Robin Hayes swears he doesn't have cooties.

Our local excuse for a congressman, Robin Hayes(R), is ticked off.
No, he isn't ticked off about jobs shipping to Central America and He certainly isn't ticked off by millions of poor children without health insurance, Robin Hayes is upset because he is convinced that people in Washington think he has cooties.

You can find the full story in today's Charlotte Observer.

The House Homeland Security Committee planned a fact-finding trip about public health preparedness at mass gatherings and decided to conduct the research at two of the nation's most heavily attended sporting events, NASCAR's Bank of America 500 event this weekend and the UAW-Ford 500 last weekend.
Staff who organized the trips advised the NASCAR-bound aides to get a range of vaccines before attending -- hepatitis A, hepatitis B, tetanus, diphtheria and influenza.

Rep. Robin Hayes, a Republican from Concord, was upset when he heard about it.

"I have never heard of immunizations for domestic travel, and as the representative for Concord, N.C., I feel compelled to ask why the heck the committee feels that immunizations are needed to travel to my hometown," Hayes said in an Oct. 5 letter to Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who chairs the Homeland Security panel.

Now, I most admit that I don't believe you need to be immunized to go to Lowe's Motor Speedway. The worst thing you can catch there is redneck fever or, on rare occasions, a tire on your head.
What Mr. Hayes doesn't seem to understand is that congressional staff wasn't advised to get immunized because they went to a NASCAR race, but because they were going to visit hospitals and various medical holding areas.

"Since committee staff members are visiting hospital and other health-care facilities available at or near these venues, including areas where groups of people are detained before being transferred to other off-site facilities, I believe that the recommendation (not requirement) that our congressional staff receive these same immunizations was sound," Thompson said in a letter responding to Hayes issued Wednesday.

You also can't really blame some folks in Congress for thinking we have some strange diseases in this area, since they probably base their beliefs on observing Robin Hayes from day to day, and he has had quite a few medical issues in the past few years.
He went from contracting the flip-flopping virus (aka CAFTA syndrome), to catching Crusader fever, to getting a serious SCHIP rash. Lately he's even been known to come into contact with quite a few rabid dogs.

So come on down Congressional staff, you don't really need vaccinations to visit my town as long as you stay out of the vicinity of Mr. Hayes.