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Published Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2010 | 1:53 p.m.
Updated Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2010 | 2:48 p.m.
A Democratic-leaning labor union is rehashing two-year-old claims against Republican House candidate Joe Heck to try to boost support for Democratic incumbent Dina Titus.
But the $750,000-ad buy may end up hurting Titus more than it helps her. The claims in the AFSCME commercial are false.
Sun columnist Jon Ralston called the ad the most inaccurate so far this election cycle and accused AFSCME of "blatant fear mongering.”
The TV spot accuses Heck of being dangerous to women. It claims he voted against a cervical cancer vaccine because "women wouldn't need it if they didn't engage in risky behavior." It also maintains that Heck wants to privatize Social Security.
Both are untrue.
Heck did vote against requiring insurance companies to cover a vaccine for the human papillomavirus (HPV), a precursor to cervical cancer, but he never voted against a cervical cancer vaccine. Heck said he opposed the HPV bill because he didn't want to force insurance companies to take on more mandates that could drive up the cost of insurance.
State Democrats used a similar attack on Heck during his 2008 bid for state Senate. While the claims were widely denounced as false and misleading, Heck lost the election.
As for Social Security, Heck wants to institute a voluntary option to allow people to choose to invest their money in diverse markets. Employers would continue to contribute to the existing Social Security system.
"It's a desperate attempt to distract voters from Dina Titus' record of choosing Washington special interests over the interests of Nevadans," Heck spokeswoman Mari Nakashima said of the ads. "Members of AFSCME should be ashamed and embarrassed that their union dues have been cheapened by lies."
AFSCME Deputy Political Director Ricky Feller said the union stands behind the accuracy of its commercial. A Titus spokesman said he did not think the ad would hurt Titus.
But the Heck campaign already is capitalizing on the inaccuracies. Consider the message that went out to supporters today, courtesy of Heck campaign manager Grant Hewitt.
The AFSCME ad "is so heinous, so factually inaccurate, so Dina Titus," Hewitt wrote.
Actually, Heck said if women weren't promiscuous, they wouldn't need this vaccine, which prevents several strains of the Human Papilloma Virus that cause about 75% of cervical cancer. The international cancer community considers it, known by the trade name as Gardasil, a stunning breakthrough in cancer prevention, so Heck's attitude is anti-science. Unless Heck and his cronies who take their orders from insurance companies have their way, cervical cancer will soon be as rare as polio. When the promiscuity remark caused an outcry, he walked it back to the mandate excuse. Heck was wrong to deny Nevada's young women access to this vaccine which is a proven life saver. It is recommended for young men, too.
The 3 headed monster, Titus, Comrade Harry and son are going down on election day.
Rand Paul, Tom Coburn , Bill Frist, and Joe Heck......rich self dealing physicians. We wouldn't have a shortage if they stuck to doctoring instead a accruing wealth by way of government intervention..
Sorry ralston it's not a smear at all. I guess you have a job to keep ! Heck hangs out with tea partyers, they're for getting rid of Social Security. This is a goofy allegation of a smear. No story here, plastic news.Fox smears the left everyday and you come up with this ?
So how many new and revolutionary drugs are going to be forced into circulation by legislation? So quickly many of posts here promote this, that government should demand that insurance providers bow to committee selection of 'great' drugs.
The proper role of a legislator is not to favor any one product or service, this breeds fascism. Our system of government is meant to protect from fascistic linkups between pharma and legislators. Can't you get this? It's a simple idea. Gov protects pharma from pirates in the market. Gov also prevents the market from pushing bad pharma. Gov is only an umpire, NOT a player. No "access" comes from Gov. It's not involved in distribution, except for licensing and protecting distribution.
And who, by the way, is the biggest special interest spending to influence the umpire (Gov)?
Why, heck if it isn't the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010...
Unions. Why can't they just play nice? They need to all take a Civics class. Then get counseling for attempting to breach ethics and traditional American limits on the enumerated powers of Government.
The Unions have a pea shooter ; Corporations and Rich doctors have an A bomb.
There are good and bad Unions. There are good and bad Corporations, good and bad doctors, and even, despite your earliest formulated misconceptions, good and bad rich people.
To sum it up, you may even find Doctors who are rich and form Corporations and are both good and bad. These guys give us penicillin and open heart surgery and prosthetic limbs the Unions purchase and provide to all the good dues payers but not the bad dues payers. Doctors, the rich ones, can be counted on to provide health care to the bad dues payers. Sometimes even bad rich doctors do this, because it's in their self interest or builds their client base or assures more votes when seeking office.
Some doctors are bad. Some Corporations are bad. A lot of Unions are bad. All big government is bad, of itself bloated and self-perpetuating, worse even yet when cronied up with unions and corporations.
Be more specific my friend. Excuse my generalization, but everyone knows that ALL generalizers are bad.
Most corporations are bad, a lot of doctors are, a couple of unions are; touche !
Sorry Jon, but you are wrong on this one.
I give the ad an A.
Joe Heck is another greedy, anti-union
republican.
Letting people opt out of Social Security IS
DISMANTLING SOCIAL SECURITY.
THAT'S WHAT PRIVATIZATION IS.
SAVE SOCIAL SECURITY,
VOTE DINA TITUS.
Good for Heck.
73 teenage girls have died following the vaccine, several of them dying slowly and painfully over a two year period. Jenny Tetlock's family begged CDC and Merck to come examine their daughter while she lost all body function, and the family's public pleadings were ignored right up until she died.
There have been more than 19,000 serious adverse reactions reported, athletic girls becoming paralyzed, developing and "ALS like disease", neurological damage, pain, inability to function with out sleeping most of the day, and on and on.
FDA has only just begun looking into these reports and meeting with the families of these very sick girls.
And all this damage may be for naught, as the vaccine may not ever prevent one case of cervical cancer. It only works against some of the strains of HPV. There is much discussion that these strains may just be replaced by others in the twenty or thirty years between the time the girls got the shot and would be at risk for developing cervical cancer.
Kudos for Heck for not jumping into Merck's marketing blitz so blindly. This vaccine may not even be on the shelves in the next few years.