is going to happen, I know I would.
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