Bachmann Would Reintroduce Smallpox to America

HALLUCINATION SPRINGS, IA — Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann told a crowd of Tea Party members on Tuesday the first thing she would do as president is reintroduce the smallpox virus back into nature.

“This is a disease that never should have been eradicated in the first place,” declared the Minnesota congresswoman. “The government has no business eliminating viruses, when it’s the parents who should decide which ones their children should become infected with.”

Bachmann condemned the federal government for warehousing the last few existing strains of the deadly germ in laboratories at taxpayers’ expense. “Why are we paying millions of dollars to keep these bugs in petri dishes,” she asked, “when they should be allowed to grow and flourish in the world just as God intended?”

According to Bachmann, who recently criticized Texas Governor Rick Perry for mandating cancer-preventing vaccinations for pre-teen girls in his state, the obliteration of diseases by the federal government is unconstitutional and has caused life expectancies in the United States to skyrocket from 37 in the 18th century to 77 today. “Our founding fathers didn’t need social security,” she noted, “because none of them lived long enough to retire.”

Bachmann recalled with fondness a time when people died of natural causes, “such as polio and bubonic plague.”

If she becomes President, Bachmann said she would issue an executive order banning government research into “so-called” medical cures. She also called for an end to funding for the Centers for Disease Control, an agency she referred to as a “socialist program that takes money out of your pocket and hands it over to highly educated scientists so they can improve the quality of your life — without your permission.”

“I believe the American people know how to cure their own illnesses better than bureaucrats in Washington,” she added. “It’s a matter of personal responsibility.”