MADISON, Wis. — A Thursday report from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was another reminder of how Sen. Ron Johnson continues to work against what is best for his Wisconsin constituents. Instead of working to protect Wisconsinites’ health, Johnson would rather work in the opposite direction, spreading conspiracies about vaccinations, refusing to resolve lead contamination that children in Milwaukee schools are facing, and attacking Medicaid by calling it a “money laundering” scheme.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Ron Johnson On A Measles Vaccine And Autism Link, MPS Lead Problems And Other Takeaways
By: Mary Spicuzza, Daniel Bice
Key points below:
- U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson says Milwaukee should be able to clean up widespread lead contamination at Milwaukee Public Schools without any help from the federal government.
- “This is not a new problem. They’ve known about it,” Johnson told reporters following a May 28 Milwaukee Press Club event at the Newsroom Pub. “I don’t have a great deal of faith in the federal government, so this is something I think that Milwaukee, that Wisconsin, ought to be able to handle by itself.”
- Milwaukee officials had asked for help from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in March, but their request was denied the following month due to mass layoffs of federal health workers. An email from a CDC official at the time cited “the complete loss” of the CDC’s lead poisoning prevention branch.
- But Johnson, an Oshkosh Republican, questioned why a CDC team would be needed to help as Milwaukee works to identify schools with lead hazards, temporarily closing some for lead remediation.
- “Is there really some secret expertise that the federal government has inside CDC? I doubt it. I just doubt it,” he said. “I mean, we’ve known about this. Clean it up.”
- Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson called his comments “shameful.”
- “It’s also a shame that our United States senator, unfortunately, is not going to bat for the people who live in the state that he represents in Washington,” the mayor said.
Ron Johnson calls for lifting measles vaccine requirements for children
- Johnson told reporters that he believes many childhood illnesses, including measles, have been eradicated through better hygiene and sanitation, not just vaccines.
- “I’m not denying vaccines didn’t help eradicate some of these things, but we really improved public health (and) improved sanitation,” he said.
- Johnson said more effort should be placed on treatment, not vaccines. He said vaccines have become widespread because of the immunity given to manufacturers.
- Wisconsin requires children to get vaccinations for measles, mumps and rubella to attend school or childcare. Children normally receive two doses of the MMR vaccination, one at 12-15 months and the other at 4-6 years.
- Asked if he favored lifting this requirement, Johnson said, “I think we ought to. I think we ought to get some — a lot more — science on this and be able to ask the questions we haven’t even been able to ask before. … I guess we just accept this dramatic increase in chronic illness and and autism.”
- Does the senator believe there is a link between vaccinations and autism?
- “I think it’s entirely possible,” Johnson said.
- Anti-vaccine groups and individuals falsely connected vaccination for measles, mumps and rubella to autism. Substantial research has disproven this idea.
Ron Johnson calls Medicaid a system of legalized ‘money laundering’
- Long a critic of Medicaid, Johnson accused states of running a “money laundering” scheme with their federal funds in how they operate the government-funded program primarily for the poor.
- Under Medicaid rules, states collect millions of dollars by taxing providers. They can then use some of that money to draw down a similar amount in federal matching funds, according to Yahoo News.
- “Many conservatives say the taxes are an accounting trick that allows states to draw down money from the federal government without having to front their true share of the Medicaid program,” Yahoo News said.
- Johnson prefers another name: “money laundering.”
- “This is why states are incentivized to enroll people that are ineligible, illegal immigrants,” he said.
- Undocumented immigrants are generally ineligible for Medicaid.
- Philip Shulman, spokesman for the state Democratic Party, disputed Johnson’s characterization.
- “Ron Johnson is trying to gut Medicaid, a program 1.3 million Wisconsinites rely on for health care, all while he feeds wild conspiracies that the measles vaccine causes autism,” Shulman said. “It’s like he wants to cause an outbreak and take away people’s means to fight it.”
