Concern over the safety of childhood vaccines grew to a crescendo in the years following a study in the late 90s that claimed a link between autism and certain needles.Subsequent studies proved those fears largely unfounded, and medical professionals were relieved that the science was able to quell most parents' fears.
Now, however, doctors are worried that Oprah Winfrey's tacit endorsement of one of vaccination's biggest critics will give rise to a new round of vaccine hysteria.
Pediatric associations in Canada and the United States are worried that the actress and former Playboy bunny, Jenny McCarthy, will use a new deal with Oprah to promote her emotionally resonant vaccine-skeptical views, despite the fact that they are not scientifically backed.
Ms. McCarthy suggests her son's autism was caused by the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine he received when he was 15 months old and she, along with boyfriend Jim Carrey, is a spokesperson for the "green our vaccines" campaign, which alleges there are toxins in childhood vaccines.
Read it [url=http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1606853]here[/url].
Vaccinations are part of the Holy Trinity of [i]Commie plots[/i]. Vaccinations, Fluoridation, and "Chemtrails". Time to buy stock in tinfoil.
They should brace!
Yeah, y'know, when I look for advice on what's good for my kids, I'd so much rather pay attention to an overhyped bimbo than to somebody who actually went to medical school.
ETA: An interesting little link about the consequences of McCarthy's disinformation:
http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/Jenny_McCarthy_Body_Count/Home.html
Thanks for that link, Timebandit; I immediately posted it over at the healthcare professionals' forums where I also play.
Some of the doctors at these forums see the Jenny McCarthy phenomenon as a kind of Darwin-Award-By-Proxy, where people too stupid to reproduce are killing their children by denying them vaccines on the advice of a former Playboy bunny (not my view, btw, but thought I'd share).
"bimbo" wtf??????
Thank you, remind.
And, while we're at it, what does "former Playboy bunny" have to do with it? She's an activist, she doesn't have a medical degree, isn't that what's relevant? There's a very ugly side to the public's criticism of McCarthy.
Well I would say those Drs at the sight you attend sineed need their licenses pulled for stating that kind of classist crap. Utterly contemptable.
As far as I'm concerned, a woman who bases her credibility around celebrity gained for taking off her knickers in public is fair game for the term "bimbo". She may be an "activist", but I'm having difficulty finding some aspect of the public persona, activist or not, that inspires some form of respect. Can't find one.
How about this, Timebandit? She genuinely believes that medical science is wrong on a critical issue. I have no opinion on the autism/vaccine story but I do know that autism rates are much higher in North America than elsewhere. That's an issue worth investigating and one that medicine hasn't satisfactorily addressed.
I genuinely believe that medical science is dead wrong on psychiatry. And I trust that when people attack my views they manage not to insult my gender.
While I tend to agree with timebandit strictly around the vaccine issue, I'm going to agree with remind about how it was expressed.
Bimbo?!
I don't care how she makes her living. She's a parent of a kid to whom something happened, and has every right to lobby loud and hard to get her point of view out. This would be no different than devaluing my opinion as to my child's medical care because I'm just a dumpy middle aged guy with only a Mickey Mouse humanities degree.
Feminist principles on this board don't end with the feminist forum.
FWIW, my kids were vaccinated, and that's the side of that issue I come down on. I still feel that way despite my sons Aspergers Syndrome which I believe to be unrelated.
"Dumpy"!!?? WTF?
On a more serious note, I wouldn't be too concerned about Canadians "saving" their kids from vaccination. Not a big problem here. Down south, on the other hand, they even believe single-payer public health care is a Satanic plot, so I would expect millions to be resisting the Evil Needle.
I respect her for being the mother of a child with Autism who did everything in her power to help her child including speech therapy, ocupational therapy, applied behavioural analysis therapy and nutritional therapies. I may not always agree with the message or how it is presented but it is presented by a mother I respect for doing the best she can for her child.
Why is it that when a man takes off his knickers in public, he is met with awe, while women only get ridicule?
Sorry Unionist but you obviously haven't been on many autism boards. I am on a few special needs boards, the ones not having to do with Autism not a whisper but definetly a big movement in the Autism biomed community. They know all the ins and outs of mercury, thermite etc
That's a vicious site, thanks for sharing.
Who makes the vaccinations? Who controls the studies? Perhaps if there was integrity in the system these questions would be irrelevent but the fact is we have a system where pharmaceutical companies profit at our expense and many die just so they may continue to profit. Why should people trust them?
At the heart of this movement is women who have seen their children change from bright little beings into children with enormous challenges. This information is never acknowledged, after all it hasn't been proven in studies and never will be either.
Dr Devra Davis said in 2007,
I'm not denying any of what you've posted. However, what has been addressed is whether vaccination has anything to do with autism spectrum disorders and that is something that HAS been exhaustively investigated. And yet the misinformation persists, with extra vitriol and vehemence, and kids get sick with preventable diseases. Some of them die. And Jenny McCarthy has publicly said that's okay if it fits with her agenda. I have a real problem with that.
BTW, I don't see "bimbo" as so much an insult to McCarthy's gender so much as it is about how she runs her career.
Playboy bunny has everything to do with it; that's why she gets the attention in the 1st place. To say we have to respect her activist creds on their own merit and ignore how she got famous is just as disingenuous as Billy Bob Thornton throwing a hissy when people mention his acting career.
No, she hasn't said it's okay if kids die as long as she furthers her agenda. That's a really offensive distortion. Don't be such a bimbo!
You don't "believe" science to be wrong. You PROVE it to be wrong.
I disagree. I think anybody could have turned out to be the primary antivax activist. She gets the attention because the public is justifiably alarmed at the rate of autism.
No. Over the course of BBT's musical career, he will morph from "former actor" to "musician." Bill Gates isn't routinely tagged a "former college drop-out." But Jenny McCarthy will always be a "former Playboy bunny" and that's sexist and disgusting.
And that may happen.
While on the topic of vaccinations what do people think about forced vaccinations for the swine flu?
Jenny McCarthy joins a long list of celebrities, male or female, using their fame as a pulpit from which to preach whatever their personal obsessions. To call her an activist is like calling Tom Cruise a spokesman for religious diversity.
Jenny may always be known as a former playboy bunny just as Billy Bob may always be known as that actor who was married to Angelina Jolie. Such is the nature of fame.
What is she basing her "beliefs" on in the meantime, then? A lucky hunch? A little bird told her?
Did you know that Ronald Reagan used to be an [i]actor[/i]. He once "acted" with a monkey!! I'll bet you didn't know that, because when men change careers, we don't dog them with their less-reputable pasts.
Well, they have to invent it first. And I doubt it'll happen - influenza vaccine-making resources are being used right now to make the regular seasonal flu vaccine. WHO is still in wait and see mode; there'll be no vaccine if it turns out to be a mild infection as it makes its way through the southern hemisphere, which is currently entering its flu season.
Actually not coming back to this thread, the sexism and nastiness is intolerable.
You know perfectly well what I mean, Snert. There's a sexist nastiness to "former Playboy bunny." Finding counter-examples doesn't change that.
I swear to God I wrote "sexist nastiness" before I read this. Remind, I agree with you.
Check the link I posted above: "I do believe sadly that it's going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe." Time Magazine article, April 2009. Is that offensive enough for you? I find it offensive that anybody would come to the defense of what this quackadoo spouts.
The thing is, the vaccines ARE safe, this has been demonstrated and still she calls for people to not vaccinate their kids, and she uses her celebrity to promote this very dangerous view. That's right - put YOUR kids at risk so Jenny has somebody to blame for her child's illness.
I think it's tragic that McCarthy's son is autistic (although she claims he's cured now...), but that doesn't give her a free pass to advocate for spurious causes or spread false information. I fully understand that a diagnosis of autism is devastating and that it's perfectly natural to look for a cause and maybe somebody to take responsibility for it. Maybe if she'd switched to looking at plastics in our environment when somebody showed her there's no evidence for the vaccine theory she might have some sort of credibility. ADHD and autism spectrum disorders started rising shortly after the rise in use of plastics - and I'm not saying I think plastics are necessarily the cause, but doesn't it make more sense to rule out another thing rather than denying the obvious?
No, I think that would be a statement of fact.
I agree too, I think that anyone who dismisses a woman's argument by identifying her as a bimbo reveals more about themselves than the woman they are attempting to shut up. As someone who has experienced that kind of bullshit it has been my experience that those individuals have tiny little.................
minds.
LOL
Fine. Will the Sexism Police be happier if I refer to her as a flaming idiot with a penchant for exhibitionism as a public personality?
Good grief.
Shifting to insulting the "Sexism Police" only proves the point. Thanks. LOL
Do you actually believe that John and Jane Q. Public are alarmed at the rate of autism?
Before "Rain Man" came out, if you told John and Jane that you knew an autistic child they would probably have replied "Our son is artistic too! He loves to paint!".
But now you figure people are concerned with population health statistics concerning autism, and that THAT's the real reason McCarthy gets attention on the subject? In that case, I should think the average member of the public could name at least ONE other autism activist then, yes? I'd very much like to see that.
BTW, the article I linked to above has numerous links, and it details the fact that autism causational factors are not fully known. And one of the links details "professionals" who are in conflict of interest when that have stated vaccinations play no part. It has a huge amount of informaiton in it.
Ennir I worked with autistics for years, and I too have the same anecdotal stories you have come across, plus there are 3 families here in town who have also suffered the same, children bright and developmentally fine until their 6-18 month vaccinations. It seems there is a relationship to older vaccines in more rural areas too, as health authorities by significant amounts and it might not get used fast enough in areas of low birthrates and thus degrades.
I know two mothers who saw their children change dramatically after vaccinations and when I worked for SMD years ago I spoke with one family who had a child react to the vaccine and questioned the doctor about the wisdom of vaccinating their second child, they were reassured there was no risk and consequently their daughter was transformed from talkative and walking infant to a child with no verbal ability and and spastic quadrapalegia. That makes three.
There are many mothers speaking out about this, that is why Jenny's message resonates. She also offers hope for recovery from the trauma the children have experienced.
This is an utter fabrication on your part!
Dr Patricia Fitzgerald on Jenny McCarthy and autism
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-patricia-fitzgerald/jenny-mccarthys-aut...
And BS on the comment about how she runs her career, it is a narrow minded judgement on what you perceive as her morality as a woman and nothing more. And who the hell are you to judge what someone else does with their "career". Plus your commentary IMV is slanderous!
A few points: one of the reasons autism rates are rising is because it is being diagnosed more. Eighty years ago, they may have been diagnosed as "idiots," or "morons," terms that are now exclusively pejorative, but have their origins in medical terminology to describe certain kinds of cognitively disabled children. So the rates of autism may not actually be rising; it's just the recognition of such. There's been, for instance, a broadening into "autism spectrum disorders," such that some children are being diagnosed with Aspergers where in the past they may have been seen just as eccentric.
The vaccine link: I am confident that there is absolutely none. It has been rigorously investigated, and no link has been found. Basically, continuing to beat this dead horse is a waste of time for the medical system; instead of investigating what the causes might be (plastics? food additives? heredity?) they have to keep refuting this over and over and over and over......
Re: vaccines - at my workplace, we have certification to store vaccines from Toronto Public Health. Basically, these things have expiry dates on them. So this whole notion of old vaccines sitting around is rather silly; when they get stale-dated, I have to toss them out, or I could get charged with professional misconduct.
Thanks for the link remind.
What I find outrageous is that those anecdotal stories are ignored, I suppose it is a strategy that has worked before and they assume it will continue to work. The reality though is that increasing numbers of children are being diagnosed with autism and their parents have access to the internet.
The title of this thread is very insulting to concerned parents - most of them women - who are expected to slave for their children's welfare but are dismissed and insulted as "hysterics" when they express concern about preoccupying data and patterns.
We shouldn't let the National Post frame our discussions.
The increasing numbers have been over the last few years, it has sfa to do with diagnosis being missed years ago.
The public health nurse here, actually quit being a public health nurse here, as she was forced to use close to expiry vaccines that she felt were not good. And there had already been 3 cases of children who of all sudden became autistic after they had received innoculations.
Sineed, frankly I would not trust your word if my life depended on it.
BUT THERE IS NO FUCKING PATTERN WITH A LINK TO VACCINES!!!!!!!!!!!
They're not ignored, martin, they're DISCREDITED. There is a world of difference.
In fact, rather than being ignored, studies have been conducted, double-blind, analyzed, meta-analyzed and then the results have been taken through the system to the US Supreme Court, who recently ruled that, given the EVIDENCE (y'know, that inconvenient stuff made of, whaddayacallit, oh, FACTS) there is no connection. Hysteria is an apt descriptor of this kind of blind irrationality.
Dr. Patricia Fitzgerald has a degree in homeopathy. She isn't a real doctor. Honest to gawd, remind, when are you going to learn to use freaking google? Huffpo isn't exactly a reliable source for medical journalism to start with. Here's a link to a real doctor on your "expert"'s qualifications:
http://scienceblogs.com/whitecoatunderground/2009/04/the_fake_experts_of_huffpo.php
Here's another link:
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jun/06-why-does-vaccine-autism-controversy-live-on/
I am not a liar. I have fabricated nothing. You need an introduction to reality.
So what is so bad about questioning the link between drugs that are made by big pharma (cause we know how ethical they are) and behaviour. If it isn't true, fine, if it is, I am glad that someone was willing to look.
NB most studies that say that there is not link are funded by big Pharma.
Here is an article from the Huffington Post on one of three cases for the United States Government that were suppose to disprove the link between Autism and the Vaccine. Instead they found that children who have a mitochondrial disorder and have the shot can develop Autism after the shot (Autistic symptoms are not a part of the mitochondrial disorder). 10-20% of the children with Autism have this Mitochondrial Disorder as compared to only 0.2% in the general population. It raises enough questions for me to say there needs to be more research to find out if there are any other agrevating factors that would cause a child to develop Autism or any other issues other than Mitochondrial Disorder.
I think not, timebandit!
Remind, I am assuming that you are responding to the "need an introduction to reality" from Timebandit, not the article I posted.
Yep revised my post for clarity.
Timebandit: "They're not ignored, martin, they're DISCREDITED. There is a world of difference. In fact, rather than being ignored, studies have been conducted, double-blind, analyzed, meta-analyzed and then the results have been taken through the system to the US Supreme Court, who recently ruled that, given the EVIDENCE (y'know, that inconvenient stuff made of, whaddayacallit, oh, FACTS) there is no connection."
I have made this point in another thread so I'll be brief. You can use the scientific method to establish a connection between facts, but you can't deduce anything from the absence of evidence of a connection. All you can say that you haven't found the evidence you were looking for. Says nothing about reality: you could have been looking in the wrong place, at the wrong pattern, you could have been careless or out of luck, but to put it simply, the absence of a sought correlation doesn't prove or disprove anything in itself. Science is built on observed, stable, repeatable correlations, not on the lack thereof. A theory can only be "discredited" by a better theory, not by a lack of authoritative evidence.
http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/
Pages