Two bioethics professors have a challenge for Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, who suggested this week that an STD vaccine could cause “mental retardation”: Prove it. Â Read more after the jump.
The educators have offered the Minnesota congresswoman more than $10,000 to produce any evidence for her implication that a vaccination against human papillomavirus could lead to mental retardation, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
The medical community slammed the Tea Party favorite after she relayed a story about a mother whose daughter received the vaccine.
“She told me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered from mental retardation thereafter. It can have very dangerous side effects,” she said on NBC’s “Today.” “This is the very real concern, and people have to draw their own conclusions.”
Bachmann made the statement in response to her GOP rival, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who came under scrutiny for signing a 2007 executive order requiring sixth-grade girls in Texas to be vaccinated against HPV, an STD that can lead to cervical cancer.
The decision – heavily criticized by conservatives – was eventually overturned by the state Legislature.
The cash reward started when Steven Miles, a University of Minneosta professor, offered to cough up a cool $1,000 if Bachmann or the mother, who has not been identified, can prove the link.
Then, Art Caplan, who heads the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics upped the ante, offering $10,000.
Bachmann later backpedaled in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, saying she had “no idea” if HPV was linked to mental retardation and said, “All I was doing is reporting what this woman told me.”
Bachmann’s former campaign manager Ed Rollins told MSNBCÂ on Wednesday that the lawmaker “made a mistake.”
“The quicker she admits she made a mistake and moves on, the better she is,” he added.
