Jenny McCarthy Faces Backlash For "Pro-Vaccine" Claim

[Wrenry]

Quote:

Jenny McCarthy's son Evan, now 11, was diagnosed with autism in 2005. Since then, The View co-host has spoken at length about what she believes is a link between the behavioral disorder and vaccinations given to children.

But in a Chicago Sun Times op-ed published Saturday, McCarthy wrote that she's "pro-vaccine," claiming she's been "wrongly branded as 'anti-vaccine.'"

"This is not a change in my stance nor is it a new position I have recently adopted," she wrote, adding, "I've never told anyone to not vaccinate."

"My beautiful son, Evan, inspired this mother to question the 'one size fits all' philosophy of the recommended vaccine schedule," she said. "I embarked on this quest not only for myself and my family, but for countless parents who shared my desire for knowledge that could lead to options and alternate schedules, but never to eliminate the vaccines."

"I believe in the importance of a vaccine program," she wrote, "and I believe parents have the right to choose one poke per visit."

The 42-year-old actress-turned-advocate referenced a 2009 Time Magazine interview with science editor Jeffrey Kluger in which she said: "People have the misconception that we want to eliminate vaccines...Please understand that we are not an anti-vaccine group. We are demanding safe vaccines. We want to reduce the schedule and reduce the toxins.""

Kluger responded with an open letter to McCarthy, highlighting some of the more polarizing quotes she fails to rehash in her latest op-ed. He refused to let the actress backtrack or even relax her controversial stance, telling her, "It's just too late to play cute with the things you've said."

Kluger wrote that "outbreaks of measles, mumps and whooping cough continue to appear in the U.S." and are mostly "the result of parents refusing to vaccinate their children because of the scare stories passed around by anti-vaxxers like you..."

"You are either floridly, loudly, uninformedly antivaccine or you are the most grievously misunderstood celebrity of the modern era," he added. "Science almost always prefers the simple answer, because that's the one that's usually correct. Your quote trail is far too long—and you have been far too wrong—for the truth not to be obvious." Source

And here's the link to the Chicago-Sun Times article she wrote about being "pro-vaccine."

Lesson? Never let a celebrity influence your decision on important health matters.

[I Shall Give You NoMercy]

I still find it baffling that people would actually take medical advice from a d-list celebrity in the first place.

[maggoty tacos]

If you choose medical advice from a celebrity over doctors and scientists then you have no one to blame but yourself.

[AliKat1988]

Don't some doctors debate whether her son's condition is even properly diagnosed as autism? She disagrees and still insists he has autism but I know some doctors looking at the case think her son has Landau–Kleffner syndrome because his symptoms are more related to the onset and control of seizures he has had. No surprise given how the claims she is spouting about vaccines are outdated/factually incorrect. Why is she still talking about mercury when it is in just the flu vaccine? She clearly doesn't read/think very deeply on the facts about vaccine safety outcomes or differential diagnoses for autism. If she can't consider the possible misdiagnosis of her son that makes her view on medicine even more questionable than it already was-former playboy bunny with no college degree let alone a biology or medical degree.

[Idolatrine]

She's a bullshit artist, I still say. And her pushing that bullshit has led to a number of completely preventable deaths, whether she wants us to believe she was pro-vaccine all along or not.

I'd be surprised by this if she didn't go on TV claiming she "cured" her son some time before anyone brought up the possibility that he wasn't actually autistic.

[OtakuJeannie]

Awesome McGee

She's a bullshit artist, I still say. And her pushing that bullshit has led to a number of completely preventable deaths, whether she wants us to believe she was pro-vaccine all along or not.

I'd be surprised by this if she didn't go on TV claiming she "cured" her son some time before anyone brought up the possibility that he wasn't actually autistic.

I thought I heard somewhere she said he had been cured via a gluten free diet

[JamesWN]

Bet McCarthey is wishing she had an MiB flashy thing now.

[God Emperor Baldur]

This whole vaccine argument is bullshit. There is no ink between vaccinations and autism yet we are seeing more aggressive epidemics. Do Americans even have logic anymore or did they shut their brain off?

[Mitsuki Horenake]

If vaccines start autism, then there should be more kids out there with autism because every sane family's children being vaccinated. But they're not. So whatever works.

And it may be just me, but I'd rather have a kid who's healthy and autistic than non-vaccinated and sick from the flu or something.

Then again, I was misdiagnosed as autistic when I was in preschool, so maybe that's it.

[Lady Paulus]

Mitsuki Horenake

If vaccines start autism, then there should be more kids out there with autism because every sane family's children being vaccinated. But they're not. So whatever works.

And it may be just me, but I'd rather have a kid who's healthy and autistic than non-vaccinated and sick from the flu or something.

Then again, I was misdiagnosed as autistic when I was in preschool, so maybe that's it.

autism rates
were 1 in 10,000 in 1987 and
just recently a new number put out by the
CDC was 1 in 88 in 2014

in the United States at least autism is increasing


i have been living with autism since just before my son turned 2, he is now an adult and there is no support for him except his family I cant imagine what the world will look like when that 1 in 88 children reach adulthood.

[Mitsuki Horenake]

Lady Paulus

Mitsuki Horenake

If vaccines start autism, then there should be more kids out there with autism because every sane family's children being vaccinated. But they're not. So whatever works.

And it may be just me, but I'd rather have a kid who's healthy and autistic than non-vaccinated and sick from the flu or something.

Then again, I was misdiagnosed as autistic when I was in preschool, so maybe that's it.

autism rates
were 1 in 10,000 in 1987 and
just recently a new number put out by the
CDC was 1 in 88 in 2014

in the United States at least autism is increasing


i have been living with autism since just before my son turned 2, he is now an adult and there is no support for him except his family I cant imagine what the world will look like when that 1 in 88 children reach adulthood.

Were there vaccine shots before 1987?

[azulmagia]

God Emperor Baldur

This whole vaccine argument is bullshit. There is no ink between vaccinations and autism yet we are seeing more aggressive epidemics. Do Americans even have logic anymore or did they shut their brain off?

Do you have to ask?

[Reynard Blue]

Lady Paulus

Mitsuki Horenake

If vaccines start autism, then there should be more kids out there with autism because every sane family's children being vaccinated. But they're not. So whatever works.

And it may be just me, but I'd rather have a kid who's healthy and autistic than non-vaccinated and sick from the flu or something.

Then again, I was misdiagnosed as autistic when I was in preschool, so maybe that's it.

autism rates
were 1 in 10,000 in 1987 and
just recently a new number put out by the
CDC was 1 in 88 in 2014

in the United States at least autism is increasing


i have been living with autism since just before my son turned 2, he is now an adult and there is no support for him except his family I cant imagine what the world will look like when that 1 in 88 children reach adulthood.

That is because the protocol for diagnosing autism has changed radically over the last 30 years. What was not diagnosed as autism before is now under the Autism Spectrum. Some say it is better understanding,; some say it is over diagnosis; some blame doctors and insurance. But few doctors believe there are more people with autism, just more being diagnosed.

[Chibi Halo]

Awesome McGee

She's a bullshit artist, I still say. And her pushing that bullshit has led to a number of completely preventable deaths, whether she wants us to believe she was pro-vaccine all along or not.

I'd be surprised by this if she didn't go on TV claiming she "cured" her son some time before anyone brought up the possibility that he wasn't actually autistic.

Oh she has claimed he's cured of his "autism" through some controversial therapies out there.



Quote:

In addition to conventional, intensive Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) therapy, McCarthy tried a gluten-free and casein-free diet, hyperbaric oxygen chambers, chelation, aromatherapies, electromagnetics, spoons rubbed on his body, multivitamin therapy, B-12 shots and numerous prescription drugs. "Try everything," she advises parents, "It was amazing to watch, over the course of doing this, how certain therapies work for certain kids and they completely don't work for others ... When something didn't work for Evan, I didn't stop. I stopped that treatment, but I didn't stop." McCarthy has stated on talk shows and at rallies that chelation therapy helped her son recover from autism. The underlying rationale for chelation, the speculation that mercury in vaccines causes autism, has been roundly rejected by scientific studies, with the National Institute of Mental Health concluding that children with autism are unlikely to receive any benefit to balance the risks of heart attack, stroke and cardiac arrest posed by the chelating agents used in the treatment.



The thing is, the therapy she claims cured her son is one thing most sane doctors say you DO NOT use on an autistic person. The type of activism and weird alternative therapies she activates really undermines the positive work people like Ernie Els are doing to promote autism awareness and raise funds to educate autistic children on all parts of the spectrum.

[TrulyGinger]

Correlation does not imply causation .