I never liked Jenny McCarthy, even back in her Playboy days
Friday, October 31, 2008
I haven't ranted in awhile, so bear with me. I might be out of practice.
I wanted to weigh in on the whole Jenny McCarthy/Anti-Vaccination nonsense that has been rounding the internets lately, mostly confined to the US, but because of a function of proximal geography and a mostly unhealthy fascination with our southern friends, also here in Canada.
I honestly wasn't paying any attention to this debateless debate at all. I just thought that it was some idiot pseudoscience sympathizer using her celebrity to try to convince the world of the evil of vaccinating children. And that is precisely what it was.
I won't profess to being a medical expert, but I am a big fan of both intellectual honesty and critical thinking, neither of which the aforementioned vacuous new-ager holds in any capacity. See, Jenny McCarthy thinks a vaccine gave her kid autism. And then she thinks that she cured his autism with a diet change. And now she believes that her kid is some kind of metahuman, and she is currently running around talking about the power of crystals. Seriously.
I'm not sure which is worse, the fact that this nitwit was ever given any kind of public forum to air her nonsense, or the fact that anyone ever listened to her at all. And certainly enough has been written by people far better than me at debating the medical inconsistencies of this woman's statements, so I will forego the history of this mess. If one didn't already know all about this thing, one could (and should) check out these links:
http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=390
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/10/jenny_mccarthy_on_cnn_the_stupid_burns_o.php
But the ridiculousness of this was brought home not that long ago when I came home to my wife, anxiously asking me if it turned out that vaccinations had been found to be harmful. She had caught an episode of Oprah that day. And on that episode, Jenny McCarthy was espousing her opinions on the dangers of getting children vaccinated, and basically telling parents that they should ignore the advice of thousands of experts in the medical community and instead listen to her. But I gather that as crazy as her brand of bullshit is, she believes it enough to make it sound convincing.
So I had to explain to Superwife about this woman's crusade and how because of the completely undeserved media attention it has been getting, parents are scared to get their kids vaccinated against things that they may eventually get, and may eventually die from. Now that is something to be scared of.
Why is it that we live in a world where idiots like this get all the attention and basically the entire medical and scientific community gets shut out? I think its just further proof that as enlightened as I like tothink hope wish that we are, we really, really aren't.
EDIT - 12/20/2008 - Edited not for content, but for really poor grammar. Although this chick is still an idiot that should be given the same kind of non-attention one would give to any typical urban doomsayer with a homemade sandwich board. Quit telling people that vaccinations cause autism. They just don't. In fact, how be you do the world a favour and bow out of the public's eye for good?
I wanted to weigh in on the whole Jenny McCarthy/Anti-Vaccination nonsense that has been rounding the internets lately, mostly confined to the US, but because of a function of proximal geography and a mostly unhealthy fascination with our southern friends, also here in Canada.
I honestly wasn't paying any attention to this debateless debate at all. I just thought that it was some idiot pseudoscience sympathizer using her celebrity to try to convince the world of the evil of vaccinating children. And that is precisely what it was.
I won't profess to being a medical expert, but I am a big fan of both intellectual honesty and critical thinking, neither of which the aforementioned vacuous new-ager holds in any capacity. See, Jenny McCarthy thinks a vaccine gave her kid autism. And then she thinks that she cured his autism with a diet change. And now she believes that her kid is some kind of metahuman, and she is currently running around talking about the power of crystals. Seriously.
I'm not sure which is worse, the fact that this nitwit was ever given any kind of public forum to air her nonsense, or the fact that anyone ever listened to her at all. And certainly enough has been written by people far better than me at debating the medical inconsistencies of this woman's statements, so I will forego the history of this mess. If one didn't already know all about this thing, one could (and should) check out these links:
http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=390
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/10/jenny_mccarthy_on_cnn_the_stupid_burns_o.php
But the ridiculousness of this was brought home not that long ago when I came home to my wife, anxiously asking me if it turned out that vaccinations had been found to be harmful. She had caught an episode of Oprah that day. And on that episode, Jenny McCarthy was espousing her opinions on the dangers of getting children vaccinated, and basically telling parents that they should ignore the advice of thousands of experts in the medical community and instead listen to her. But I gather that as crazy as her brand of bullshit is, she believes it enough to make it sound convincing.
So I had to explain to Superwife about this woman's crusade and how because of the completely undeserved media attention it has been getting, parents are scared to get their kids vaccinated against things that they may eventually get, and may eventually die from. Now that is something to be scared of.
Why is it that we live in a world where idiots like this get all the attention and basically the entire medical and scientific community gets shut out? I think its just further proof that as enlightened as I like to
EDIT - 12/20/2008 - Edited not for content, but for really poor grammar. Although this chick is still an idiot that should be given the same kind of non-attention one would give to any typical urban doomsayer with a homemade sandwich board. Quit telling people that vaccinations cause autism. They just don't. In fact, how be you do the world a favour and bow out of the public's eye for good?
posted by raistlinsghost at 10/31/2008 11:47:00 PM
3 Comments:
See that is a tough one. I've worked with kids with Autism, whose parents are pretty convinced that vaccinations were the proverbial straw in their childrens regression. Most parents who do buy into this theory, don't beleive that vaccinations themselves cause autism, but that they were genetically pre-disposed, and a series of other factors came into play, triggering the condition.
I personally am torn. My kids are vaccinated against the big ones, but I refuse to vaccinate for chicken pox and I will refuse the gardisil vaccine. There are some things that your immune system needs to fight naturally. I did delay shots and ensured that both kids were 100% healthy at the time of the shots.
The one mom who was a rabid believer didn't beleive in non-vaxing, but she believed that vaccines should be given individually, over time. Instead of 5 at a time, overloading a babies immune system and then doing it again 2 months later! Maybe autism is an auto-immune response that is displaying itself in a unique way?
Big medicine is out for money and the bottom line, the contraindications of the gardisil vaccine is retarded. There have been deaths from this vaccine and it only protects against 4 strains of HPV out of the 500 that *could* develop into Cervical Cancer. Cervical cancer is also the most treatable and detectable (pap smears every year!). I don't trust it yet.
We just don't know enough about the human body to be 100% sure that the increasing rates of autism ISN'T caused by vaccines. Or, it could be a combination of vaccines, and an overload of red dye #40 that day. Who knows! Take two innocent components, combine them and get a deadly mix.
/off my soap box.
And yes, shes a fruitcake.
Finally, something we disagree on.
Don't get me wrong, I certainly am not saying that anything that a medical prfoessional suggests I jab into my kid's arm isn't worth giving a second thought about.
Certainly there are some diseases out there that if my daughter isn't vaccinated against, she will pull through just fine with her own immune system. So I won't be getting her every shot that is offerred.
But I have read as much of the medial stuff out there that I can handle, and I think an important distinction needs to be made that it isn't so much an increasing rate of autism as it is is an increase in diagnosed cases of autism. You could say that distinction is the heart of this mess I think.
And not any of the literature that I have read indicates that anything in a vaccine caused the autism. Far from it, in fact.
But the big thing I am mad about is that people listen to this nutjob, assume that everything she says is right because they saw it on CNN, and are now refusing any vaccinations whatsoever. Its crazy to me that diseases are now going to be endemic in populations and kids are going to die because of her irresponsible behaviour.
*snort*
There is so much information out there, some people can be very dangerous that is for sure. I agree completely with that.
I guess at this point I am very thankful that both my girls don't seem to show any symptoms of ASD. I honestly don't want to go down that path and be bombarded by so many differing accounts of what causes it, and what can help "cure it". I've seen the desperation in parents willing to grasp onto anything to help cure their kids. That's scary too.
The best thing that we can do as parents is educate ourselves and try to make the best decisions with the information that we have, and not blindly follow the Doctor or celebretards.
Can you imagine how the moms who took thalidimide felt? Thinking that the medical community knew everything that there was to know and trust them.
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