Looking forward to a Tea Bagger rant about our precious bodily fluids.

A free market ideologue who wants a sign up telling consumers what corporations are doing? The next question in that discussion is mandatory food labeling.

The only way the magic of the market really works here is that places with unregulated food, sanitation, healthcare and so on have poor health and lower life expectancy. As decades wear on those societies are pushed aside by well, the Swedens and Japans of the world. In the long run, everyone ends up doing things right: washing, vaccinating, not adulterating food.

It's just that the process of stamping out all that greedy cutting corners and ignorance is filled with avoidable pain and suffering. Socialism means, in essence, cutting to the chase and doing what you know everyone will end up doing once the mindless, inefficient, crude process of markets would have done anyway.

Why would you take a thing like science and give it a folksy spin by grandma-splainin'. It's that sort of argument from authority that just make people distrust doctors and the pharma-industrial complex.

Your extrapolation over the senator's obvious ridiculous scenario that drew laughter from the crowd (that was meant to illustrate absurdity) to your headline for this post is what is extreme.

Think about this. Tillis want to eliminate a simple, cheap, proven, effective way to lower the transmission of pathogens and replace it with a notice that this place has allowed it's employees to possible piss on their hands.

Hey. Maybe they have - maybe they haven't. You, dear customer, can decide for your self if you want to risk it. Because maybe your sandwich will be cheaper.

Libertarians. Jesus.

So he replaces something that WORKS with a system of "hey, we oped out of this thing" signs?

So every time you go to a restaurant you'll have to read through a wall of warning posters outlining what this restaurant may or may not have done in safely preparing your food.

Until some moron libertarian finds THAT system too burdensome and will just leave it to the "market" to catch obituaries to find out what restaurant poisoned somebody.

Not that I would anyway, but this double-guarantees I'll never eat in a restaurant with Rand Paul or any other "no government hand washing" politician. Can you imagine what's in their food? It's like an invitation to a fecal coliform seasoning.

@4 if extrapolation means what i think it does, then it's really not much of one. Sure, it's an obviously ridiculous scenario, but so is a scenario in which our elected officials are suggesting that people should be able to opt out of getting vaccinated.

Obama's spokesman has been hedging on this vaccine stuff. I'm not a big fan of Clinton, but I appreciate a strong statement on something so clear.

So send Dan Savage to handle their doorknobs and give them a ballpoint pen to use.

If he was making a joke (and he should know how hard it is for Repubs to get that right), then the joke was at his (and his supporters) expense. Government regulation for public health is a fantastic use of tax dollars, and has some of the best returns on investment of any public service.

Their rallying cry is:
"Don't tell us to do sensible things! We don't like being told what to do!"

Meanwhile, these are the people who pass laws forcing doctors to administer medically-unnecessary ultrasounds to women seeking abortions, and in the case of some proposed laws, even lie to them about the risks involved! So they're against government interference with tradesmen and businesses...unless that interference means that women get harassed.

There is an attitude among many in this country that everyone should be vaccinated against their will. I strongly applaud anyone for standing up for peoples' personal freedom to choose in this matter-- even if they turn around and say something retarded like we shouldn't force food handlers to was their hands. Vaccines may or may not contribute to Autism (there is not conclusive evidence either way), but there are numerous problems with vaccination that many object to and everyone should have the freedom to opt-out:

1) Vaccines provide an inferior immunity to a natural immunity. Bypassing the body's standard defenses by injecting attenuated disease matter directly into the bloodstream is totally different than catching a disease the normal way. It creates an immune response in the body that is not the same as when you encounter the disease naturally. In the case of Measles, this incorrect response from the body can cause an ineffective immune response that actually lowers your immunity to the disease.

2) Vaccine "immunities" do not get passed to infants in mothers' milk. Natural immunities do.

3) Infants do not have an immune response to vaccines. Their immune systems are passive, relying on their mother's antibodies (passed through milk) for defense. In order to evoke an immune response, metals like aluminum are added to the vaccine. This causes severe inflammation that evokes an immune response in an infant. This is a dangerous way to treat a new life that could lead to metal poisoning, developing allergies (by forcing unnatural immune responses), and who knows what else.

4) Vaccines cause your brain to swell. In children, this can be particularly damaging, especially when many vaccines are given in rapid succession.

5) Vaccinated people can still carry a disease while showing no symptoms. This actually makes it more dangerous for people who can't be vaccinated to be around vaccinated people, not safer as many people claim. A 2013 study demonstrated this by showing that baboons who have developed naturally immunity to pertussis (whooping cough) did not incubate the disease, whereas baboons with vaccine induced immunity incubated the disease every time they were exposed to it. The vaccinated ones were contagious after exposure.

6) Vaccines are rarely vegetarian, and can contain dangerous metal adjuvants, cells from aborted fetuses, and strong anti-bacterial chemicals to prevent contamination in multiple dose vials. Anyone, regardless of religion, should maintain the right to choose whether these things are put in their bodies.

7) There is no significant record keeping of vaccine injuries, and little recorse if you have sustained injury from a vaccine. This is grossly unscientific. Gathering data and objectively looking at facts are the foundation upon which science exists.

There are tons of reasons why a person may object to vaccination, and we should protect our rights to body autonomy. Honestly, I think the fuss about a vaccine and autism link was largely made by people trying to distract from and discredit people with reasonable objections to the practice of vaccination. This might be Rand Paul's motivation for saying he prefers "freedom" to "vaccinations". I might not agree on the reasons, but I agree on the principle. I prefer my freedom too.

This isn't exactly new territory: Republicans and Libertarians have been fighting for eons to get more feces into your food!

Fighting for laxer regulations for meat and milk and farms and food handling all along the line.

Bet dollars to donuts Republicans (and Libertarians) also fought the good fight against seatbelt regulations for decades.

Anything that might inconvenience businesses in the slightest fashion, if it was only your health at stake.

Nothing to see here, move on.

@14 accepting for the sake of argument everything on your list (including the stuff that would mere be irrelevant if true), you don't provide the obvious second part of a coherent argument against vaccinations: that, as far aw broad scale public health is concerned (you know, the job of the government) the results of vaccinating are worse than the results of not vaccinating.

14) You are just 100% flat out WRONG. There is a mountain of conclusive scientific evidence that vaccines DO NOT cause autism. Either you are lying or are just willfully butt-dumb.

@14: You're just completely wrong. The harms of vaccines are in every case far lower than the harms of the diseases they prevent. We are only having this discussion because they have been so successful.

Further, it is absolutely the right of a society to place obligations on its citizens for the public benefit. Vaccines are precisely the sort of thing we who are in favor of government are talking about, where mandating their application with only exceptions for those with allergies will absolutely make our society more healthy and safe.

If you don't want to have vaccines, go live in a different society where you don't have to vaccinate. Stop free-riding off our herd immunity while weakening it.

Wow @14 you are either painfully misinformed or willfully ignorant. Let me guess, you also think the government is trying to control us with chem trails right?

A round up of 2016 contenders positions on vaccination from TPM:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2016-c…

No kaeru, there is no link between autism* and vaccinations-none, nada. There is a pretty well established link between not getting vaccinated and people getting sick and dying-or alternatively having some pretty bad side effects from these diseases. If you or any other anti vaccine people wants "the freedom to get sick" go do that somewhere else where there are no rules. Have fun with that.

There are plenty of things I'm not "free" to do without consequences, such as tarring and feathering idiots like you. If I do that to "express my freedom" I will go to jail and my freedom will be taken away. Same thing with vaccinations, if people opt out and they cause another person (who cannot be vaccinated) to get sick, there should be consequences. You and Rand Paul saying that a personal choice is more important than peoples lives, that's shameful.

*also, please explain to me how a dead kid (due to measles) or a kid who can't walk (due to polio) is better than an ALIVE kid with autism

@18 "Stop free-riding off our herd immunity while weakening it."

Is someone making these t-shirts? Please, someone, make these t-shirts.

Fecal matter in your food! Because--Freedom!

I'm voting for Fecal Matter in 2016, you bet!

Corporations can address wants and desires because they are profitable.

Needs are not profitable, but they must be addressed... for the public good. Like Fire fighters, roads, and public health.

Vaccinate your children, or you will kill them... AND me.

I can't fucking believe we're actually having this conversation in 2015 AD.

I wash my hands of the entire Republican and Tea Parties.

Oh, and wash your damn hands! before you get the rest of us sick, you tool. WITH soap, scrubbing for at least 20 seconds. AND your fingernails too. Don't forget your thumbs, many people do.

Shorter Tillis: "BIGGER SHIT SANDWICHES FOR EVERYBODY!"

Someone should remind these folks that cleanliness is next to godliness and that this is a principle the Bible teaches us. Leviticus 15, bitches!

@14: Just gonna chime in and say: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrjwaqZf…

Seattle is a town where everyone thinks they're the smartest kid in the room, and will bore you to tears telling you why they believe that. There's also a lot of people here who believe anything their homeopath, naturopath, acupuncturist, massage therapist or the Internet tells them.

The headline states: "Republican Senator Bravely Takes Stand Against Forcing Employees to Wash Their Hands" and underneath is a picture of Rand Paul. Of course everyone who sees that will immediately assume it was RAND PAUL who said that, which is completely false.

That's a fine piece of yellow journalism, Mr. Constant. Can I recommend you apply for a job at TMZ? You'd fit right in.

The headline reads: "Republican Senator Bravely Takes Stand Against Forcing Employees to Wash Their Hands" and underneath is a picture of Senator Rand Paul speaking, which will lead everyone who sees it to immediately assume that the quote is Paul's; despite the fact it unequivocally is not.

That's a fine piece of yellow journalism, Mr. Constant. May I recommend you apply for a job at TMZ? You'd fit right in.

Sound like the gag bumper sticker that reads "Lobotomies for Republicans - It's the Law!" no longer necessary

@32 Holy shit, this right here!

Get ready for Hepatitis A epidemic.

@33

yeah...it's almost as if they might want people to read the entire piece to get a complete story rather than reacting to a headline. crazy, I know.