Jenny's McCarthyism

It's nice to see Amanda Peet standing up against the celebrity fear-mongering machine of Jenny McCarthy and her beau Jim Carrey. "I was shocked by the amount of misinformation floating around, particularly in Hollywood," Peet said.

McCarthy's son Evan was born in 2002 and diagnosed with autism a couple years later. She claims that Evan's father, John Asher, just couldn't deal with the boy and his predicament and that this led to their divorce. Much to her credit, the diagnosis spurred the mother into action and so began treatment. Evan's recovery was documented in McCarthy's book Louder than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism.

McCarthy is to be lauded for her actions and dedication towards her son. The problem is that she started a campaign which linked vaccinations to autism.



An appearance on Larry King's program garnered a lot of attention as did one on Oprah. A post on LeftBrainRightBrain details the sad events which led her to her crusade:

No joke: McCarthy was cheered lustily by the studio audience for announcing that, after her son was diagnosed, she typed the word “autism” into the Google search engine, launching a courageous and audacious search for the truth.

McCarthy spoke particularly of clicking on a link “up in the corner” (I believe those are what are known as “advertisements”) and learning about the wonders of biomed.

And naturally, vaccines had to come up. McCarthy said she had invoked what she calls her “mommy instinct” to finger the MMR in the case of her son.

Then Oprah read a response she had received from the CDC (at least she took a stab at social responsibility by contacting the agency) that talked about the lack of scientific support for the idea that thimerosal triggers autism.

McCarthy scoffed and said, speaking of her son: “He is my science.”

Well guess what, Prof. McCarthy? MMR doesn’t contain thimerosal. Never has.

She apparently didn’t know that. Oprah also either didn’t know it or didn’t bother to correct it.

Great. Just what we didn't need – a celebrity spreading misinformation and a TV hostess who does nothing to stop it. It shouldn't be surprising, though, considering that Oprah has pushed the patent BS of The Secret while McCarthy is a self-declared "Indigo mom". I had no idea what one was until I looked it up. It is sheer Newage bullshit featuring the evolution of consciousness and even telepathy. How curious that McCarthy's webpage on the subject was taken down just before her big book came out.

Last month McCarthy and Carrey led an antivaccination march in Washington D.C. with the slogan "Green Our Vaccines" which continued the fear-mongering and the spreading of bullshit.



All of this despite multiple studies which show no links between autism and vaccinations. David Gorski of the Science-Based Medicine blog has been tireless in not only debunking the claims of the antivaccination crowd, but he has also looked behind their rhetoric and at their motivations.

Although she certainly cannot be blamed for the antivaccination movement, she is surely contributing to it mightily. Using her celebrity status, she is peddling BS and contributing to the increase in the number of parents who refuse to vaccinate their children, a situation which puts those kids at risk as well as those who were dutifully vaccinated by their parents. Even Barack Obama has pandered to this crowd.

As the above linked article notes, there have been small outbreaks of diseases that are staved off by vaccines. Hopefully these will grow neither in size nor frequency. Reading about the parents who have been overcome by irrational fear, I wondered how their health insurance works. Surely insurers would not want to foot the whole bill for treatment of a childhood disease that could probably have been prevented. Do companies charge higher rates to cover non-immunized children? Do they refuse to pay for some or all of the bills? And then there's the parents who vaccinated their children only to have them become victims due to other parents not immunizing theirs. Do these folks get shafted by the insurance companies?