Don’t listen to Jenny McCarthy.
That might, at first glance, seem like an unnecessary order. I might as well be telling you, “Do not, under any circumstances, masturbate to Kurt Loder.” Right? Well, maybe a few years ago. But all of that is about to change. Here’s why:
Recently, the former Playboy model/Actress(?) inked a deal with the power hurricane that is Oprah Winfrey. I view Oprah as the rest of you do, which is to say, with a delicate mixture of inspired awe and paralyzing terror. I know she’s changed a lot of lives for the better and brought a lot of attention to worthy issues, but I also know that if she deemed a particular bowel movement of hers noteworthy, then that poop would have its own six-figure book deal before you can say A Million Little Feces. That’s how powerful Oprah Winfrey is. She made Dr. Phil and Rachel Ray into household names, and now, like the sweet Momma Bird that she is, she’s lovingly regurgitating a soft, warm, chunky career down the gaping throat of a hungry Jenny McCarthy.
And maybe you don’t think this should worry me. After all, I’m neither a troubled, rebellious teen nor a bucket of tasty, tasty chicken, so I have nothing to fear from Dr. Phil, and the only danger I face when watching Rachel Ray is in deciding whether she or her food is responsible for my boner. Take this picture for example:
What is that, a Rice Krispie treat covered in chili? My dick is hungry and my stomach wants to have sex with her, nothing’s making any sense.
But I digress. We were talking about how Oprah’s mentorship of Jenny McCarthy should mean nothing to me because I don’t watch daytime television and Oprah is not yet Supreme Emperor of Earth. But here’s my worry. For years now, Jenny McCarthy has been an outspoken advocate for autism research, which in and of itself isn’t troubling and is, in fact, very admirable. But there are a few problems.
Informed Activist vs. Wide-eyed Crusader
The problem is that she’s turned herself into a fear mongering, anti-vaccination spokeswoman. She’s not just promoting autism awareness, she’s aligning herself with this “we’re giving our children too many vaccines and it’s giving them autism” agenda.
Granted, Jenny McCarthy isn’t coming out against all vaccinations, and she’s even gone on record to say that many vaccinations are incredibly useful. But every time she says “I’m not anti-vaccination,” she almost invariably follows it up with some anti-vaccination rhetoric and thinks she’s in the clear. It’s like people who say “no offense” and then assume they can say whatever they want, free from blame. Like, “I’m not racist, but I think Puerto Ricans should be kept in cages. What? I said I’m not racist.”
So, even though Jenny will occasionally say vaccinations are useful, her loudest and most passionate cries are the ones about the dangers of vaccines, and the evil conspiracy that fuels them, and those are the cries that are going to register. She and her boyfriend, Jim Carrey, are so passionate, that sometimes it seems like vaccinations are the only things they talk about.
If Jenny McCarthy was just an advocate for autism research, or even just an advocate for vaccination investigation, I wouldn’t have a issue. Vaccinations are not without their risks–though the risks are extremely, extremely rare–and educating people is a good thing. We have 26 more vaccinations than we had a couple of decades ago, and that’s a subject that’s worth discussing. Wanting to talk about the potential problems with vaccinations is useful, but going on a some shitty doctor talk show with your team just to scream in the faces of a couple of doctors, is not. If you can’t watch the video, I’ll give you a run down:
1) A doctor explains that, though we have more vaccines today than we used to, we also have a lot less kids dying from meningitis and polio than we used to.
2) The doctor explains that, if parents suddenly stopped getting vaccinations for their kids, more children will die.
3) Jenny McCarthy terrifies the doctors into silence by making a face that is precisely a cross between Catwoman, snakes that can hypnotize you and all of my childhood fears:
4) Jenny and her antagonistic friend spend a few minutes finger-pointing and screaming at the doctors.
5) The stupid doctor with the sideburns almost cries.
Opening a dialogue and doing research is useful, but how is that useful? How is it helping anyone when you jab your finger at a doctor, and accost him like he’s the root of autism while you prompt the audience for applause? [Sidebar: If you can get past what a ridiculous, overdramatic display that clip is, it's worth it to see the whiney sideburns doctor in the scrubs flip out. He never says it, but you can still totally tell that he's begging to scream "I'M A FUCKING DOCTOR! I FUCKING SAVE LIVES! NO ONE CAN BE MEAN TO ME!"]
Headlines Stick
That subheading is right. Headlines do stick. Most people don’t get past the headline, in fact, so even though Jenny’s thesis might be “Vaccinations might be dangerous,” the headline is “VACCINES ARE AUTISM ROOOAAAARRR.” Headlines stick, and then they snowball, because that’s how it works. When someone gets on stage and shrieks that “vaccines contributed to autism,” they’re not raising awareness of autism or opening up dialogues about it; they’re fostering a generation of alarmist supermoms who will say “No” to every single vaccination all too quickly, because the headline is still lodged in their brain, regardless of what comes after.
Think I’m wrong? Do you remember what happened the first time an idiot publicly ran his mouth about measles mumps and rubella vaccinations leading to autism? Rates of MMR inoculation dropped by over 10 percent almost immediately. But don’t worry, not everything went down. One statistic went skyrocketing from 56 all the way up to 1,348. Do you know what that statistic was? The number of confirmed diagnoses of fucking measles. Oh, and by the way, the doctor who published that initial study, the one that planted the seed of doubt by initially claiming that vaccinations cause autism? He faked his results, and the headline of his fake study still infects society today.
Celebrity Culture
Now, Jenny McCarthy, I’m not saying that autism isn’t heartbreaking, and I’m sure you want someone to blame, and more importantly you want to do something to prevent autism for the future. Also, you want to be mad, like everyone else in your position.
I know this.
But I also know that, in general, people like to listen to the nice, good-looking people that talk on their televisions. And you’re one of those people, Jenny McCarthy, so you can’t just get mad like everyone else. You are an Oprah-certified celebrity on a daytime talk show; People are going to eat up what you say. This is a celebrity culture, so for better or worse, there is a large chunk of the population that is going to listen to and often follow the example of its prettiest celebrities. People donate to Darfur relief when George Clooney smiles at them, they buy fuel efficient cars when Leonardo DiCaprio furrows his brow and I once took formal karate lessons for a year because I thought it might make the Pink Power Ranger love me.
One day, Kimberly. One Day.
Sure, there are doctors to ask, and the research is out there but, unfortunately, the things that celebrities say resonate more with the public than the things that doctors say. It’s awful, but it’s true. According to Science, we do this because “evolutionary pressures acting on a tribal group of protohumans instilled in us an instinctive need to listen to authority figures.” So doing what an authority figure tells us is wired into our brains. The problem, Science argues, is that we’ve confused “famous” with “authority,” and that’s what makes us turn a skeptical eye on our doctors while at the same time spouting off half-remembered, misleading statistics we heard from that pretty lady on Oprah’s show. Why do you think politicians go nuts for celebrity endorsements? They know that their speeches, policies and experience mean nothing if their opponent can get their picture taken with Will Smith.
“Get jiggy with alternate sources of fuel!”
Talking Out of Your Ass
All I’m really asking, Jenny McCarthy, is that you understand the influence you have as a pretty, Oprah-anointed TV star and you be careful with it. A typical McCarthy justification for believing a relationship between vaccines and autism is that she “just knows” or she “can just feel it,” based on her own personal observations as a parent, and her movement gains momentum by other parents that feel it or “know it to be true.” In one video, I heard her say “Contrary to scientific belief, autism is not genetic and I truly believe it is a genetic vulnerability.” You know why science never says it “truly believes” anything? Because it’s fucking science. Which isn’t to say that science is infallible, just that I respect that science won’t say that a vaccine is good for you because it “believes” in it. Doctors do research and perform exhaustive and expensive studies (in fact, because the vaccine issue was so high profile, they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and several years studying and restudying vaccinations so much, that, as a result, they couldn’t examine any other potential causes of autism). If you’re going to be a spokeswoman, you need to know what you’re talking about and do actual research, not just quoting articles that bend to your beliefs.
Take me for example. I’m no expert on medicine. All I did was sort of study it for a while and read every available piece of literature on the subject of vaccinations in preparation for this column. But I’m also kind of an idiot. So, as I do with most matters I don’t fully understand, I decided to turn to a trusted, educated source to get a second opinion. I called my mom, who has been a for-real working nurse for many years and also makes this one pasta dish that’ll knock your goddamned socks off.
DOB: Hey, Mommy, it’s Daniel. Is there any link between vaccination and autism?
MOM: A lot of people think there is, and they want to believe there is, but there just isn’t enough evidence to support it. There have been countless, extensive studies into the matter, and there’s no link. The case was just brought before Congress, where it was ruled that there was no causation.
DOB: So why do people think there’s a link?
MOM: Well, we do have more vaccinations today, and autism is on the rise, which may be too cozy a coincidence for some people. And another problem is that autism by its nature will manifest in infancy, between 18 months and three or four years, and that’s also when babies are receiving their vaccinations, which is probably why people assume the correlation. Now, we still don’t know what’s causing the current rise in autism, but as of now there is no link.
DOB: Booya.
MOM: Yes.
DOB: One more question. Give me the recipe for that pasta that you make that I love.
MOM: Never.
-Click-
While I can’t say the call ended exactly the way I wanted it to (what’s that spice? It’s thyme, isn’t it? Is it thyme? IS IT THYME?!), I can say that there’s more to this issue than saying “I believe there’s a link to autism.” I also believe that there’s a chance I’m wrong. And maybe 10 years down the line, somehow, a link will be discovered, and it’ll turn out that Jenny McCarthy was some kind of psychic.
But just in case Congress, my mom and me and science are right, don’t listen to Jenny McCarthy.
This entry was posted on Friday, May 15th, 2009 at 4:00 am and is filed under Autism, Celebrities, Celebrities are Beautiful, Jenny McCarthy, The least funny article ever.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
November 3rd, 2009 at 6:36 pm
I posted this link on my facebook. I’m sorry Jenny but you really are just sad that your child is autistic and wish that there was something you could have done to save him. I feel for her but there is no reason to say no to vaccines ( that have saved millions of lives) because your kid has a certain condition you’d rather he didn’t have.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Everyone who loses a child to the lack of herd immunity should send a picture of their child to her, informing her she is responsible for the death of a child.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:59 am
While I don’t claim to be a doctor or an expert in medicine, I have seen that some vaccines do have harmful side effects. My cousin, who is 12 and perfectly healthy, went to get a vaccine once, and 10 minutes later, she had passed out in the doctor’s office. Now this doesn’t mean that every darn vaccine out there is dangerous, but one should do some research before blindly agreeing to something because the doctor says so.
October 17th, 2009 at 6:32 am
You know, I wish I could say, “So what? Let the stupid parents keep their children unvaccinated. Then when their kids get snuffed out, it’ll be natural selection at work, making sure the stupid parent’s genes aren’t being passed on.”
But that’s not how vaccinations work. If you want to protect a population, virtually EVERYBODY has to be vaccinated.
October 16th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
There’s a great website that debunks a lot of Jenny’s nonsense. Check out: stopjenny.com
October 3rd, 2009 at 5:38 am
all jennys good for is jizzing on
shes got no brains
i’d love to duct tape her to some train tracks
and let an autism-train run that bitch the fuck over, yadddadadaaadameeeeeen?????
September 18th, 2009 at 7:55 am
Thyme is an herb, not a spice. I still love you DOB.
September 16th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
she said something about mercury in the vacs like that contributes to autism…. if true, isn’t there quite a bit of mercury in fish and other seafood? When you are pregnant, doctors tell you cut back on seafood because of the mercury…so maybe the pregnant moms aren’t taking that advice then end up with autistic kids. Just an idea..
September 9th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
What Jenny McCarthy is proposing barely makes any sense at all. She should stfu and disappear so people don’t have to listen to her ass talking nonsense.
September 1st, 2009 at 9:04 am
Ah, good ol’ DOB.
Anywho, I’m actually a high-functioning autistic individual- found out about it a couple of years ago. It hasn’t really affected my life too much, I think, but I know that there are others out there with more severe conditions. As a result, I’m all for finding a way to fix autism.
However, here’s the divide: I got no problem with vaccines. It’s just a way of protecting me from FUCKING DISEASES. Malaria? Fuck, if I join the military, I might get deployed there, jam that goddamn needle into my arm already! Flu? Hell, I don’t need to be catching a cold every five seconds, go ahead. Hell, I’m already somewhat autistic, it can’t damage me THAT bad, can it?
I mean, seriously- when I have kids, I’m going to make sure they have every clinically tested vaccine that they can fit in a needle. No foolin’.
August 30th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
This is one of the most reasonable and thoughtful articles on the topic of vaccinations and their relationship to autism. I’m studying to go into public health, and the current public attitude towards vaccinations is deeply concerning, but nobody seems to be able to sit down and have an intelligent logical discussion about the topic. Thank you for providing a reasonably impartial introduction to it.
August 11th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
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August 8th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
I suppose I’m a bit sympathetic towards Jenny.
It just seems that she’s doing all of this out of guilt. She can’t live with the idea that it could be genetic— hence it could be partly her fault — so she blames SCIENCE!
August 8th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Jenny McCarthy has crazy eyes. Further proof of my theory that anyone whose eyes look crazy/are open too wide at all times (or who makes that stupid, smug smile/frown) are fundamentally insane.
August 8th, 2009 at 10:14 am
My brother never received his childhood vaccines because of a congenital condition, at the age of 19 months he began displaying signs associated with autism, at the age of 5 he was officially diagnosed with autism and appears very high on the autistic spectrum.
He developed autism around the time he would have received his vaccinations, because that is the age it usually starts developing, not because of a vaccination that is safely administered to millions of children every year.
I would suspect that this ‘autism/vaccination’ link is more of a sociological experiment to prove just how much propaganda can be disguised behind a pretty blond and be accepted as truth. Don’t believe me? there is more evidence to support my theory than there is to prove the autism theory, I just don’t happen to be a pretty blond on Oprah.
August 8th, 2009 at 1:43 am
Correlation does not imply causation.
Can we please move on?
August 3rd, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Thank you, Daniel O’ Brien.
I’m so sick of these fading D celebrities propping themselves up as reliable sources of information on serious, life threatening issues as a way to keep their career awkwardly trudging along. Regardless of this theoretical link between autism and vaccinations, people have to learn to stop taking these damn opportunists seriously, no matter how much our DNA tells us to listen to the biggest boobs in the room. I wish that more articles like this one were being published, but I realize your coverage of the twilight fags at ComicCon is equally important.
Appreciate your serious streak, though
August 3rd, 2009 at 12:18 pm
agreed DanFraley. But I move for money to be put towards the research “seeing Michael Bay leading to brain hemorrhages”
August 2nd, 2009 at 2:52 am
“# John Says:
July 20th, 2009 at 8:10 am
My wife is a licensed physician.
Our kids are NOT vaccinated.
You connect the dots.”
Okay–Your kids are at risk of not only getting sick themselves with curable diseases but can transmit them to other people?
July 27th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Jaime H: “Vaccines may not cause autism but theres not finally all telling truth that they dont contribute to it”
There’s also no “all telling truth” that Lucky Charms doesn’t cause cancer, maybe we should start a movement for that. As long as we’re in the business of “well, it hasn’t been proven true, but it hasn’t been proven definitively false either”, lets just go crazy.
For my first hypothesis as part of the “prove me wrong” project:
*There’s no definitive proof that Jenny McCarthy doesn’t make people dumber by listening to her
July 24th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
McCarthyism … not just for communists anymore.
July 22nd, 2009 at 3:15 am
First of all, thyme is an herb not a spice. Second, I think Dr. McCarthy is right. I also think that the cure for autism is her letting me go in through the out door. If that doesn’t work, she can introduce me to Lisa Dergan and we’ll continue the experiment. It’s the scientific method.
July 21st, 2009 at 6:28 am
Ahh the good ol’ faulty correlation. We have more vaccinations these days, and Autism is on the rise. Ergo: vaccines cause Autism.
Earth’s temperature has steadily risen since the 1500’s, Pirates have steadily been in decline. Ergo: lack of Pirates causes global warming.
Although, I’d be alright with people not getting vaccinated. The population needs to be reduced somehow and if it’s through our own idiocy, well so be it.
July 20th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
wow. it seems like alot of people take this site/artical way too seriously. i mean, autism is serious and horrid, thats undeniable, but still, this isn’t a scientific research website or anything. its a website with funny articles.
And to the author, funny as always, love your work.
July 20th, 2009 at 8:10 am
My wife is a licensed physician.
Our kids are NOT vaccinated.
You connect the dots.
July 19th, 2009 at 12:16 am
What? Like… 100% of kids born since the 80s get vaccinated like a vaccination-getting kid should? Why aren’t we all au-fucking-tistic, then?
July 18th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Chuck…
…
July 17th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Are there documented cases of children getting autism who were not vaccinated?
July 13th, 2009 at 12:34 am
Some of you probably don’t know this but correlation studies don’t prove anything. just because kids who are autistic and most of them have taken a certain vaccine does not mean it is the vaccine. these studies only determine relationships of two things but not causes. only experimental studies determine if those relationships are coincendental or not. they have done these studies and still do not know what causes autism. so please DO NOT LISTEN TO CORRELATION STUDIES!!!!!
July 11th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
how much were you paid to write this article. not only are you uninformed but you sound more fearful of her findings than she is of vaccines. look, the truth is there is a definate link between vaccines and autism. which is tragic because there shouldn’t be. its simple make vaccines without the preservative that causes mercury poisoning otherwise known as autism and everyone’s happy. shouldnt you be spreading michael jackson rumors or something?
July 11th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Hello there.
I am a student studying at the University of Illinois, which is probably why I’m reading cracked.com in the first place. I’ve been glancing over the comments and noticing a lot of “sheeple” claims and distraught mothers who asks you to kindly shut the hell up. Here are some of my favorites:
“It also seems quite obvious you have no real connection to autism other then a general understanding. It is truly hard to for a passionate opinion on the whole when you can’t put a face to the heartbreak.”
“I hope you know-it-alls have a child on the spectrum.
Then you can join the rest of us desperate parents who will try anything to help our little ones.
…
Laugh it up. Autism will find some of your children and wipe the smirk right off your face.”
As a member of the community, someone diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome at a young age, with all the symptoms you mothers so desperately freak out over: flailing limbs, disregard for safety, no communication until I was 9-NINE-I would like to kindly ask you to please be quiet, Autism is not the plague. Also, a cursory look at the New England Journal of Medicine would show that as of yet, there is no link. While there may be one we don’t quite know about yet, it’s worth researching. Till then, shut the hell up. It’s doing me and many more people in the spectrum a disservice to be protected like we’re still 8, even though some people may be that mental age.
Thank you.
July 11th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Oooo yeah and in regards to mercury content in vaccinations… Pregnant women are allowed to eat fish that contain more mercury than the amount that is actually in vaccinations…
July 11th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Okay so my heart goes out to all the parents and children who have and are dealing with autism, it’s a bad situation all around and it’s heartbreaking and I have a two year old that if anything goes wrong I’m constantly back tracking to figure out what had caused it. That is, until take her to the Dr. and find out WHAT IS REALLY WRONG. I don’t sit there and go well my kid came out of my vagina so I know better than you *blows raspberries*. Yes, mother’s intuition is real, however when the cause of something of this nature, especially in children is not yet determined but the main idea all of these nut job anti vac mommies have has been disproved I’d start looking elsewhere to point my finger rather than sounding like an idiot. That’s like sitting there saying, ” NO THE EARTH IS FLAT AND YOU’LL FALL OFF!” and everyone else going ooooKay there sparky we determined the truth about all that a while back and this is why and someone wants to still stick with their retarded ass beliefs… MMkay.. In conclusion, anyone who has a child with Jim Carrey should have prepared for the worst..
July 10th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
It doesn’t matter if you have a connection with autism, that just makes you more likely to believe anything. All that matters is facts. You know what else has went up? The amount of children born.
July 7th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
I hope you know-it-alls have a child on the spectrum.
Then you can join the rest of us desperate parents who will try anything to help our little ones.
Yeah, JM is an idiot, and harms the AA movement. Keep in mind that nobody has the slightest clue what causes autism.
My experience: Our child was born IGG and IGA deficient. He got viral meningitis and developed a fever of 102f.
Shortly thereafter he became withdrawn and began flapping his hands. He wouldn’t look at me any more.
As a parent, you WILL try a gluten-free diet. You WILL try listening therapy. You’ll try any goddamn thing you think might help, and things you know probably wont. This is because you love your kid and you can’t afford not to.
Laugh it up. Autism will find some of your children and wipe the smirk right off your face.
July 7th, 2009 at 7:15 am
Hitler finds out about Jacko’s death! (video): http://michael-jackson-dead-jokes.blogspot.com/2009/07/hitler-finds-out-about-jackos-death.html
July 6th, 2009 at 7:30 am
“I do not have a degree in medicine nor do I do constant research on the subject…”
Oh ok…then shut your fucking mouth asshole.
The reality is, everyone is out to make a buck or get their time in the spotlight. EVERYONE. People are selfish and greedy, and that pretty much fuels 99% of society.
So what is my point? My point is that there are an untold number of people who could literally make a career out of some finding that would cripple the vaccine industry. A scientist would earn his place in history books and receive an untold number of grants for conducting a study that demonstrated truth of any of these vaccine claims. That’s precisely why that asshole in England faked his results. Just as there are many people who would lose lots of money from evidence connecting vaccines to autism, there are many many more who would potentially benefit immensly from the same. They keep trying, and keep failing, but that doesn’t stop human stupidity from continuing to air it’s smelly crap-hole all over the internet.
July 4th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I was born with Hyperlexia, a form of High-Functioning Autism similar to Asperger’s Syndrome. Having said that, I’m completely disgusted with half of the crap that’s come out of Jenny McCarthy’s mouth. The woman is completely ignorant to the workings of medicine and should be ashamed for what she says and does to autistics everywhere.
July 4th, 2009 at 4:32 am
While I understand the point of view you are coming from on this subject. It also seems quite obvious you have no real connection to autism other then a general understanding. It is truly hard to for a passionate opinion on the whole when you can’t put a face to the heartbreak. As a person who sees the affect of autism daily what Jenny is doing is brave. There is research out there you just have to dig. And some doctors wont approve it because in the long run it will show they are wrong in what the practice and preach. Vaccines may not cause autism but theres not finally all telling truth that they dont contribute to it. If you are sick and your immune system is pumped fully of other illnesses can you fight them all off? most likely not. As with those with autism who is to say some children at birth can not handle all the infection and disease they are given and their parents stick to the CDC schedule. Of course I totally understand science isnt an “I Think” situation, however our “Docotors” need to wake up and realize that the newly added vaccines we give our kids may not be healthy. not to mention doctors who play “Catch up” or give kids vaccines when they obviously aren’t in the best of health. I do not have a degree in medicine nor do I do constant research on the subject I just dont like to see the defenseless children with autism getting their tiny shot at hope taken away.
July 3rd, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Jenny McCarthy. Yuk
Self indulgent, opionionated, loud mouthed tramp. A typical example of the dangers from combination of low intellect and pig headedness.
July 2nd, 2009 at 8:25 am
Has anyone actually read her book? Its a great piece of literature, if you like twenty chapters of Jenny describing how terrible having an autistic son is and one chapter on actually bothering to try to help the poor kid. Honestly I haven’t ever seen such a blatant attempt to use your child for money. Jenny doesn’t care about vaccines, she cares about the fact that only people who read Playboy knew her name before this. Congrats bitch, you are famous.
July 1st, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Vaccinations cause autism….yeah, right. I know that’s unscientific bullshit, and you know how I know? Me and my two brothers are very close in age. We all had the same freakin’ vaccinations as children. I’m autistic. They aren’t. And I’m pretty sure I got it from my dad, based on the knowledge I have NOW. Too bad that when I was a kid, you had to be a pretty extreme case to get noticed and diagnosed. I’m glad that now there’s knowledge and help available for people who have some kind of ASD, I just wish it had happened a long time ago.
June 30th, 2009 at 11:05 am
ya man thyme is an herb
and autistic baby is better then dead baby
autism messes your kid the fuck up true but even if vaccines do cause autism(not likely) it’s probably preferable to your kid dying from measles
June 29th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Thyme isn’t a spice!
June 29th, 2009 at 6:14 am
Skylight are you retarded? People are sicker than ever is your claim? then why are people living longer than they have in history? And all the pills and what not you mentioned treat mental and behavioral problems with the exception of cholesterol medication which even an idiot could see is on the rise because of the advent of fast foods which are woefully unhealthy but afforadble and easily obtained for most Americans (e.g. non rich people) Vaccines save lives period if they do any lasting harm (which they probably don’t) then the benefits FAR out way the potential drawbacks
June 26th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
@ Q
That’s weird, I actually did that.
June 24th, 2009 at 1:43 am
Thermisol was long ago prohibited from vaccines - not because there was some actual proof that it caused autism, but because of public complaints about it. There has been absolutely no decrease in autism since then. What the hell are you supposed to do? Well, now they’re claiming it’s the aluminum, which they also have no evidence for. Let’s face it. Vaccines HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH AUTISM. DIETS DON’T CURE AUTISM JENNA. YOUR KID WAS MISDIAGNOSED.
June 24th, 2009 at 12:28 am
@Jason:
Stop with your pathetic scare-mongering. Oh noes! aborted fetus! Puh-leeze. Yea, it’s about the money, but that goes for both sides, wise guy. No one’s telling you to take the scientists’ conclusions as gospel. If you really want to know, why don’t you go and read those same research publications detailing the correlation between autism and vaccines? Then decide for yourself. But no, you’ll probably just take your cues from people like McCarthy & company who “just know” that vaccines cause autism.
The idea that correlation implies causation is the number one logical fallacy committed by dumbfucks across the internetz. If you jerked off to Jenny McCarthy the same day that Air France flight crashed into the ocean, then that couldn’t possibly be a coincidence! Quick! Make haste and rein in those blue balls lest more should perish.
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:55 pm
This article was written by an ignorant fucking idiot… Do you even know what is in some vaccinations? Horse blood, sheeps blood, monkey brain, aborted fetus… before you elevate scientists and doctors on even higher pedestals than most people already have, why don’t you do a little research. Anything a scientist says is taken as gospel and no one could ever believe that a doctor didn’t have their total care and health in mind…. its all about the $$$ you fools.
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Skylight, you are as deluded as Jenny McCarthy.
Your use of the phrase “big pharma” shows that you are just a conspiracy theorist who can’t take into account the fact that the scientists and drug companies working day and night to cure diseases might actually want to be reimbursed for their time and effort.
Your claim that people are sicker than ever is a non-sequitor, and you don’t provide any evidence to support this fact, whatever you are trying to prove by using it.
Calling the opinions of trained and licensed doctors, “gospel,” shows that you have no respect for the concept of scientific consensus and shows your complete lack of understanding about how science itself functions.
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Whether Jenny is right or wrong she has great courage speaking up against big pharma and other vested interests. We have had two hundred years of vaccinations and while smallpox and polio are not big killers anymore, people are sicker than ever. Almost everyone is on medications, ritalin, anti-depressants, allergy medicine, heart-blood pressure-cholesterol, the pill, hormones etc. Highly infectious diseases have been greatly reduced most likely because of much better public hygiene, clean water and washing. Those parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids are generally much more educated and informed than the average person who accepts as gospel what their doctors say. I personally know many unvaccinated kids and they are much healthier than their peers.
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:45 pm
An excellent place to read more is at the Skeptical Inquirer. Besides a Roy Richard Grinker interview is an excellent article, The Anti-Vaccination Movement, by Steven Novella. Even Temple Grandin, the world’s most famous spokesperson for autism who is herself autistic, does not support this hype. It is the cheap-intellect, petty, assaulting, lying nature current culture has cultivated that “truth” has become so disgustingly abused and distorted. What a shame that we live in an age of un-reason with all that is available for our education and understanding.
June 22nd, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Fuckin’ A, sir.
I saw a magazine cover over a year ago with her proclaiming she’d found the “dietary cure” for her son’s Autism. I almost hurled on the spot. TWO of my brothers are on the Spectrum- no, there’s no genetic component what so ever, it’s just those darned vaccines and all that nasty fucking gluten. -Never mind that all six of us (siblings) ate the same foods and got the same shots… *sigh* Desperation and ignorance.
June 21st, 2009 at 8:21 am
sigh . . . Autism is not on the rise. I am a graduate student in psychology and have worked with individuals with autism for a decade now and can speak with some confidence on this topic. The criteria for diagnosing autism changed drastically in 1970 and again in the early 90’s with the revisions of the DSM. These changes in diagnostic criteria and growing awareness of autism due to advocacy groups increased the rate of diagnosis. The widening of diagnostic criteria to include PDD (pervasive development disorders) and Asperger’s Syndrome as part of of a spectrum of autistic syndromes greatly increased the number of individuals getting diagnosed. Furthermore, many people with autism were previously diagnosed as MR (mentally retarded). In fact, the rate of diagnosis of MR has DECREASED in the same period.
For more information, I suggest reading Unstrange Minds by Grinker. He is a cultural anthropologist and does a fantastic job addressing these issues.
Jenny McCarthy is frightening not only because of her anti_vaccination crusade (the original study linking them autism was proven to have been falsified(, but she also claims that her son has “recovered” or been cured. She gives desperate parents false hope for a cure and has them chasing ineffective treatments (gluten-free diet, rebirthing etc.). The best form of intervention for children with autism has been shown to be early intervention, ABA, and social skills training.
June 21st, 2009 at 3:07 am
Remember that Jenny McCarthy is closing in on 40, was supplanted by Heidi Montag in the Idiotic Artificially-Breasted Blonde department, and is pretty much unemployable in any other industry because she dropped out of nursing school to pose for Playboy. It’s either this or she does reality TV, and we all saw how well reality TV worked out for fellow Idiotic Artificially-Breasted Blonde Anna Nicole Smith.
June 20th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
It’s impossible to ignore that there isn’t some connection between the vaccinations and his current state, even if it’s only in this case
So, if i eat poison, then get vacinated and die. Its the vaccine. Your seeing a connection because you want to.
Everyone in history who drank water is dead, or will die. Clearly water is deadly.
June 20th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
This article is way too apologetic to the bitch. Don’t hold back with all that “please don’t take what I’m saying out of context” crap, this bimbo is the worst thing to ever hit the world of autism research. You left out her comments about her son is now “cured” of autism… The comments followed by the ones that her son still has autism. A type of autism which she’s never been able to identify more specifically. You also missed out on her promotion of dangerous chelation therapy to extract metals from the bodies of autistic children.
The truth is, autism is on the rise because we’re able to identify it better. If you look up the autistic spectrum disorders in today’s DSM compared to one just twenty years ago, it’s a lot more thorough.
June 20th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Great article, DOB.
This reminded me of Dooce’s piece on refusing vaccinations: http://www.dooce.com/2009/04/07/word-or-two-about-vaccinations
June 19th, 2009 at 5:36 am
Mr. O’Brien, Bless You!!!
For too long, celebrities mouthing crap have had too much influence on society as a whole. On this particular issue (autism) it is sooo hurtful to mislead parents of autistic children on what happened, and frighten new parents away from vaccines.
Research has shown that the age of the parents (not just Mom), and genetics, play a large role. They have also started doing research into why more boys than girls develop autism, which may throw more light the genetics involved.
Great article - I hope everyone who reads this posts a link in a public forum.
June 18th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
While I do agree that most of the celebrity advocates for this issue don’t have a god damn clue in regards to what they’re talking about, I do have to things to say:
1. Thymerisol is touted as being one of the few mercury-containing compounds that is expungible by the human body. Has there been any conclusive evidence of this?
2. My older brother recieved an MMR vaccine at around eighteen months of age, in 1989. The following night, he held a temperature of 103.5 degrees and spewed green foam out of his mouth. In the months following this, he began to demonstrate the developmental problems associated with autism. While I want to believe that there’s no connection between these two, I find it impossible to not draw it. This has caused severe problems in his emotional development, and has had a profound effect on everyone who has lived with him. He is now twenty and is unable to pursue a career because of his illness.
But I digress.
It’s impossible to ignore that there isn’t some connection between the vaccinations and his current state, even if it’s only in this case. I beseech other readers to actually process what it is that they’re saying. Science is not infallible, and there may be more cases like this one out there that prove some sort of link.
June 18th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Oddly enough research is now pointing more and more to the power rangers and there link to autism; the pink one being the source of repetitive head banging.
Sorry if the joke has already been made, I’m too lazy to actually read through the comments, ie: illiterate.
June 18th, 2009 at 8:34 am
you are adorable.
June 16th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Thank you for the well written article! As the mom of a child with Autism ( NOT “autistic child” - he’s my kid 1st, his disability does NOT define him!), and a licensed sp. ed. teacher I can unequivocally say: Jenny McCarthy DOES NOT speak for me. Autism is a neurological condition that varies in severity on a spectrum whose symptoms most often show up between 12 mos - 4 yrs. Yes these do coincide with the vaccination timelines– but they also fall within the developmental milestones of communication, social, fine motor, and response to sensory stimulation. The brain and nervous system are under INTENSE change and growth daily, and sometimes the nervous system will stall when they catch up to the genes. So children who were progressing in “typical” developmental stages will stop or even regress. I have seen, heard, assessed and studied many cases like this. I knew something was amiss with my son before 18 months, before some of the BIG vaccinations. Maybe we are seeing the rates grow because we are SO much better at assessing, diagnosing and treating ASD. How many kiddos were housed in institutions, languishing in “special classes”, falling through the cracks and marginalized as the “weird” kids or society freaks? How many adults are still hiding in their parents basements, with low social/ communication skills, and low tolerance for sensory stimulus?? Thank God for early intervention. Jenny McCarthy can say her son is cured. He may be. More likey is that due to her warrior instincts and big $$$ she got him FANTASTIC therapies that trained him in some great coping skills to make him appear indistinguishgable from his peers. (similar to a great prosthetic on an amputee). The thing is, as his environments change and his social, sensory, and communication climates alter as he grows and develops, he most likely will need continued training and therapy to help him navigate the changes.
But I digress, in my kids’ case, however, EVEN if vaccinations DID cause or contribute to his ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), I’d rather be the mother of an ALIVE kid w/ Autism than the mom of a dead “typical” kid. Thus, even after he was diagnosed, when our next 2 kids arrived at the clinic– the vaccinations were welcomed. Autism isn’t a death sentence, but the sicknesses are.
June 16th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
There has been studies on autism and vaccines, actually.
Now that a lot of kids are unvaccinated, comparing the rates of autism with vaccinated kids is straigthforward. If vaccin causes autism, vaccinated kids would have a higher chance of getting autism than unvaccinated ones.
They don’t.
The percentage of kids who gets autism is the same in both groups.
By now, we KNOW that vaccines don’t cause autism. There is no debate in science.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
The latest research suggests a possible link between autism and older fathers - old balls making the sperm means greater likelihood of something going wrong in the ol’ genetic replication.
But as a middle aged single guy who hopes to have kids, I applaud all of the ignorant dimwitted women who will obsess and worry but not bother to do any actual research, even on the internet, much less walking to this thing called a “library” and having someone who is an expert at finding information (they’re called “reference librarians”) help them actually learn what the experts currently think. For free!
Nah, they’ll suck up the “instincts” of blondezilla as she desperately exploits the fears of mothers and mothers-to-be in a pathetic attempt to create a second act to her joke of a career.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
DOB you’ve stolen my heart. You, me, and the Pink Ranger should get together.
June 14th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Ahhhhh. The pink ranger.
June 13th, 2009 at 12:38 am
Hey Rotcod. Why do you want kids to die? Vaccines work. They do. Also, the world is round. Get with reality. And where did you get your statistics? I’m assuming that they come from your ass, but I’ll give you a chance to cite sources. You know, what scientists do.
June 12th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
damn the other one didn’t take now i really look like a idiot. Well got to go nurse screaming
June 12th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
now that i think about it germany and sick babies doesn’t quite go well together. Well at least I am not german.
June 12th, 2009 at 11:54 am
This is a self-limiting problem. The dumber people will fall for this bull and they will have kids who die of whooping cough or something, and therefore will not pass genes onto the next generation. Survival of the fittest.
June 12th, 2009 at 9:34 am
Fuck you DOB. If you are going to write about something this important, you need to get your facts straight.
Thyme is not a spice!!! Its an herb
Even the Colonel knows the difference between herbs and spices.
June 8th, 2009 at 4:39 am
Just because there isn’t enough evidence to say Jenny McCarthy is right doesn’t mean science says she’s wrong. In fact, medicine is a pretty inaccurate and not well understood cousin of science thats mixed in with the monetary needs of giant drug companies that need more, more, MORE! OM NOM NOM! (sorry, I’m imagining The Blob). That’s beside the point. The important thing to understand is that the benefits of vaccination far outweigh the risks. You can have an epidemic with masses of deaths because everyone decides not to vaccinate their kids or you can have a few cases of autism. Granted, no one wants their kid to be retarded but thats better than dead.
June 8th, 2009 at 2:38 am
Experts vs. celebrities: it always comes down to mob support of irrational babbering in the face of research and evidence. Woohoo. Get me famous and I’ll say that ADD is caused by dangerous materials in any children’s medication.
June 7th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
EVERY COMMENT LEFT BEFORE AND AFTER MY COMMENT IS NOW RENDERED FUCKING POINTLESS.
ALL OF YOU ARE SHEEP.
June 7th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Gotta say, Back in her day, Jenny McCarthy was pretty fuckin smokin hot! (and TOTALY bangable) Alas, shes gone the way of Farrah, Zha Zha, Sophia, and Raquel, Noone gives a crap about “causes” and “awareness”, these washed up flavor of the month ex-starlets need to realize its over baby, Britney still got some pull, But Miley shell be fresh for a good coulpla years! Booya!
June 7th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Also, I looked at that sites basis for antibodies not correlating to immunity. It is literally just a collection of out of context quotes. Science does’nt work this way. Find me double blind studies, full publications in respectable journals, or mechanistic models, because I’m pretty sure quote mining is not science.
June 7th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Sharman what is this “True Immunity” you speak of? I was under the impression from my microbiology classes and from my immunology classes that humoral immunity is primarily centered on recognition of surface proteins of the pathogenic organisms and the construction of antibodies against these recognized surface proteins. Now, where does this true immunity differ or are you just speaking out of your fat uneducated ass?
June 7th, 2009 at 5:08 am
I worked in a bookstore and would have these arguments with customers, I refused to give them ‘positive’ reviews about it, I would just say sometimes we like to believe bad things because we wanted an easy answer to a harder question and then I referred them to several scientific journals that they may want to read first.
June 6th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Well done for writing this article. It’s great to see this being talked about outside the ‘halls of science’. People like McCarthy -why, personally, I’ll never know- hold such sway in the mainstream and for this sort of level-headed article to be heard above the noise can be tough.
Well done and anyone reading the above article would be well served to disengage from the UNFOUNDED, I repeat, UNFOUNDED shrieking of Jenny McCarthy and her minions.
June 5th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
QUOTE-# Gueibor Says:
May 19th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
I’m not an expert in herd immunity, but if it means some anti-vaccine idiot’s brat is going to infect my kids with some disease that shouldn’t even exist anymore, it pisses me off big time.
On the other hand, if that is not the case and stupid people’s unvaccinated children are going to die while mine live to grow into non-idiotic parents, then so be it. May even save us from Idiocracy.
Go Darwin!-end quote-
hey sicko! do your poor kids a favor and dig deep into this site
http://vaclib.org
you don’t know one thing about vaccinations and could not tell me the culture materials used in vaccination manufacturing.
you could not tell me the history of the cycles of diseases or plagues. You could not tell me the name of the virus found in lung and brain cancers that were sourced back to the culture material of the SALK VACCINE-
Those born prior to 1960 were so minimally vaccinated and we all had all of the childhood diseases that you are so afraid of due to your ignorance and/or confidence in nursing your own children if in fact they do get the next wild measles that come round your way.
Read some Adelle Davis who tells how to treat and remedy your children through sickness and in health.
There was a mumps outbreak in this country-guess the percentages of vaccinated children who caught it? a wild measles outbreak-again the ones who got it were ALL vaccinated.
We all used to get those diseases and acquired TRUE IMMUNITIES which vaccinations DO NOT PROVIDE. And no, I would rather have my healthy child get any of them rather than be autistic like some other pathetico said she would prefer.
I am an anti-vaccination advocate-I’ve made that decision and have absolute conviction in my decisions based on educating myself. Tons of info out there for anyone who wants to educate themselves and give their egos a time out.
June 5th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
autism awareness? i’m aware of it. now go away.
June 5th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
I think to many breast augmentations cause this not the vaccines. Silicon gives you big fun bags and retarded kids, a more likely link. Where is that study?
June 5th, 2009 at 9:48 am
I am not an immunologist and hence have no knowledge in the full physiological machinations behind this, but as a trained ecologist I can say one thing, if a human was going to look for a trend s/he’ll find it. A lot of science is really a chronicle of man’s futile effort to make a perfect relationship when it’s impossible to have one; there’s always going to be exceptions to a rule and in some cases, no real rule at all.
Different people will react to a certain stimulus in different ways, in the case of vaccines, most kids don’t turn out autistic? Some one probably will through some bizarre quirky alignment of physiological processes. The problem lies in the media. Even if the Earth had a bajillion kids, and just one of them actually became autistic as a direct result of vaccination, we’d hear no end to it, substantiating the existence of panic merchants like Jenny McCarthy et al and creating a whole hive of alarmists; it’s pitchforks and torches in another era.
June 5th, 2009 at 9:00 am
As a pediatrician who has to deal with Jenny McCarthy questions every damned day, I approve of this article.
June 5th, 2009 at 8:22 am
Maybe the rise in Autism is do to the rise in old ladies giving birth. Old eggs = retarded babies.
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:07 pm
D.O.B I respect you even more now because you have taken the opportunity to discuss a topic that is actually serious and has an affect on society, because you feel strongly about it.
What that means is you can be funny as fuck, but also, when things are serious, you can make a valid argument, much more competently than anyone on television.
This is the kind of shit that raises autism awareness. You nailed it.
congrats
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Also, another question I am perfectly aware of how vaccines aid the immune system. But, would any of you who propose that vaccines can cause autism like to formulate a theory on how this occurs? I’ve heard the arguments that they contain bad things, bad things do bad stuff, and autism happens. Now, is their any formal biochemical or genetic theory into what you believe occurs? If not, besides vaccines occuring at around the same time as autism surfaces, what the hell is your argument for stating that they are in any way related?
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Than the corporations act all corporationy…. This issue here is that you can believe that there is a huge conspiracy, that ever pharmaceutical company is out to get you and your money, and that all sciencetists are out to get your money. The truth is it is highly unlikely any of us here have done actual research into autism. I don’t mean read some stuff on the internet or read it in a scientific journal. I mean being in the lab or clinic performing the trial. Thus, what we have to go on is experts in their fields. Major scientific journals (Nature, Science, etc.) are an absolute bitch to get published in due lengthy review processes. Now, you can bitch and whine, and say that there is a huge scientific conspiracy about how they all are being paid to support whatever is best for the megalithic corporations. However, I know several professors who do peer review work for major scientific journals. They have no connections to major pharmaceutical companies and to assume that they were contacted by shady agents in suits stretches the imagination to it’s limit. The thing is scientists are by and large less concerned about the monetary rewards of life, than the respect and sense of satisfaction discovery brings. They are always on the look out for bullshit because it demeans their personal triumphs. It could discuss the issue in a purely scientific manner with you but I imagine that you a. dont understand science, and b. are not willing to listen to logic. So, the question is which seems more likely, Many prestigous and important scientists are paid off and bought by big pharmacy, despite working in many different fields and in many different countries or that vaccines don’t cause autism, and the idea that they do is merely a sad attempt to have someone to blame for what is indeed a tradegy? Also on a side note ,anyone stating that since you don’t have kids you would’nt understand seems to be unaware that nature’s laws and the human body don’t make exceptions based on how “exceptional” your child is
June 3rd, 2009 at 3:33 pm
If vaccinations cause autism, why are there autistic kids who’ve never been vaccinated?
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:26 am
I think it spells out the obvious when 90% of the people commentating on this column have vaccinated children that are autistic, and some of them are even raising two or three autistic children, yet they still WANT to believe that vaccines are completely trustworthy and would rather blame it on crap genetics.
Alright, fine. If that’s what it takes to keep the fantasy alive, where we live in the magical land of moral and ethical non-profiteering pharmacutical companies that would never do such a terrible thing to our kids. Just ask a doctor, ANY doctor. Doctors knows ALL. Especially about raising kids. (just like most shrinks that have a fucked up home life.)
And some of these others commentators aren’t even parents yet, so they don’t yet have a clue as to why they are taking the time and initiative to defend vaccines. (maybe it has something to do with mild brainwashing, I don’t know!).
I mean, shouldn’t they be out there taking advantage of all that selfish free time on their hands? I know what I’d be doing if I wasn’t raising a family at the moment,
Drinkin’ Smokin’ and Fuckin’, just like on my days off.
But I definitely wouldn’t be here talking shit to others with opposing views about injecting you kids.
Sure, It’s okay to have an opinion on the issue, but wait until it’s your turn before trying to tell other people how to live their lives.
I’m not even telling you people not to get them vaccinated, because I’m not the one who has to live with your kid for 18+ years.
But I will say that raising children goes a lot smoother when they haven’t been brain-damaged by shot-after-shot full of poison and pig fetus.
But thats just my experience. Every kid is different.
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Do your research, Chris.
1. Thimerosol actually WAS removed from vaccines.
2. Ethyl Mercury was never tested in the way you state, that was Methyl Mercury, which is an entirely different compound.
3. Where are these newscasts that you’ve seen? do you have a youtube clip maybe?
4. Any definitive evidence that these vaccines aren’t doing “a bit of good”? Is the elimination of diseases with high child morbidity not good, or am I missing your point?
June 1st, 2009 at 10:51 am
Not that I completely agree with Jenny but i do think that the vaccines that we are given are not doing a bit of good for us. One of the main ingredients in about all of our vaccines is a compound called Thiomersal. Thiomersal is Ethyl Mercury (CH3-. Its used as a “preservative”. This compound does in fact cross the blood brain barrier and can cause serious complications, especially for baby boys who are more susceptible.
And for those of you who think mercury was taken out of our vaccines think again. Ive seen plenty of local news casts that try to explain to the public that mercury is actually good for you and that there is nothing to fear.
May 30th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
What I want to know is this: Say someone believes doctors are all in on a big conspiracy with big pharmaceutical companies to get your money when they tell you that you need to get your baby vaccinated. Why would this person then believe her doctor when her doctor says her baby has an “autism spectrum disorder”? I mean… hello. You can either believe doctors or not, but guess which medical issue makes doctors more money: standard, generic vaccines or diagnosing your kid with autism? Which one do you really think makes the most money out of the two? I’ll give you a little hint: my insurance carrier doesn’t make me pay anything at all for vaccinations.
May 30th, 2009 at 10:44 am
No link? Tell that to the several hundred thousand mothers who have healthy babies until the very day their child receives a vaccination. That is a lot more than a mere coincidence.
Congress isnt a board of doctors, theyre not qualified to make any judgements in this field at all. If there were no doctors who believed vaccinations to be playing a hand in autism this argument would have died long ago.
May 30th, 2009 at 9:20 am
Why is it that Jenni McCarthy looks like the female version of Jim Carey?…
Even theyer names are way too similar.. you know what, I think they are the same person….Thats why her/his kid is so retarded..
He, I mean Her fucked his or herself and Whamo!!…
Stoopid kid…
May 30th, 2009 at 1:00 am
@ JD
Amen.
That’s like taking advice from Pamela Anderson or Jenna Jameson on how not to get STDs. It’s ridiculous.
May 29th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
In regards to Mary’s comment…I’m pretty sure mercury would mess a kid up. Only vaccines DONT HAVE MERCURY IN THEM. They have been proven to NOT CONTAIN MERCURY. Or thymerisol (excuse the spelling, if i botched it) which is another chemical McCarthy claims are in vaccines. And they definately aren’t.
And ‘conspirationalist’ is not a word. I think you were going for ‘conspiracy theorist’.Don’t try to act intellectual, and then make up words. Not a great idea.
The only reason Autism rates have been rising is because more children are being RECOGNISED as being autistic. There is not any ACTUAL change in how many kids are autistic. Only the rates at which said children are diagnosed, and thus being categorized as being autistic. Additionally, the criteria for which an autism diagnosis can be made has been broadened.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
I agree with you on most points, however you should consider the source of many of the studies you find. Most are funded by people who have lots to lose if a link between vaccines and autism is verified.
Also, the “extensive study” you mention towards the end actually only consisted of about 2000 familes and was flawed in many ways. 2000 seems even smaller when you consider that 1 child of every 180 (and the number is rising) is diagnosed with autism.
I find it irritating when people say “I got the shots, I ain’t autisctic. Therefore shots DON”T cause autism.” That logic is ridiculous. I believe that autism is multifactorial and I do believe that injecting infants with known neurotoxins such as MERCURY as well as other metals and poisons is, if not a factor in the cause of autism, then certainly an unecessary risk.
In order to save less than a cent per vaccine the government chose to finish doling out a 30 year supply of vaccines with mercury preservative, even after ruling to eliminate it from future vaccines. Check the CDC’s website if you don’t believe me. Long-term studies have not been done on the effects of how mercury can change the components- which include inert and live disease- over decades. YET we still shoot up our kids without questioning it.
I think it is foolish to assume that the government is always looking out for the people. Come on. You don’t have to be a conspirationalist to realize that politicians lie, especially when lots of money (such as vaccine injury lawsuits would cost) is involved.
May 29th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
It was not too long ago that the medical community stated that autism was a result of the mother being cold, distant and unable to bond with the child. So if the doctors were wrong about that, what else could they be wrong about?
May 29th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
The fact that there hasn’t been proof makes the likes of Gray’s Anatomy my blood boil.
May 29th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Anyone who takes medical advice from an ex playboy bunny, quite frankly, deserves an autistic child
There, I said it
May 29th, 2009 at 9:43 am
I have Fraternal Twin boys that are autistic. And like Carolyn Conner I feel the same way about vaccinations and Jenny McCarthy. Its so upsetting to me as a parent with two disabled children to hear someone spouting some crazy notion that their child is cured of autism. My sons have received years of therapy and intervention. Are they better off for it? Yes. Are they cured of their autism? No. They still have problems with social exchange, language and stemming (doing or saying repetitive tasks) but they are SO much better off because of the support they have received. Another thing as well is that people assume autism is the same for everyone and that is not the case at all. At this time I do not have a clue as far as how many disorders are now falling into the Autistic spectrum that might have been classified as mental retardation or some other mental disorder 20 years ago.
Another thing about the attacks on the doctors on Oprahs show. I didn’t see it but I am assuming they were just doctors and not RESEARCHERS. If you want to go after someone then you should probably pick someone from the pharmaceutical companies. Not a doctor that is prescribing the medication. McCarthy must be completely under the misnomer that prescription doctors ACTUALLY do the research into the drugs they are prescribing.
May 29th, 2009 at 4:24 am
I have a child with Autism. My child was a normal on target for his age baby.He was a happy baby. At 11-12 months there was a problem. He was very aggressive and not on target for his age.Do I question if it was the vaccinations? Yes. Do I think we should stop vaccinations?No. What needs to be done is more studies BUT not by the pharmaceutical companies that are making the money from the vaccines. And yes that is who are doing a lot of the studies. It should not be about being “sued” it should be about how to hurry up and find the problem and fix it. As far as Jenny McCarthy goes, I’m glad someone is becoming a spokes person and making people aware of Autism but she also has brought her anger and opinions along with her that makes it dangerous. Ms. McCarthy also makes a statement that I find very upsetting,that you can “CURE” Autism. I think it is great to have hope and with early intervention they will come along way but my son is Autistic and no food elimination is going to fix that. I think that is a statement of false hope. Love your child and get them every available tool to further their learning education.
May 29th, 2009 at 12:37 am
Thank you for this.
May 29th, 2009 at 12:14 am
Hey Bingolog… in answer to your question, there seems to be alot of people that have autistic children who are not jumping on the Jenny McCarthy “BooHoo, My Son isn’t Perfect, It’s everyone elses fault” bandwagon, and I’m one of them.
Fact, because of her running her stupid mouth, parents aren’t getting their children their MMR shots. Fact, cases of measles went up considerable the following year. Sorry, but I would rather my child was autistic than get something that could kill him.
Fact, do you know how many people are in my family? Literally hundreds. My grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and their extended families on both sides. My kids, my siblings, my siblings kids…. we all got those shots. You wanna know how many cases of autism we have in our family?
One. My son. My daughter, who was born three years before him, got the same shots and isn’t autistic either. Where’s yours and Ms McCarthy’s theory now. It doesn’t hold water and neither one of you are doctors or scientists.
God bless you and your child. But both you need to stop looking for someone to blame and pointing the finger everywhere. Some people are predepositioned for autism. Something can trigger it. For some people MAYBE its a vaccine. Some it could be a fever, or a tramatic event. In my sons case, it could have been when he saw his father try to kill me. Who knows? All I know is, I know hundreds of people are are NOT autistic that have had those shots.
Jenny McCarthy is not a doctor. She’s some quasi celebrity who got famous flashing her tits all over the place. She wants someone to blame because her little boy isn’t perfect. Boohoo. My son isn’t perfect either. He’s going on 14 and pees on the couch because he’s upset about his sister being diabetic. My non autistic child isn’t perfect either. She likes Panic at the Disco :S
No one is perfect. He wouldn’t be perfect even if he wasn’t autistic.
It’s people like you who panic at every little thing some celebrity says that are dangerous. It’s people like you who make things worse. For years after my son was diagnosed, I blamed myself. I blamed his father. I blamed my mothers bad genes. I went back to blaming myself. In the end, its no one or one things fault. The only thing we can do is study, study, study, keep an open mind and spend our energies trying to find a way to fight this from continuing. Jenny McCarthy needs to keep her mouth shut. Just because she “believes” in her heart, doesn’t make it so. I believe in my heart that Marilyn Manson is the anti christ, but that doesn’t make it so. It could very well be Paris Hilton.
Ms McCarthy is a dangerous person. Telling hysterical parents not the vaccinate their children could cause god knows what. Telling hysterical, desperate parents that she cured her sons autism, is just going to disappoint them when the find out that it didn’t work. She didn’t cure anything. She’s been doing this “boohoo, whoa is me” bullshit for way too long. At first, I was with her, but she’s carrying it too far. When this is over, what else is she going to use for publicity? Jim Carrey and her son aren’t going to keep for her for very long.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
“like the sweet Momma Bird that she is, she’s lovingly regurgitating a soft, warm, chunky career down the gaping throat of a hungry Jenny McCarthy.”
Thank you. Thank you for that visual. Now I want to bonk my head repeatedly until that image goes away.
That said, Mom’s leaning heavily into the anti-vaccination camp. She read a book by a guy showing stats that showed a gradual decline in certain illnesses BEFORE vaccines were introduced. Unfortunately, I cannot recall the name of the book nor the author, but he had lots of pictures with lines and dots in them. He also listed all the awful, awful stuff that vaccinations contain in them– mercury, thimerosal, formaldehyde, etc. (Those two points constituted the bulk of his argument, though, and I’ve heard some persuasive counterpoints.)
And then you got the medical community saying that we’ve doomed our children to terrible suffering and anguish if we don’t vaccinate them.
Of course, each side has its own statistics and data to throw out. I’m betting there’s a fair amount of fearmongering, spin on both sides, and ad hominems/appeals to authority. Which doesn’t do much to adequately inform the mildly interested layperson like me.
For me, my biggest sticking point is that most of the anti-vaccination rhetoric I encounter (whether via Internet or in person) are postulated by folks with little to no medical training or background.
The second biggest sticking point is the inevitable conspiracy theories, which strikes me as a tad too convenient excuse to dismiss any concerns about their anti-vaccination stance.
That said, I don’t want to fall into the trap of regarding medical professionals as immaculate geniuses Who Can Do No Wrong. Although I think we do need to have a healthy amount of respect for their training and expertise, docs and nurses are still human, and they make mistakes, and they have biases like everyone else does. I still regard medical professionals as a much better source of information than McCarthy or any other Hollywood spokesperson, though.
All the same, this whole issue is frickin’ confusing and it gets hard to know what to believe. Throw your kid in the mix and… well, it can’t be easy to sort out.
I guess I got a vested interest in this, because my dad was diagnosed with cancer, and we’re looking into holistic treatment vs. conventional treatment (chemo and radiation); and many advocates for holistic treatment also fall into the “no vaccination” camp. Seems some of them have an axe to grind when it comes to da “Establishment.”
May 28th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
no such power should be given to such retarded people.
May 28th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
When I want my science facts I talk to an actual scientist, not some fucktarded z-list celebrity.
Oprah scares me, she does, one of these days she will spark a world war because of something stupid she said on TV.
May 28th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Good article. I get really tired of celebs on their soapboxes, often speaking out on issues they know nothing about. Jenny McCarthy isn’t the greatest debater, either, but she does seem to come across as honest.
Just because the government, doctors and vaccination manufactures SAY there’s no link to autism, doesn’t mean there is none. What are they going to do? Run a controlled, blind study?
The fact that autism manifests itself in the timeframe when infants receive their vaccinations, combined with the fact that we have 26 more vaccinations than we used to AND autism is INCREASING at about the same rate as the amount of vaccinations…well, seems more than a coincidence to me. Also, anybody who’s ever worked for a medical manufacturer knows that SALES WITHOUT QUALITY, well, THEY’RE STILL SALES! If a product doesn’t pass inspection for some reason, there are lots of ways to rationalize the data. And sometimes, companies will just ship it anyway because it’s worth the risk. They’ll risk taking a big fat penalty, as a cost of doing business. Usually, they don’t get caught.
After all, who would want to admit that such things occur? Not the company personnel themselves. Certainly not hospital staff. Not doctors who save lives and appear on Oprah Winfrey. It’s a lot more fun (and we don’t have to do anything then) to make fun of a beautiful woman whose son (born healthy) developed autism after routine vaccination.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Not only would I not listen to Jenny McCarthy, I don’t really like to look at her either. She IS NOT pretty, unless you mean “pretty stupid.” I don’t think I could get it up over that frozen, plastic face…not to mention my cringing every time she said anything…what is this celebrity worship crap we practice? Why do we think acting or singing or athletic ability somehow translates into knowledge about or ability in anything else? This is the same mentality that gave us William Shatner singing “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds.”
May 28th, 2009 at 7:35 am
I think Jenny is just so hung up on trying to find someone or something to blame for her child being “imperfect” that she can’t just embrace him for who he is. She could do so much to spread actual real awareness, but instead is spending all her money and fame on scaring parents out of life saving vaccinations.
May 28th, 2009 at 7:35 am
Meanwhile, hidden deep within a labyrinth of corridors and cubicles, one Mr. Daniel O’Brien sits alone in a cluttered workspace. Smirking face illuminated only by the pale glow of a computer screen, half eaten pasta dripping from the corner of his mouth…”Dance puppets. Dance.”
May 28th, 2009 at 6:07 am
Daniel,
Aside from the obligatory penis jokes, you really drug down this article with one sentence: The blind endorsement of “findings” from the “science” of evolutionary psychology (a.k.a. evo psych, or pop evo). It is not science, it is the Materialist Imaginatorium. They are psychologists without a subject. I’m not not denying the general concept of evolution, just the ridiculous notion that “evolutionary pressures” acting on genetic mutations produced every aspect of the human psyche (or any, for that matter). Seriously, you don’t need a degree or any formal education to be an evolutionary psychologist - anyone can do it! Think about something humans do, imagine how it could potentially be helpful for survival, and BAM - you’re doing “science”! Here’s an example:
- Hmm, why do people find farts so funny?
- (Enter Science): When protohumans were hiding from Sabertooths in the brush, sometimes a member of a group would fart, alerting the Sabertooth to their location. Some protohumans had genetic mutations that caused them to laugh at this action, which the Sabertooth found to be a bizarre, frightening sound, scaring it off. Those that weren’t genetically programmed to laugh were naturally selected for death via a Sabertooth tooth to the jugular. The fart-laughers were thus positively selected, and their fart-laughing genes were passed on, eventually propogating throughout the protohuman population. (End Science)
As ridiculous as that theory is, it has as much true scientific foundation as the “we were selected to listen to authority figures, that’s why we listen to celebrities (who aren’t authority figures…?…)” crap. To prove the point, here’s another Factual Scientific Account explaining our “need” to listen to celebrities, which is equally explanatory, yet contradicting to the first theory:
- Hmm, why do we tend to listen to celebrities
- (Enter Science): Evolutionary pressures selected those that found smart people to be attractive, therefore the traits that cause greater intelligence also became foundational throughout the species. Nevermind the existence of dumbass beautiful people. (End Science)
May 27th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Dozens of studies done on identical twins that denied one a potentially life-saving vaccine? I’d love to meet the parents who signed their kids up for that!
May 25th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Dear bingolong,
like Mom with a little warrior, I am also the parent of an autistic child. Unlike Mom with…, I don’t think Jenny McCarthy is an idiot. I think she’s a dangerous idiot. I’m of the opinion that Ms. McCarthy campaign has the potential to help create a public health hazard of epic proportions. I think it’s safe to say that her opinions run counter to nearly every medical professional and researcher in the country, if not all. The one study she had to back up her claims was spectacularly debunked.
From your statements it appears that you have read the comments. Did you read any of the links provided by people you don’t agree with? If not, then you might want to at least click on this one. It’s from the American Academy of Pediatrics:
http://www.cispimmunize.org/
My autistic child is a girl which is, by far, more uncommon. I observed no drastic changes in her after any of her shots. Her first cousin, on her father’s side, is also autistic. This cousin is also a girl. If her mother had any anecdotal evidence relating vaccinations to the onset of autistic behavior, I most certainly would’ve heard about it by now.
The cousin’s mother and my girl’s father are the only children from their parents’ second marriage. None of their step-siblings have autistic children. To me, personally, this points pretty strongly to a genetic link. If you can’t bring yourself to consider that as a possibility, I would ask you to consider other possibilities than vaccines as the culprit.
There is legitimate research showing that lead levels below the legal limit can still have an adverse effect on a child’s development. That’s why my kid’s pediatrician told me not to let the baby play with newspapers, because there might be lead in the ink. Think of all those lead coated toys that, for decades, were imported from China.
Now let’s all go out and file a class action suit against Walmart. Then use the settlement money to fund autism research and treatments.
May 25th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
wow its a bit heated in here i will say 34 vaccines is a hell of a lot. people within britain and ireland do not receive that many vaccinations but i do see how in america you have so many and that would be due to having a private health system where profit is as important as saving lives from the pharmasuitical companies i.e drug companies and insurance companies view not the actual medical staff.
May 25th, 2009 at 11:42 am
It’s funny, because a long time ago (back when this commenter was a wee geek stupendously involved in reading JAMA and everything medical it could get its hands on) there was an article written by some enthused science journalists about neuroscience that suggested that some forms of autism might correlate to malformations in the brain, namely the left temporal gyrus, that could be caused by gap gene mutations.
Whoops! The MMR scare went into overdrive the next year, and only recently have popular science magazines and even the associated press (you know, the *ahem* reliable news source on Yahoo!) reported that there have been several genetic links to at least half a dozen forms of autism. (It’s not the most conclusive thing ever, but, please.)
The rise in autism has also corresponded with the acceptance of autism as a comorbid disease. Many kids with intellectual disabilities brought on by craniofacial malformations and neurological diseases are also classified as autistic. Everything from Cri du Chat to ALD can be comorbid with autism.
Food for thought. Good article. (Your mom’s recipe also sounds mouth-wateringly kickass.)
May 25th, 2009 at 11:33 am
I have a child with autism. He was diagnosed at the age of 3. He has no verbal skills, and many sensory needs that I deal with day in and day out.
His life is difficult, my life is difficult, and yet he is a happy healthy child.
He has his vaccinations, he sees his doctor once a month. He also has intensive behavioural therapy every day.
I, for one, think Jenny McCarthy is an idiot. This woman has the ability to promote realistic views on autistic life, help the public understand that different does not mean unable, and help parents find viable options for therapies and funding.
Instead she attacks the medical professionals that have done YEARS of research to try and find a link between autism and vaccines. The money wasted on ‘getting her message out’ could be much better used donating to an organization geared towards finding a real cause, and although there is no cure, there are many therapies that greatly help each child to individually come to terms with who they are and what the can be.
Please don’t blame vaccines, use your ‘motherwarrior’ energy to help these kids live full and happy lives, that’s what’s important.
May 25th, 2009 at 4:26 am
I’m a bit late, but just popped in to say- I enjoy comedy, but serious Daniel is sexy. And edifying.
May 24th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
How many of you guys ranting about there being no correlation between autism and vaccines have a child with autism? Maybe it is just that the doctors are getting better at diagnosing it…but it’s hard to deal with a lot of the stuff that comes with autism…it is hard for the child and for the family to deal with. We have a child who first manifested the behaviors of autism shortly after a massive dose of vaccines….back when they still contained the mercury that’s questioned as being a potential cause of autism. I’d like to talk to at least one “crusader” who considers Jenny McCarthy an idiot who has an autistic person in their family. Desperation may make people grasp at straws…but distance from a situation allows people to be callused to the problem…the questioning of vaccines as a cause is really just that…questioning. Like I said before….even one person with an autistic child that wouldn’t seek out an answer to at least some of the questions would be more interesting to hear from than a bunch of opinionated people with no more stake in the problem than the desire to shoot their mouth off. We grasp at straws because even though we cope….even though we make the best situation that we can for our children and our family out of this….it is still a desperate and puzzling situation.
May 24th, 2009 at 11:43 am
The idea of not knowing is unacceptable and a staple of science.
There are countless questions for which science can not answer and can not disprove and so science, the foundation of rational, must say there is no answer for now. In the information vacuum, the irrational have the political advantage because they have more material to say irregardless of its quality - a debate of nothing versus something.
For the irrational, in the absence of a known cause for autism, an explanation is created. For these personalities in this or any other matter in the world to say, “I don’t know” (the Possum Lodge’s heartbreaking three words) is unthinkable.
The link between autism and vaccines has taken many forms and the fight between these two parties have reached back many millenniums.
For example: what causes the flu? Evil spirits of course. Therefore when an evil spirit attacks good Christians with a sneeze say “Bless you” to drive out the flu-causing demons. Diarrhea and gonorrhea are cause by spoken curses or curse-words like “shit” or “fuck”. Therefore do not utter these curse-words amongst good Christians else those around you will feel the fires of hell when they pee.
May 24th, 2009 at 9:40 am
No reliable studies? REALLY?! The CDC begs to differ.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/vaccines.htm
May 23rd, 2009 at 11:02 pm
Jenny’s antagonistic partner looks like Andy Ricter.
I had forgotten how hot the pink power ranger was/is. No wonder I watched the show until I was 14.
I met the stupid doctor with sideburns once and he was dressed as he is on the show. I said “nice nurses uniform.” He tried to put me in my place by saying “these are OR scrubs” so I said “O, are they?”
May 23rd, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Another thing worth mentioning, a lot of people argue that autism is on the rise as vaccines are so they one must be affected by the other. While this still falls under correlation does not equal causation, it’s also important to mention that as doctors learn more about autism, they are able to diagnose more cases. Autism isn’t on the rise, doctors are getting better at diagnosing it.
May 23rd, 2009 at 11:52 am
Dearest Assholes,
34 mandatory vaccines!!!! Shawn says there are 34 mandatory vaccines so obviously 26 of them are useless!!!
What is wrong with you people!?!?! If anything, as science and technology discover and defeat more diseases, we should have LESS vaccines because Jenny McCarthy says they cause autism!!!
What’s wrong with you fucking people!?!?!? She was in BaseketBall you assholes!!!!!!!!
Dearest Autistic Shawn:
I’m so sorry DOB shit all over your pretend girlfriend. He never should have crossed that line. If at any time you would like to give back your baby vaccinations or the rabies and distemper vaccinations that made your dog autisitc, please e-mail them to me at
Shawnhaseverydiseaseimaginable420@shawnisanasshole.shawn
Without people like you Shawn, we never would have had the House Un-American Activities Committee and there would probably still be Commies running around secretly vaccinating all of our normal kids. Thanks for your patriotism.
On a more serious note, this article is hilarious and more true than false and DOB has a right to say whatever he likes.
I can’t speak for him but I personally hope all of YOUR loved ones live long and healthy lives, owing a huge portion of their years on earth to being immune to the terrible diseases that have been irradicated thanks to the advancements in vaccination technology.
Dearest DOB:
Obviously, Shawn is Jim Carey. If you’d like to file suit against Shawn, I’ll represent you. I happen to know for a fact that Jim Carey is incapable of lying in a courtroom.
May 23rd, 2009 at 11:37 am
UwillC apparently thinks raising a child with a disease makes her an expert. She must also think that suffering a broken leg makes a person an ortho expert, because that is along the same line of thinking. By writing this I am obviously breaking the rule that one cannot argue with anyone in the “victim” category, especially not a parent concerning their child.
I have no other credentials other than being a nurse for 8 years, specializing in pediatrics for two of them, and being surrounded by medical doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists, as well as special needs teachers writing lesson plans and mainstreaming individuals. I am no expert, but I have a grounding in what it takes to identify and treat these individuals.
My heart goes out to any parent or family member that has to deal with autism. That does not however give you free reign to disregard scientific data and research. And when I say research I mean actual studies, not simply years experience raising a child, or the falsified data that is flooding the media.
Whenever diseases appear to suddenly have a jump in occurrence, few ever think to take a look at the enhanced knowledge and screening tools that are available. Is the disease on the rise, or are we just able to identify and treat it earlier? This needs to be taken into account along with any causal factors, environmental, behavioral-cognitive, or genetic. Of course, to people like UwillC, I do not have an autistic child, so I must be totally wrong.
I also find it interesting that the vocal minority of misinformed autistic parents are so reluctant to let go of the immunization controversy. First it was the immunizations themselves, then it was the preservative (which had not been used for years, and when it was, it was deemed nontoxic and totally safe). The research on immunizations has it folks. How about you focus your time and energy on supporting organizations that are doing real research on the causes of autism (my bets are on genetics, but we shall see), and treatment programs that strive to fulfill the needs of the affected individuals and their families.
Unfortunately, UwillC and her ilk are the reasons that parents are scared to immunize their children. That is fine, that is your right. But keep them away from all of the other children that are trying to live a healthy life, and in the case of the MMR vaccine, pregnant women, lest you want to cause harm to an unborn child.
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:37 am
let me help you parents of children with autism who think that vaccines caused your child to become autistic finally understand there is no link, or as we that have graduated from medical schools and basic stat classes like to say: correlation does not equal causation.
say you hear a report that say on hotter, sunnier days, rather than cooler, cloudier days, at a certain beach there are more people drowning, also on these days the sale of ice cream was much higher than days when it’s cloudy. Now, are you quick to assume that the ice cream is the cause of the drownings? of course not, just because more ice cream is being devoured on these days does not mean that it is the cause of the drownings, there is another underlying cause happening, it could be because there are more people swimming because sunnier days have more population.
The point is, you cannot blame vaccinations for your child’s condition just because it happens during that point in time. there could be another force happening. remember, before ice cream was sold at the beach I am sure people were still drowning in higher numbers, so it’s not as if more vaccinations now is correlated to there being a rise of autism.
maybe it’s your use of cell phone and the radiation is the culprit, or maybe it’s all the mcdonald’s hamburgers you eat? possibly it’s just evolution, or de-evolution of your genes? It’s too easy to point a finger at something that stares you right in the face.
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:34 am
Just a quick note to the people yelling about how a child can be developing normally, get their first shot, and then start to show signs of autism: Do your goddamn research, especially if your kid is autistic. The age autism generally presents, regardless of other factors, is near the age where children begin to get their first shots. If your kid is autistic, guess what, they’re going to show signs at that age either way. Correlation is not causation.
May 23rd, 2009 at 7:47 am
I’m a huge fan of Cracked.com, and I usually enjoy your articles, but you’ve really missed the mark with this one.
The fact is, nobody knows whether or not there is a link between autism and vaccinations. Despite your mom’s claim to the contrary, there have NOT been countless, extensive studies into the matter. The parents of autistic children have been campaigning for years just to get a reliable, independent 3rd party inquiry into the subject.
Rather than comply, the pharmaceutical companies have devoted a lot of time, energy, and money to portraying these concerned parents as foil-hat-wearing loonies who want to unleash a plague of smallpox and polio on the world.
I know you’d like to believe that Congress and science (and I guess your mom) are blameless and holy and incapable of wrong. And I understand that Jenny McCarthy is an easy target. But the controversy of vaccinations and autism is not a closed matter. It has not been “asked and answered.”
I do appreciate you making an effort to address the issue, but next time you might want to get your information from some sources other than Jenny McCarthy and your mom.
May 23rd, 2009 at 5:44 am
Probably Basil, and Jenny kills babys with her stupidity, she needs a shot of the dumbass vaccine!
May 23rd, 2009 at 4:39 am
Shawn, please please next time try to have a COTENT argument that makes sense.
Try backing up your claims with medical proof instead of pulling random ‘cases’ out of your ass.
May 23rd, 2009 at 2:04 am
Daniel,
There have been over a dozen recorded studies involving IDENTICAL twins. One was vaccinated, one was not. One ended up with autism, the other… not.
This is what you call a smoking gun.
Jenny is being incredibly brave for standing up against the powers that be, and for you to try to make a joke of her without even reading a fucking thing about the subject - you’re merely contributing to the ruthlessness of the United States Drug Cartel.
In the 80’s there were 8 mandatory vaccines. Now there are 34.
34!!!!!!!!!
What the fuck is wrong with you dipshit!
Did you actually see the Doctors episode? You think that because one of the hosts practices medicine, that he is incorruptible? Fuck you, you fucking asshole!
I demand you take this article down and apologize to Jenny immediately.
I hope you die in a car accident and kill your loved ones with you.
May 23rd, 2009 at 12:42 am
Cuindless,
You are so far off from what I was saying and your rude tone speaks volumes of your narrow minded approach. You have no idea what I do for a living, I never stated that I only know what I know because I have an autistic child of my own so please stop making assumptions. I never claimed to know the cause and never mentioned a ‘gut feeling’. What I said was it appears that there could be a link and further research needs to be done. I also never stated that parents should not get their children vaccinated. I feel that the vaccines are very important but I also feel that the sheer number and frequency of the vaccines can possibly have an adverse effect. All I am saying is that nobody has a right to heckle/call out somebody for an opinion on something that has not (as of yet) been truly disproved. As a parent of two autistic children I do not see for even a second how you would not wish for any/all avenues to be explored in search of answers (and the possibility of a cure or at least prevention, if such things exist).
Mandy,
It’s nice to see that others ‘get it’ and are not so easy to follow the herd mentality that if a doctor says something (a formulated OPINION based upon what he has learned) it must be true and totally accurate. I wish I still had the company of several of my friends and relatives that have been mis-diagnosed over the years and are no longer among us. If there is anything that science teaches us daily it is that we truly do not know as much as we might like to think we do.
Best Wishes All
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:51 pm
While I generally agree with this post, the fact remains that there is a very real possibility that vaccinations are linked to Autism. They can’t prove that they aren’t linked to Autism, either. Science is like that: if you can’t prove it or reproduce results, it isn’t true. It’s like NASA listening to blips for sentient life in the universe — they ignore blips that don’t recur even though they’re aware that it might have been what they’re looking for. They just don’t work with “might be.”
Life, however, isn’t like that. The true problem with vaccinations is that they’re one-size-fits-all; SOME children have adverse reactions — and one of those reactions just might be Autism. Jenny has practically cured her son of Autism by practicing what she has learned through copious research. Her son — who doctors told her would never be “normal” (the same doctors who told her vaccinations aren’t linked to Autism), — is now a “normal,” reactive, loving, present child who can remember what it was like to be locked inside himself.
Your caption for the Dr in scrubs — albeit in jest — insinuates that because he “saves lives” he always know what he’s talking about. What you’re alluding to is a specialist — someone who devotes his career to finding out why. Most MDs do their jobs just like the rest of us, and then go home and live their lives. They don’t posses superhuman knowledge that the average person with the time to research can’t find.
Unfortunately, even specialists don’t have the answers. Parents of children with Autism and the general public can blow off Jenny as much as they like, but her child and the ones who she has helped are the ones recovering from this disease via answers that very few MDs could give them.
May 22nd, 2009 at 6:51 pm
@ JV, Sarah, et. al.
Thank you for commenting with your opinions. It’s always nice to hear the lower half of the bell curve chime in.
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:31 pm
With great power comes great responsibility. It is a test, it is only a test. I love Jenny to pieces and I believe this guy is right. I wish them both all the best.
“With great power comes great responsibility.” - I Ching (I think)
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May 22nd, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Having an autistic child doesn’t make you an authority on anything in any way. I have two and I’m no authority on the subject. Do you know who is? My child’s pediatric neurologist is, that’s who. And “UwillC”, I “Watched my child” go through it too. Gut feelings are often incorrect. Correlation doesn’t equal causation. Why can’t some US citizens get a fucking science education? You make me ashamed to be from the same damn country.
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:40 pm
A few years back quite a few studies were published stating a correlation has been established between silicon augmentations and increased breast cancer rates. This is evidence that Jenny McCarthy does not jump on issue band wagons indiscriminately, but makes sound educated “deep feeling” based decisions. If she listened to just any sensationalist garbage we would not be discussing her now. Since if she had listened to that study she would not have the sweet perky double D personality that grants her both profound knowledge that far outstrips medical science and the absolute right to spout her opinion without any fear of it’s consequences.
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:54 pm
As a parent of a 12 year old autistic boy I can tell you that there appears to be something going on with increased number of vaccines and their link to autism. If you witnessed your own child react to the shots the way that I have you would have a better understanding of what JM is saying. When a child appears to be developing totally normal or even early and then upon receiving their first set of shots they regress it certainly seems a bit coincidental (especially when it happens again a second time right after their second large set of shots). Now I am not saying JM is 100% correct with her observations or even that she is handling the situation accordingly but what I do know is that more research needs to be done. It’s so very easy for those of you that have no direct experience with autism to spout off against what she is saying but keep in mind how many times the FDA approves drugs that are claimed to be safe (because the company behind the drug pays a huge sum to get it approved) only to see them pulled off the market some time later when people are dieing. Of course they are going to claim there is no link, do any of you realize just what type of backlash there would be if they admitted it was the vaccines to blame for the rise in autism. So to you DOB, I say act your age not your shoe size and don’t talk about what you clearly do not understand. Your mother being an RN means almost nothing regarding autism as even most doctors know very little about it when you consider the vast amount there is to know, she’s simply repeating what another doctor/RN as told her or something she read in a weekly medical magazine with research funded by the FDA. Take it or leave it, I have 10 years of autism research behind me and I am very passionate about helping all children defeat this life altering condition. Why don’t you use your ‘celebrity’ and try to do some good versus attacking somebody else on an issue that you admit to knowing very little about, some of us live with this every day.
P.S. I wouldn’t give you the pasta either, you’ve been a bad boy!
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:32 am
pure awesome sauce!
May 21st, 2009 at 6:36 pm
As much as I truly agree with you, DOB, I appreciate how you stated at the end of your article that, “Hey, who knows? It might be the case later on.”
Besides that, great article. The part about the doctor about to cry had me rolling, especially after I watched the video clip!
May 21st, 2009 at 6:14 pm
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May 21st, 2009 at 8:02 am
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May 21st, 2009 at 2:29 am
Good article. Too bad the cult of celebrity isn’t a real cult that the FBI can’t go after and have it end in a Waco-like fashion. Too much? Sorry, i HATE the cult of celebrity!
And yeah, it’s thyme. And rosemary. It’s always thyme and rosemary.
May 21st, 2009 at 12:26 am
What an awesome read.
It’s great when cracked lend their writing talents to a real world issue - in this case producing a hilarious and witty article that still engages the heart of the issue in more depth than most news reports. Keep it coming.
Bravo
May 20th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
DOB you beautiful bastard… great article.
May 20th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Oh, look. Science, as opposed to blind stabs in the dark based on loosely correlated statistics. http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090520/hl_time/08599189975600
May 19th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
@ Boxcar
If someone yells “Fire” in a crowded auditorium, without ever seeing any flames, smelling any smoke or feeling any heat and with multiple firefighters and fire investigators telling them that there’s no way there could be a fire in that building, doesn’t that person carry at least some responsibility for the people that get trampled in the ensuing panic?
Would the defense of “well, I felt like there was a fire” or “I just knew it deep down that a fire was going to burn up all those people” be solid enough to protect that person from prosecution?
May 19th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
I’m not an expert in herd immunity, but if it means some anti-vaccine idiot’s brat is going to infect my kids with some disease that shouldn’t even exist anymore, it pisses me off big time.
On the other hand, if that is not the case and stupid people’s unvaccinated children are going to die while mine live to grow into non-idiotic parents, then so be it. May even save us from Idiocracy.
Go Darwin!
May 19th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
The biggest problem with McCarthy is the way she’s handled the situation. Suggesting things of a medical nature when you, yourself, have no medical training of any kind is irresponsible and dangerous. As a celebrity, she realizes that what she says holds more sway with your average American than does what you or I say. As the article says, if she were simply advocating more research, there wouldn’t be a problem. But, as it stands, she is actively encouraging people to leave their children not fully vaccinated.
Hell, that really isn’t even the problem. If people go around joining Scientology because Tom Cruise says it’s a good idea, they are hurting nobody but themselves (because they’re crazy). There’s really no reason to blame anybody in that situation. But with the McCarthy situation, people are dying (or potentially dying) from diseases that have been all but eradicated. Is it McCarthy’s fault? I would argue that it is not.
I understand that everybody loves celebrities. I, personally, have an unhealthy fascination with Amy Adams. But, as attractive as she may be, and as good an actress, I would still not listen to her if she were to offer me medical advice. As such, people who listen to McCarthy and don’t get their children vaccinated are stupid. She does not know what she is talking about. As it turns out, doctors do. It is simple to ask your child’s doctor, prior to your child getting a vaccination, whether it is likely to cause autism. The doctor will very likely (as my child’s doctor did) tell you, “No, there have been no studies showing a correlation between vaccines and autism.” At that point, you can go ahead and get your child vaccinated SO THEY DON’T DIE OF THE MEASLES, FFS!
May 19th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
But…. but…. correlation = causation!!
May 19th, 2009 at 11:45 am
@ Big_G
As long as someone’s opinions don’t have any adverse effect on me I’m all for letting them believe whatever cockamamie idea they want. However, when people refuse to vaccinate their children it lowers herd immunity and OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN ARE DYING BECAUSE OF IT. When that happens the people who support those ideas must be opposed.
May 19th, 2009 at 8:42 am
[...] scratching my head over Cracked Magazine’s take on McCarthy, though (NSFW though, since it has some, um, adult content). It’s accurate, snarky, and takes [...]
May 19th, 2009 at 8:19 am
Big_G
Very well put. Thanks for keeping it balanced. And since my wife’s job provides some really great health coverage, that nice new hospital down the street will do just fine in case of an emergency.
Peace be with you guys and girls.
It’s been fun spewing my mental splooge all over ya’ll.
DOB, thanks for providing the outlet.
Keep up the great work.
May 19th, 2009 at 7:37 am
I couldn’t even finish watching the first half ofnthe doctorstv episode, why do some people not understand that variables differ from country to country, state to state and even county to county. Even with such a plethora of investigational research that’s been published theories can’t necessarily be transposed to every child. Mr JB ‘whatever his real name is’ Hambley pretty much quotes Michael Moore, in Sicko (a documentary on HMOs) he pretty much says (in albeit a bumbling, generally lost kind of way) that the medical industry HAS become a business in america and as a result hospitals are pushing to provide more immunisation for children to raise funds. However due to health proffesionals allegiance to the Hippocratic oath they would never inject a child with something that they feel could cause harm to one’s progeny, not on purpose anyway. The thing is, that parents are able to refuse treatments for their kids and it’s a right that for better or worse should remain in place. So I would agree with DOB, don’t listen to Jenny McCarthy, instead read some objective reports that aren’t sullied by her close proximity to the subject matter. As far as JV returns’ opinion, I say “fair enough, you’re doing what you think is best for your child, I respect that. Hopefully it won’t bite you in the ass, if it does, well rest easy, hospitals are available to help out.”
May 19th, 2009 at 6:43 am
@Exploding _Minx
That’s a tough one. For starters, everyone I’v ever known that has had cancer have all undergone chemo just as they were supposed to. From the looks of it, it seemed to be killing them twice as fast, destroying more healthy cells than the cancer cells. Granted, the healthy ones can always grow back, but that didn’t stop them all from dying 6 months to a year after being diagnosed.
So I really couldn’t tell ya at the moment.
Based on a few rants here and there, people must get the impression that I’m along the lines of one of those ridiculous Jehovahs Witnesses that will refuse a blood transfusion for my dying kid because of my hardcore fanaticism and beliefs.
But that’s not the case. I simply choose to ignore my yearly check-ups, physicals, vaccine schedules, anything and everything that makes you that much more attached and reliant on the medical system. If there is nothing wrong at the moment, I’ll go at my own pace. I also ignore jury duty and collections agencies, so that goes for pretty much anything that will inconvenience my family.
We were raised Old School, where we never ever went to the hospital unless someone broke an arm. It had to be pretty serious or else, tough shit.
Now as an adult, my wife and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
People nowadays are getting too soft for my tastes.
The last thing my family needs is to be a bunch of neurotic fuckers living in fear of germs that can potentially travel across the country because somebody sneezed on a handrail out in New York 3,000 miles away from here.
May 19th, 2009 at 4:21 am
@Sarah Hansen
First, the Special Vaccine Court rulings were the three best cases that the anti-vaxx people could come up with and all there were annihilated in the rulings; they weren’t even close to proving any kind of causal relationship.
Second, and I don’t speak for anyone else here, those rulings are a distant second in importance compared to the dozens of scientific studies that have been done on the relationship of autism to vaccines. Thankfully, scientific facts aren’t decided on in a court of law and every study shows definitively that there is no link between vaccines and autism.
May 19th, 2009 at 4:16 am
I just want to say how pleased I am to read your article.
Opinions aside: you research your topic, you’re funny and who can’t appreciate a mum-hanging-up-on-you joke.
I look forward to your next one.
Cheers!
May 19th, 2009 at 12:01 am
Bravo, Mr. O’brien. I’m *so* pleased to see the smackdown McCarthy needs coming from Cracked. Not to say I don’t think its done well by Ben Goldacre, the Scienceblogs crew etc.
I’ve spent a long time deciding whether I want to have Swaim’s or your babies, and I think this article tipped the balance. High five and a twirl.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
@ JV Returns (and all the other anti-vaccine fanatics)
Using your reasoning as a guideline, if your kid got cancer and the doctors recommended he went through chemotherapy, would you allow him to get the treatment? Keeping in mind that chemotherapy has some horrible side effects - hair loss and crippling nausea to name just two - would you just allow him to take his chances with this possibly terminal illness or would you take a chance on the magical, mythical beast that is medical science?
May 18th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Thanks
May 18th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Why is it that EVERY person who is Anti-Jenny McCarthy brings up the Special Vaccine Court Rulings that just ruled there was no link between the MMR and Autism, while failing to mention the rulings of that EXACT SAME Court in the cases of Bailey Banks and Hannah Polling that said the MMR WAS responsible for causing Autism?? You make a nice, measured argument here that sounds reasonable and well-researched. You MUST have come across these cases in your all your data collection?
Why leave them out?
May 18th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
People like Jenny McCarthy are in a word dumbasses (is that two?). They endanger the health and safety of every other kid their kid comes into contact with. I know several people who dont immunize their kids for this same reason and they’re all dumbasses too. Some people need things that they can preach about “Vaccines are the devil Aaaaahhhh!” There all always articles that they quote to “prove” their facts. I I think they do it to prove they can read.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Bottom line, I’d rather have autism than die from some horrible disease that I could have been immunized for.
May 18th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
(sing along with me)
“lbh can eat a big fat diiiiiiicK
“Red williams eat a big fat diiiiiiiick”
BettyB, BettyB can eat a big fat diiiiiick!!”
it’s from a snoop dogg song
May 18th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Wow. You are incredibly smart. I now love and admire you.
May 18th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Oh and forgot to add JV you’re an enormous douche bag.
May 18th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
I have a really hard time understanding the mentality of “The big pharma companiez just want to eat my babiez”. Can anyone explain this phenomenon? Is it some throw back to the American healthcare system?
Over here (Australia) our government funds our vaccinations, and even gives us money to vaccinate our kids. Bastards!
May 18th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
as the mother of a child with autism all i can say is THANK YOU for writing this.
good god, she gives us all a bad name!!!
May 18th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Hahahaa! Red…that was some funny shit. thank you.
May 18th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Awful article as usual DOB… the perfect, delicious balance of valid arguments and hilarity.
The only causation found to be between Autism and vaccinations is in children with a mitochondrial disorder. The vaccines stress the body and exacerbate the condition, which can lead to Autism. All other research on the a causation between Autism and immunizations has come up negative.
May 18th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
lbh, don’t you know who you’re talking to?! JV invented spaceflight, the integrated circuit and cold fusion. Oh wait, that was his superbaby. And all that was done in-utero. JV himself invented bipedal locomotion, condensation and the number 7.
Take that, Science!
May 18th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Actually, JV, I was just being a wise-ass. The irony is that, in today’s world, if/when your kids get sick they can make mine ill way out here on the East Coast.
All it takes is a cough on a public handrail or a hand that’s just wiped a runny nose touching a door knob to get the ball rolling. Then the next person who comes along, say a student or business person flying home to Boston, touches that surface. They get sick because they haven’t had a booster shot in years. And why should they? Everyone is vaccinated right? Next thing, one of my kids are sick.
That’s how my daughter contracted wooping cough. Her immunity had worn off and before her next booster she was exposed because some idiot thought they were smarter than the entire medical community.
People who don’t immunize their kids aren’t assholes because they’re playing russian roullette with their children’s lives. They’re assholes because they’re playing russian roullette with mine.
I say all this knowing that you are just a troll, for the benifit of those people(not you under another name) who commented in agreement with you.
It’s no surprise to see you’re still the same self-agrandizing douchebag who’s bragged about trolling under different names, your wildly successful career, “banging” your “super-hot wife” and (now) your “over-developed, highly intelligent, bad-ass” progeny who is “… by far the healthiest kid… also much quicker and more intelligent than anybody in his age group.”
Saying it doesn’t make it so. Nobody’s buying it. Being able to read doesn’t mean you’ve made an informed or intelligent decision regarding the health of your child(or another’s). Any idiot can read A Brief History Of Time front to back. It doesn’t mean they have a comprehensive understanding of what they’ve read or that after they read the last page they’re not still an idiot.
May 18th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
No, JV, vaccines most certainly do not cause autism. We know that for a fact, it has been demonstrated multiple times. There is no link between vaccines and autism. None, zero, and yet this idea is still trotted out as if it were true. I have no doubt that Jen and Jim are sincere, but plenty of sincere people have been flat out wrong. Just ask Marshall Applewhite. However, given the downright incorrect information they give out, I can’t agree that they are educated.
The doctor who first proposed this idea faked much of his evidence, as was pointed out by DOB, yet this inane idea persists.
Kids really are dying because they are not being vaccinated. I have no idea where you got the notion that vaccines destroy a healthy immune system. If that were the case we’d be seeing scores of vaccinated kids becoming seriously ill and dying shortly after the vaccines were administered. That has not happened.
May 18th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Look JV, I really do respect your veiws, but I’m inclined to yell BULL S*IT. I am no expert on this, but in history paranoia has been the downfall of alot of great civilizations. Here, I’ll make it crystal clear: would you rather your kid is six feet under, or really pale all the time because you got him immunized to “verminius megalium”, also known as the black death, and (debatably) the bubonic plauge. Keep in mind this disease killed 33% of the population of Europe at one point in history. Look up the word Antibodies on wiki and find something on their relationship with vaccines tell me what the scientific basis is for not using these things.
May 18th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
If by: ‘You kid can play with my kid anytime’ you meant my cock in your vagina… I’m in Sweet Thing. Call me! BA-BOING!!!
May 18th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Thank you Sarah-
I hope you weren’t being sarcastic.
May 18th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Just for the record, the Bayer scandal isn’t all that recent as it happened over 25 years ago.
May 18th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Red-
Sure, I checked out the link. But whoever put together that article doesn’t seem to be interested in hearing Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey’s side of the story either. And neither does anybody else around here for that matter (i know, some of you do). I’v heard both of them say time and time again, that they are not completely against vaccines at all. They just want to get the message out there that the current vaccination program being shilled out is too much for the developing infant and that it CAN lead to autism, yet they are still willing to admit that certain vaccines are essential. Just not ALL of them. And I agree %100.
But who wants to hear that shit when the headline can read “JENNY McCARTHY and JIM CARREY KILLED MY BABY”. Sure, blame it on some celebrity that made sense to you at the time, without doing any of the personal research. Some kids just weren’t meant to thrive in this world, I’m sorry.
That’s mostly why I’m taking Jenny and Jim’s side in this debate. Because regardless of the plastic tits and goofy faces, they both come across as sincere educated people who are giving their time and energy to help suffering children. Not some crazed Tom Cruise fucker jumping on a couch and grinning like a maniac. If you all want to goof on them and make them look like retards, that’s because it challenges you to think outside the box and question something that you come to love and depend on. It’s like challenging your religion to some of you folks.
I’m saying that there is a middle ground somewhere. Vaccines ruin what would have been an otherwise healthy immune system, and it probably does cause autism in some cases, but not all.
But to say that that are %100 safe for everybody would be just as fuckin’ stupid and biased as you guys are trying to make Jenny McCarthy look.
May 18th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
JV,
Can I simply say DITTO to everything that you’ve said? The world needs more people like you.
Your kid can play with my kid anytime.
May 18th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
@JV Returns
There have been outbreaks of measles and pertussis because of the misinformation Jenny McCarthy proffers. But I guess if it’s not in your neighborhood it doesn’t really exist, right?
Did you look at the link I provided?
May 18th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Bearman-
Autism or not, I’m still believe this shit will ruin your child’s natural immune system.
Not even the experts can sway me if I don’t know their background and who pays their bills, ya feel me?
In that recent Bayer/HIV scandal, I wonder how convinced all those hemophiliacs were that their precious medicine was going to improve their lives because a gigantic corporation was providing them with endless publications telling them it was safe.
Or maybe they told the truth and admitted that they had to pull the product from the American shelves because people were DYING OF AIDS. And yet they still sold it to the Asian and European markets regardless if people knew what damage it did here in the states.
Or maybe, they lied and said it was good for them. There’s money to be made. They can’t let a little thing like death stand in the way of recouping lost profits.
Anyways, take care Bearman. Gotta get back to work.
May 18th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Zanve-
Or I can simply take a chance and just believe anything written in some medical journals sponsored by Big Pharma and the McDonalds Corporation.
Gee, if some guy in a lab coat I’v never met, claiming to be an expert on my child, makes it sound so legitimate, then I have to do what he says, right?
They got graphs and everything, how can I compete with that?
It’s not like they’ve ever lied to us before just to push a product or an agenda!
Afterall, the state is raising my kid, not me. So they know what’s best.
It’s not like entire magazine publications and media outlets can be bought and sold by the mega-corp, and made to spread disinformation. That simply doesn’t happen in today’s world, because those media outlets have a little something called Journalistic Integrity.
Or it’s not like mainstream science and the medical industry have ever been wrong before. Maybe if a few years or decades, this current wave of medical advances won’t become obsolete and barbaric compared to what’s in store for us in the future.
Maybe they won’t have to admit that their chemicals caused a plethora of health problems for entire generations of people because they believed they were doing the right thing by giving everybody too much of the very same shit.
Maybe history won’t repeat itself this time and everything will be as Disney as can be.
And my kid will be dead from Rubella, measles, mumps, chicken pox, and the swine flu by the time you read this. And my extremist views will die along with him.
You’re right, I apologize for even questioning the infallible medical industry. I’m gonna go pump all 36 shots into my kid this afternoon and hope for the best.
You all have me convinced now. THERE WILL BE NO PANDEMIC THIS YEAR.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
@JV
I think mainstream media entertains the vaccination-autism link theory far more than any actual scientific studies have managed to. There isn’t one study that finds a link, and I challenge you to show a published study that proves otherwise, with hard evidence.
When you read both sides of the fence, as you claim, are you reading actual science journals, or just getting your science info news websites? There is a big difference between what scientists publish and what the mainstream media discusses.
@DOB
The greatest part of this article is that you brought attention to the fact that entirely too much autism research money has gone into the vaccine issue when it could have been much better invested. Kudos.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Jvreturns I’m glad you’ve read “pretty much everything from both sides of the fence”. Nevermide that a complete knowledge of how vaccines work in the chemical context of the immune system is heinously complicated coupled with how they may have adversly affected the body. I’m sure you googling both sides provides complete knowledge trumping those who are experts in their fields and who have actually done research and know the difficulties in getting it published. This amazing wisdom coupled with some dumbass ancedote of how badass your kids are has firmly convinced. Why do years of research when one mans observations provide all the questionable evidence you need. Now find me a reportable journal of science (nature, etc) and have them publish your ideas and maybe I’ll do something besides laugh.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Dear lbh,
Then you better stay your ass out of L.A., You’re Welcome.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Dear JV,
Keep your fucking kids away from mine. Thank you.
Also…
To DOB: She uses taragon. Don’t believe me? Ask your mom.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:32 am
@Dan
The thing is that there IS evidence of the link, but it’s not going to reach any of the mainstream news outlets or publications without some sort of counter-attack to discredit the research. Call me cynical, but if every single television station, every newspaper in the country, and every person on the street is trying very hard to sway my opinion, I simply refuse to accept it without question. Call my logic flawed if you like, but a lifetime of experience has made me very skeptical towards anything so widely accepted, and one such example is the current vaccination program that my child would’ve had to endure if I’d simply ‘followed the rules’.
I’v read pretty much anything from both sides of the fence, so much so that I still believe that SOME vaccinations are still essential. Like if you had to go to Africa and any mosquito can give you Malaria, shit, shoot me up right now. If there was a polio scare, or widespread measles hitting my town, hey maybe we do need some preventive medicine to keep it in check.
But in my case, I just simply sat back and observed the growth of other children in my family, or my friend’s kids. All of them had their vaccinations right on schedule as they’re ’supposed’ to. Then I watch how sickly and pale they become over the course of the next few weeks. How easy it is for them to get sick whenever you turn on the air conditioner, or how often they have to take the kid to extra visits to the hospital because of some horrible reaction to the shots. I mean, these kids look really fuckin’ unhealthy, like %70 of the time. I feel sorry for the parents because I know how painful it is to watch your little one crying uncontrollably from some internal pain that they cannot vocalize yet.
To sit here and say that EVERY vaccination is bad for your kids, that would be TOO ignorant and biased. I’m not even saying that there’s a definite link between autism and vaccinations. But without a doubt in my mind, I will say that they do permanent damage the immune system. I’m also saying that I simply refused to put my child through that horrendous experience and would rather provide him with a good diet and wonderful living conditions to stay healthy and preventive of any childhood diseases. I’d rather go all-natural than watch him go through the same shit as everyone else’s sickly kid.
Eventually I will get the important shots out of the way, but at my own pace and with the doctor of my choosing. If the state has to resort to putting gun to my head just to prove a point, than they might as well admit that they don’t give a fuck about the health of my kid either. It’s all part of an agenda to dumb down health and make everyone much more dependent on Kaiser and shit. To explain that, I would have to go much deeper into conspiracy territory, and this really isn’t the place for that. Unless there’s a worldwide conspiracy to make penis and fart jokes extinct.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:15 am
regardless of what anyone says or argues about. there is real proof and studies that show vaccinations work. there is no proof that vaccinations cause autism. im not on any side. im just saying look at the facts. i will vaccinate my child to prevent diseases and risk the little chance (if there even is one) on my child getting autism. becasue autism has happened without getting vaccinated as well. i believe that if its going to happen then it will. and thats that.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:29 am
JV Returns: Very well written outpouring made questionable by your irrational point of view. I guess the bottom line is this: why would you choose to believe there is a link between autisum and vaccinations when study after study has shown this to be untrue? You are of course well within your rights to choose the path you are on but I think most people just fail to understand why you believe what you do in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Its like the anit-moon landing people…you can believe anything you want but there really isn’t any reason to do so in your case. And by the way, the fear that you speak of…its not for us, its for your kids and the consequences they will have to live with because of your poor skills in logic.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:11 am
I love it when people are so hardcore about pushing these vaccines onto everybody, because it gives me a chance to really crawl under their skin and make them hate the fact that people like me, Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey, can still exist in this world and make something out of themselves no matter how kooky and biased our opinions may seem on the forefront. I absolutely love it when people’s fears and insecurities come pouring in through comments sections because of the possibility that my unvaccinated kid might just cough on you one day, and the reactions will be as irrational and stupid as a human being can get. (see recent swine flu scare)
Check this out, heres this beautiful blonde women who made a career out of showing off her blonde little coochy and lovely pink nipples airbrushed to perfection in the pages of Playboy magazine. Then she got paid buku bucks just to make Jim Carrey faces and pick her nose while hosting an MTV dating show. Then she moved on and had a child who developed autism after being injected with industrial filth and has probably spent a fuck-ton of money and time researching and finding out that it was run-of-the-mill vaccines that ruined her child’s life. As well as donating tons of more money to charities that revolve around curing autism. And she landed Jim Carrey.
Take one canadian-born superstar who can roughly make 30 million a film, just to goof it up and make faces for 2 hours, has become a world-famous household name, can probably buy and sell each and every one of us 10 times over, and yet still remains a humble sensitive intelligent soul that is using said household name to bring awareness to a cause that he truly believes in, instead of merely becoming JimCarrey Incorporated, or a fuckin’ scientologist. Yet it hasn’t tarnished his reputation or career. No doubt donating millions of that dispensable cash to various charities working ’round the clock to cure autism. And he nailed Jenny McCarthy with her fine-ass.
I can’t put myself in the same celebrity status as those two examples, but I will say that against all odds, I’v exceeded all expectations and made a great career out of being an Engineer and a Graphic Designer for a living, when by all means, I should be fuckin’ dead or in a political prison by now. I married a sexy intelligent woman and started a family by the age of 25, and I’m the proudest father in the world, thanks to my over-developed, highly intelligent, bad-ass, unvaccinated 3 year old son. (people on the street mistaken him for a 5 year old) Maybe he’s like that because I chose not to have him vaccinated, or maybe I just lucked out by spawning a child prodigy, and vaccines had no play whatsoever in his development (or lack thereof).
My point is: Hate on us all you want, mutha fuckaz! You can’t ever place that same fear into us that YOU have to live with everyday of your lives.
If you’re so afraid of getting sick,
afraid of breathing germs,
afraid to go against doctor’s orders,
Then please get tha fuck off the planet!
Go get that Tamiflu shot and stop crying about what everybody else is doing with their kids. I’d rather break away from the herd than blindly follow it to the slaughter.
Peace onto you all. Have a nice life. I love not being afraid.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:32 am
I think that’s part of the problem, Zanve, people want quick, clean simple answers to everything. VACCINES KILLED MY BABY!! gets a lot more hits than a five minute dissertation on the chemistry and physics involved in said vaccines. Or, as DOB said, headlines stick and the more inflammatory the headline, the more likely it is to stick, particularly with the people who need to read more than a headline.
May 18th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Now to those who understand this I apologize for the oversimplification but it is a very complex subject that can not be cvrred in one post no matter how sexy the poster.
May 18th, 2009 at 8:46 am
Let’s try this another way. I’ll go step by step in basic immunology regarding vaccination benefits and u tell me where I’m wrong. First, disease is typically caused by an unchecked bacterial infection which multiplies and grows exponentially. This is a smplification but I serves as a springboard. The human body possesses two systems to deal with this innate and adaptive immunity. Innate is broad spectrum; adaptive is specialized and thus more efficient. However, it needs time to adapt (BCR affinity, selection of correct antibody etc. This is why your secondary response to a pahogen is much more effective. This is why vacinnations help they enable the adaptive immunity to get a head start both in b cell activation and finetuning of receptor. Now what part of this don’t u understand because this is a very simple explination and i’m happy to elaborate on any point.
May 18th, 2009 at 8:44 am
@JV Returns
While it would be nice to think that the anti-vaxx idiots will simply weed themselves out, that’s not the case.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/05/04/antivax-kills/
Vaccines don’t work 100% of the time and not everyone can receive all of them for various reasons (being under 6 months of age is an important one). We need as many people as possible to be vaccinated to keep up the herd immunity.
Children, and not just unvaccintated children are dying because of Jenny McCarthy. It’s likely that many more will die now that Oprah is behind this nonsense.
May 18th, 2009 at 8:40 am
I’m a little late to the party, which is too bad since I’m the parent of an autistic child and feel I can speak from personal experience on this subject.
1. Thank you Daniel, for the thoughtful yet funny post.
2. I agree that Ms. McCarthy is doing a good thing by using her celebrity to bring attention to this issue, but she’s doing harm by being an alarmist ass.
3. It’s possible that because of her rhetoric, my 10 year old (who has asthma) suffered a miserable 3+ months recovering from whooping cough last fall. Special thanks goes out to that particular mom that decided that risk of autism was greater than pertussis and DIDN’T inoculate her (then)healthy child. Thank you-thank you …for infecting my child, who has a weakened immune and respiratory system.
4. Females make up only 25% of the autisitic population. My daughter is autistic. So is her first cousin(also a girl). They didn’t get their vaccinations at the same office and don’t even live in the same county. Not to mention that the mercury that was thought to be the culpret stopped getting added to vaccinations before they were both born. So I’m inclined to think there may be a genetic link as well.
However, I’m not going out and saying the medical community doesn’t believe me. Why? well, maybe because there’ve been ongoing studies regarding this. Eight years ago, long before Jenny starting speaking out on this, a honest-to-goodness medical professional suggested genetic counseling after my little girl’s diagnosis. Hmmm, what do you know about that?
5. Ms. McCarthy says that food played a huge part in her son’s “cure”. There could be something to this. I took what turned out to be bad advice and switched my daughter from milkbased formula to soy when she was a baby. When she was a toddler, I switched from soy to rice milk. Overnight(literally) I had an entirely new and improved kid. It was that dramatic. I’ve heard that gluten-free diet has worked for some but it hasn’t worked for any of the parents I’ve spoken with.
However, Ms McCarthy advocates an exclusively organic, macrobiotic diet. That’s fine if you can afford $5/lb. tomatoes and a personal chef to prepare everything just so when you don’t have time. For single mom’s working full-time to earn less than $40,000.00/year that’s not really feasable. Besides, as I’ve stated already, what works for my kid may not work for yours.
6. Although I wouldn’t go on national television and yell that they’re ALL WRONG, the experts don’t know everything. They certainly don’t know my child like I do, anyway.
I took my 3 1/2 year old to the city to see the big-shot neurologist & psycologist autism expert dream-team. After a rudimentary physical exam and taking 20 min’s each to observe her through a one-way mirror they proclaimed her “severely” autistic with P.D.D.
I and everyone who knew her were ready to call Bullshit on that. That “severely” autistic kid, through no special effort, tells jokes(badly), loves AFV, wants to be an interior designer when she grows up, performs at grade level and writes lovely essays. She also whines or comes up with lame excuses when I tell her to do chores(just like any other kid) and happens to be a much better liar than her older brother.
7. Shit that was long-winded. Sorry. BOOBIES, BOOBIES BOOBIES!
May 18th, 2009 at 8:23 am
OK, i think everybody’s missing the real point of the article here.
Dan, the special ingredient to the pasta sauce is cinnamon, with a pinch of nutmeg. This does amazing things to a nice simmering pasta sauce.
May 18th, 2009 at 7:19 am
@KAT
Your response to my rants was a couple of days too late, and now so is mine. But this pretty much goes out to anybody that has the predisposition to hate anyone who refuses mandatory vaccines for their children. EAT A FAT DICK!!!!
Now hear me out on this one. Obviously there’s no middle ground on this issue where ‘Pro-Vaccination’ people are willing to admit that those shots can potentially fuck up your kid. As a matter of fact, they’re willing to regurgitate pages worth of info from some HMO pamphlet just to defend vaccines in a comment section. And the ‘Anti-Vaccination’ people are all too familiar with the dangers of vaccines, but are considered nut-jobs by default because their stance differs from what mental conditioning and indoctrination has told us who and what to believe our whole lives. So I just gonna it like this;
If there exists a certain amount of people who are ‘crazy and stupid’ enough to question the system and make that decision not to vaccinate, well, then that all works better for you Pro-vaccination people because we’re obviously gonna catch these diseases all at once and die as soon as we step out of the house.
Not only that, but we’re gonna take out whole communities with us in the process, and it will serve as a lesson to us that we should unquestionably listen to Dr.Mario and get every fuckin’ immunization available to us under the sun, and just trust in Big Brother because he is obviously looking out for our well-being. Our government and our flawless medical system would never impose something like that on us without making sure it’s %100 safe for mass consumption.
Your point will be proven and stupid people like us will be fazed out, along with our offspring so you can ensure that any of our future generations won’t be around to make everyone else sick. Problem solved. Pandemic averted.
Afterall, you said so yourself that you would love to see a machine gun pointed at my kids head for some jerk-off to poke him with syringes against his will, just to ensure the survival of the human race. So what does that make you, Kat?
May 18th, 2009 at 6:29 am
Don’t you just LOVE it when people site wikipedia as a valid source of information? I mean, wikipedia? Seriously? Fucking idiots!
May 17th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com
I think that pretty much speaks for itself.
Every time I see McCarthy or Carrey, I have the horrible urge to start spouting out insults and accusations. They have, after all, played key roles in an organization that effectively promotes letting kids die from medical neglect. But I’ll be nice this time.
Dan, thanks for posting this article. And thanks for showing a lot more control than I would have.
May 17th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
I am currently in med school. When I was getting my undergraduate, my Anatomy professor would talk to us about the dangers of vaccines. His daughter had autism, so he had a personal link to it. He was a very good teacher.
That said, he was a chiropractor. Not an MD. Every MD I’ve spoken to has disagreed with that. These are MDs. Not internet websites with ads on the sidebar trying to get you to “win” an X-Box.
Please get your kids vaccinated and ignore people who have “done the research” and then cite Wikipedia as sources.
May 17th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Sarah - those graphs show the mortaility rate - not the morbidity rate. You do know the difference don’t you - if you don’t then you shouldn’t make stupid posts like the one you did. The death rates WERE declining - due to things like better health care etc. Yes we were were able to bring those people back from deaths door. The disease rates - the actual rate of disease (including all those loveley side effects such as paralysis, brain damage, permanent crippling etc etc had not changed at all UNTIL AFTER VACCINATION was introduced.
May 17th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
… was when she was yelling: ‘deeper… Deeper… DEEPER’ in my ear!
May 17th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Autism is not on the rise, just the diagnosis of autism. People with autism were just previously labeled as having mental retardation because people did not know what autism was.
May 17th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Wow. Serious discussion on Cracked. I think the world is ending.
May 17th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Sarah, my dear, that’s just what any intelligent person would expect to see. Indeed, vaccinations are usually tested when rates go down for whatever reason. Regardless, it’s not a conspiracy.
I’m sure you, as a mother, would rather your child have autism then die of any number of diseases she would be very likely to receive without vaccination.
But of course, you’re child wouldn’t get autism since there is absolutely no link at all and Jenny McCarthy is apparently your lesbian lover.
Is it true her vagina has teeth?
May 17th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Hi Sarah… nice post, thank you.
Question: if you’re still lactating… give me a dingle, then I’ll return the favor (IF you know what I mean?)!
XO!
May 17th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Since it would appear I am among the few who are brave enough and responsible enough to question vaccinations (I am a mother, and yes, it was a VERY difficult to postpone my daughter’s shots while doing the research that eventually brought me to the ‘other side’), I would like to give you all some food for thought–one little site in particular:
You know those charts we’ve ALL seen showing the plummets of infectious disease AFTER the vaccine was introduced. Pretty convincing stuff, right?
Well, funny—turns out what was happening BEFORE the vaccines were introduced might shed some light on things:
http://www.healthsentinel.com/graphs.php
May 17th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
i don’t care how ridiculously stupid her opinions are, but. i’d still stick it to her.
May 17th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
“Even IF vaccines are somewhat effective (I’m not sure I’ll ever know the answer myself), I’d STILL rather take my chances with the diseases any day.”
HAHAHHAHHAHA.
May 17th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
I would just like to point out that, over the last 50+ years, thousands of kids have gotten vacinated, and they were all just fine (for the most part). The only thing that did happen was a drastic drop in the number of kids dying.
May 17th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Goddamn, I paid your mum to keep her mouth shut.
May 17th, 2009 at 11:56 am
This is why you’re my favorite writer on this site. Well-written, concise, and a good read. And funny as a bonus! Great job, Mr. O’Brien.
May 17th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Tis true… I’ve seen the pics!
May 17th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Sarah:
Kill yourself. You’re an idiot, which is a wasting, degenerative disease, that dramatically lowers your quality of life.
Cheerio.
May 17th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Yet you want us to visit your shitty website, how convenient!
May 17th, 2009 at 8:33 am
We’re not hearing you!
You KNOW people don’t read other people’s shit on here. And if you don’t know, you’re a douche-bag.
Look at the ‘Captions’ on here sometime. They day they had that picture up of a guy in a tree costume, there must have been a dozen of exactly the same (obvious) ‘Craptions.’
People want to be HEARD on blogs (it gives shut-ins and friendless losers a voice - and they believe their opinion matters (they have too, otherwise they’d not have much to live for (obviously, and clearly) otherwise), they don’t want to read or learn for fuck sake! LOL! http://neilsnotes.com/index.php?page=15&catid=32&sku=E-CD00384
May 17th, 2009 at 8:31 am
I see that everyone is having a serious debate, so I would like to go another direction and point out that the doctor who almost cries was the bachelor at one point. I think his name is Travis. That’s right… 25 women clawed over each other and make spectacles of themselves for the doctor with the sideburns who Jenny McCarthy almost made cry.
May 17th, 2009 at 7:30 am
That picture of Kim… her head looks like it is shopped onto the body.
May 17th, 2009 at 6:50 am
Sarah, your notion of ‘priming’ has taken humanity hundreds, maybe even thousands of years to achieve.
If the human body was actually capable of what you’re insisting, then there would be no death from disease, ever. The only disease the human body has actually built up a tolerance to (at least in this part of the world) is the common cold or even a mild flu, a common infection or disease that would kill mere centuries ago.
Just because you have a high tolerance of some mild form of disease does not mean you can reject medical science, which, in all fairness has spent a colossal amount of money and time researching these things, because of some extreme cases.
May 17th, 2009 at 6:12 am
———
Do you know how many infectious disease outbreaks naturally died out on their own before the age of immunizations?
———
That’s because the people who got infected freaking died…
You think people just developed some magic resistance to them? Those same diseases are still very much in existence today, and the only reason they aren’t as big an issue is because we have antibiotics and vaccines.
Also, there’s orders of magnitude more people in the world today. Plagues would happen with *much* greater frequency if the drugs weren’t working.
May 17th, 2009 at 5:46 am
Here, I’ll explain it to you:
People like to think that they’re special. What makes people special is being different to the majority. So, people that aren’t special in terms of, say, talent or intellect will have to find some other way to set themselves apart from the majority.
What’s the best way to do that? You find something untenable to hold on to, a cause, and delude yourself into thinking that you’re one of the few special ones who can see through ‘the big lie’.
It’s why we regularly see not-special people trying to rally up support for some hogwash or another. It’s just cultism in a very basic form.
Couple this need with a tragedy (like having an autistic child) and it isn’t difficult to see how this crusade started.
May 17th, 2009 at 5:01 am
Gekkobear,
Wonderful logic.
Do you know how many infectious disease outbreaks naturally died out on their own before the age of immunizations? Here’s a list to get you started counting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_plagues
Have you ever considered that improved sanitation practices and hygiene may be largely responsible for the decline in disease rates?
If you haven’t, then just consider that outbreaks for many diseases -like measles- still occur in highly populated vaccinations, especially in developing countries.
Even IF vaccines are somewhat effective (I’m not sure I’ll ever know the answer myself), I’d STILL rather take my chances with the diseases any day. Whatever happened to the idea of a healthy, strong immune system–capable of doing what it is designed to do–without any “priming”?
There’s something so senseless about injecting an immune-suppressing array of toxins and foreign animal or aborted fetal tissue cells past the body’s natural defense system and directly into the bloodstream of any human—much less a brand-new human baby.
Gary: I don’t care for numbers. I care more for quality of life. Who cares if I live 30 years longer if I’m going to be inflicted by some chronic or degenerative illness (which didn’t exist 100 years ago)
and only be kept barely alive by constantly downing a mess load of life-sapping drugs.
May 17th, 2009 at 4:10 am
@ Doug
You asked for an alternate theory for the origin of autism. Here is a short excert from an article published recently in one of our local papers. Feel free to visit the website mentioned to learn more;
Three new studies have identified DNA links to rare and common forms of autism found among genes involved in forging connections between brain cells, scientists report.
The evidence strengthens suspicions of a genetic role in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The three investigations, reported online by the British based journal Nature, looked for tiny genetic mutations.
@ Sarah
As I have stated twice before in the comments, the big evil pharma companies cannot simply sell a drug because they want to make money. Each new medicine goes through 10 YEARS of clinical research with third party CROs who don’t use profits as a motivation to pass a drug, before being submitted to the authority in that country (for example, the TGA in Australia and the FDA in North America) who also don’t use profits as a motivation to pass a drug. I can’t say I know enough about the vaccine debate to chime in on that aspect but I do know how clinical research works and it shits me that the fanatics use the excuse that pharma companies are allowed to peddle either useless or harmful medicines, which is total bull.
Oh, and for all the people that believe that the pharma companies benefit from keeping people sick, that is also bull. They don’t make money from keeping people sick, they make money from constantly competing against each other to produce better drugs. Why hand your money over to Pfizer who is just reducing your symptoms when Merck can cure your illness all together?
Every time a patent runs out on a drug and it goes generic, the value of the drug to the company that it originated from drops significantly. So they squirrel away to come up with the new, improved versions that the public demands. If you want to accuse the pharmas of any shady behavior, it should actually be the extent to which they try and extend the patents on their current drugs.
May 17th, 2009 at 3:57 am
@archie
had i been given the choice i think i would have preferred measles above autism. i mean, come on, it’s not cancer or something that serious http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles, just some fever for a few weeks while that autism will never really go away.
though how i choose to live with that (get angry about it or make the best of it) is still my own choice.
you do make an excellent point about the way autistic people are treated. it’s something that really bothers me, because my family has a rather bad experience with it.
i know several people with autism and it seems that the ones who have been diagnosed as small children and recieved special education and all that are now stuck in shitty dead-end jobs (my brother among them).
wheras the people who were diagnosed after the age of 20 and never got any special care (like myself) are often doing well enough at university and beyond.
and just to be clear: the early or later diagnoses has nothing to do with the severness of the (social) problems, my brother is actually more socially apt then me (way more friends then me, better able to interact with strangers). nor do the different schools have anything to do with intelligence (we are both a bit above average iq, thank you very much)
from what i’ve seen of autism-help-services (schools, therapists, self-help-groups etc.) the biggest problem there is that autistic children (and all other ’special needs’ kids) are constantly encouraged to whale in self-pity.
if they, for example, express a desire to recieve higher education there always seems to be a therapist at hand ‘advising’ them’: ‘are you sure you want to do that?, that would be sóó much more dificult for you then for ‘normal’ kids. it’s ok that you can’t do that. you really don’t have to do that, after all, you’re sick and pathetic. why don’t you want to listen to my advice, i’m a proffesional and know exactly how you should live your life’.
thus shredding whatever self-confidence remains after years of sub-par education (why bother giving them grades or encourage them to do homework, it’s not like they would ever be able to get an actual job or something)
i always thought that saddest in all this is that autism and asperger seem be correlated with higher then average intelligence (on average, and that average does not hold when parents start using autism or ADHD or whatever as a lame excuse for the learning problems of their stupid and lazy offspring), so it’s not just the children that end up in jobs far below their cappacity, it’s also society as a whole that depraves itself of a lot a potential.
May 17th, 2009 at 3:28 am
Dont mistake denialism for debate……….
There is a good chance my opinion will get swallowed in what is this comment whale that doesn’t notice anything that goes against their beliefs unless they like arguments for the sake of argument.
While Jenny may be an overreactive publicity whore activist shes right to an extent. I might say shes doing what she has to in order to get “see and heard”
It is a FACT that there is mercury in the vaccines that are giving to children under. It has been shown in testing that it causes autism. Dont say well testing and research can be falsified, if it was true it our great perfect system wouldn’t allow it to happen. Bull they want us to to be sick so we keep dependent on services. Health care is a bushiness now and very tied into the government. They dont want you healthy.
Even aluminum partials that are in anti-antiperspirant are carcinogenic. by itself it wouldn’t be enough to do harm. Combined with everything else out there yes it does do harm. Even Red dye #40 is poison, it causes among a long list neurotoxicity. Fluoride in the water what is that all about…its poison if you drink it It will destroy your thyroid gland. All this doesnt mean Im neurotic about it…i just want the choice and the knowledge of whats going in my body.
Since when did the government become doctors.
just cause nothing happened to you when you were a kid doesnt mean its happening now…just look at a graph of the rise of autism to from when it started being serious to now…its only been 40 years or so….you have to wonder why the sudden increase.
THis is important. While we still have the internet the way it is, if you dont agree with something but dont know for SURE and this doesn’t mean just going by what you heard on tv, Look it up, in more than one source…its as simple as that. but dont expect the “authority” to be telling the truth all the time…they have proved over and over that they LIE and if you think its for our own good…well Im flabbergasted, and utterly disgusted.
May 17th, 2009 at 1:33 am
“Until you’re willing to consider that you yourself may be a product of the vaccine-industries’ brainwashing, you have a 99% chance of exposing your children to things that—20 years from now—may be clearly shown to have contributed to things like autism.”
Well lets see.
Did I have vaccines? Yes.
Did I die of polio, measles, mumps, or rubella to prevent me from speaking well about vaccines? No.
Well, you’re right. I’m a product of the vaccine industry’s brainwashing… and the vaccine industry’s preventing me from dying of known and preventable illnesses too. Which is even more tricky of them really.
They somehow prevented me from dying of these common and preventable childhood illnesses long enough for me to be promoting their preventative measures for avoiding having kids die of these illnesses and pass that information beneficial to them on to future generations.
How diabolically clever they are… I’m convinced. If they had let me die of measles when I was a kid, I wouldn’t be here to clarify how they prevent kids from dying of measles. They’re tricky tricky people, that’s for sure.
Hopefully through your actions, you can have more kids die at their appointed times from preventable, painful, and most of all deadly diseases; and not have their lives artificially extended, as mine might have been through these vaccine industry’s machinations.
May 17th, 2009 at 1:26 am
……It’s astounding how you people just refuse to listen to what the blogger has to say… and just throw out your own opinions.
Man…. it’s not like you’re just refusing to listen to recent advances in science…. it’s as if you’re just reusing to acknowledge that anything you want to believe could possibly be wrong.
What the fuck is wrong with our society?
May 17th, 2009 at 1:18 am
… because of the life she’s led… God gave her a retard.
http://neilsnotes.com/index.php?page=13&catid=9&sku=ENGL-CD00418
May 17th, 2009 at 12:46 am
Josh: “Perhaps we should avoid the herd mentality when it comes to vaccines”. Please look up herd immunity. By choosing not to vaccinate your child, you are not only endangering your child, but also other children in your community.
Sarah: “many cultures have been thriving for centuries without vaccinations or antibiotics or synthetic drugs of any kind”. This is a blatant lie. In the last hundred years alone, the average lifespan in the US has increased by more than 30 years. There is no way to spin or distort this statistic. Feel free to look up the numbers yourself.
May 16th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
“Until you’re willing to consider that you yourself may be a product of the vaccine-industries”
See, evidence doesn’t count. Thanks Sarah.
May 16th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Bravo, great article. There is a mountain of evidence that shows that vaccinations do not cause autism, A MOUNTAIN.
McCarthy is a floating rubber duck that will not sink because she can dodge any legitimate piece of evidence that is thrown at her by chalking it up to a grand conspiracy. It’s not really relevant to her what the evidence shows because her “mommy instinct” is sufficient evidence and anything that contradicts that is part of the master plan to keep people sick, and greedy people making money. So the countless studies are useless.
It’s a scary thing the influence that her and her crackpot friends have. Terrifying in fact, and the consequences transcend the people that are choosing not to have their kids vaccinated. There are plenty of kids out there who have a medical condition that prevents them from getting vaccinated and are dependent on so called “herd immunity” whereby the infection levels can not reach a sufficient level to spread throughout the community.
There is a body count attached to her shenanigans and she should be for god damned sure about the shit she espouses before doing projecting onto a sheepish public.
http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/Jenny_McCarthy_Body_Count/Home.html
May 16th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Hear, hear to Josh below!
The article sounds great on the surface. People love to chime in and berate mothers like Jenny McCarthy, but do any of you know how difficult it is to go against the flow and question the wisdom of immunizations?
We’re obviously ALL born into a culture which conditions us to believe we can’t be healthy without vaccines.
It took me a LONG time to make it over the hump and realize that many cultures have been thriving for centuries without vaccinations or antibiotics or synthetic drugs of any kind.
Until you’re willing to consider that you yourself may be a product of the vaccine-industries’ brainwashing, you have a 99% chance of exposing your children to things that—20 years from now—may be clearly shown to have contributed to things like autism.
Sure, it’s so easy to see now that there’s no link between vaccines and austism. But look who’s talking; look whose funding most of the studies you pull up online: the multi-billion dollar vaccine industry, that’s who.
The easiest way to judge the truth for yourself, in my opinion, is to look at the evidence presented by the folks who have NOTHING to gain–no money, no sales, no conflicts of interest.
When you manage to dig far enough to find the truly independent research, then you may begin to see vaccines are not all they’re cracked up to be, or–in the least–that it’s definitely not the no-brainer of an issue you’ve been led to believe.
A few key phrases to google before you so make up your mind:
vaccine death rates charts
aborted fetal cell lines vaccines
monkey kidney cell lines
indefinite cell lines
May 16th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
“obviously has found evidence that has led her to believe”
That would be an assumption. There is not evidence; however, people see her conviction and assume there is.
May 16th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
It’s easy to condemn those who are opposed to vaccines, especially if the person in question has not done any particular research on the subject and uses information garnered from somebody else as a basis for their decision. Isn’t it just as reckless to take the word of the medical community for gospel and subject yourself or your children to vaccines without any understanding of the risks? There seems to be this mindset that doctors and scientists are infallible yet evidence suggests otherwise.
How many of the people who’ve commented on this article have actually researched the side effects of each vaccine they’ve been given? Or better yet, who here has sat down with their doctor before each shot and had the side-effects spelled out? The more likely scenario is that they were handed a photocopied sheet of paper and nothing more of the risks involved with injecting a foreign substance into your body was mentioned.
I’m not making a judgment on either side of the argument. I’m simply suggesting that before you condemn someone for taking a stand for something they believe in you should educate yourself on the subject.
Jenny McCarthy has a child who has been diagnosed with a disease that nobody really knows anything about. Everyday a new theory on the cause of autism arises and almost as quickly is shown to be false. She is a loving mother who wishes that no parent has to go through what she is going through. She has obviously found evidence that has led her to believe vaccines are a contributor to autism, so who can blame her for using her “pretty, Oprah-anointed TV star” influence to spread awareness to this effect. Celebrities use their position to push their causes everyday. Rarely are they chastised to the degree that Jenny McCarthy is, and only because the argument she brings to the table is a slap in the face to the medical community.
Perhaps we should avoid the herd mentality when it comes to vaccines, it might prevent us from becoming sheep. Instead we should take accountability for our actions, educate ourselves, and then, if we feel that vaccination is the best option, get those shots…or don’t get them, what do I care.
May 16th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Wow…
DOB, keep this up and next year you won’t have to harass the board to get one of those blogger’s awards. Powerful stuff.
Never do it again.
The world is too serious. We need the dipshitted, head-up-your-ass funny DOB more than we need the culturally aware, thought-provoking, proving-the-idiocy-is-all-just-a-gimmick DOB.
So good job, but next week I demand extra fart jokes.
May 16th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Your article is made of awesome.
May 16th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
A Match Made in Heaven!
May 16th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
@McNab:
There’s no gene for stupidity. Smart parents produce dumb kids, and smart kids can come from dumb parents.
It’s as much the environment they are raised in as the genes they get.
Some kids dieing ’cause their parents didn’t get them vaccinated, or even worse, some kids dieing ’cause someone else’s parents didn’t get them vaccinated only ends with sick or dead kids.
And wasted money in fruitless research to combat stupid propaganda.
Sure, there are people who are weak against major diseases, that could be bred out of society as a whole after a while.
But, that’s what vaccines were originally invented for.
And these diseases don’t target just the foolish people, it targets anyone susceptible.
May 16th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Thank you for publishing this article Cracked. I am so sick of people sprouting off ‘facts’ that they know nothing about, simply because they saw someone famous saying it.
Sure, Jenny is having a rought time with her autistic son, but to come out all guns blazing and blaming vaccinations is just stupid.
It’s like fat people blaming their obesity on supermarkets for putting chocolate bars on the shelves. It doesn’t make sense.
Maybe if Jenny campaigned more for the actual RESEARCH of the topic, rather than trying to convince everyone she’s right and the general doctors community is wrong, people would listen!
May 16th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Well, what does cause Autism? I’d like to see a viable theory other than vaccines before I vilify people who are looking for answers and worried sick about their kids.
May 16th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Wow, I remember when Cracked was a second class Mad Magazine wannabe. You guys were a step down from Mad and a step up from Crazy and Car Toons. With this article you have taken the lead and become the most responsible media outlet in the world. You deserve multiple Pulitzer’s and possible a Noble for science. Thank you for being another voice of sense in a world gone stupid.
May 16th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
I love this article, but I do have a nitpick about the ending. While it is completely true that the diagnosis of autism is on the rise, we don’t actually know that there really is more autism now than there used to be.
There’s a lot of diagnostic substitution (what used to be called MR is often now called autism), a broader definition of autism, and better earlier screening and public awareness. And with increased funding and better public school services for disabilities, there’s more incentive to get a diagnosis now than there used to be.
May 16th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Holy Crap Jaynie59, I hope you don’t have kids, if you do and you aren’t feeling the rewards of raising them then realize it’s not the kids, it’s you!
Loved the article DOB, great work as always!
May 16th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
love ya man
# Mournblade Says:
May 16th, 2009 at 10:58 am
@Rachel: You said it! I thank God EVERY single day for the good health that my two wonderful daughters have had so far.
I actually saw Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey on CNN or some other news channel a few weeks back spouting off all this nonsense about vaccines and autism. Granted, I was a philosophy major, and the FIRST course I had to take in that field was Logic. And although I don’t recall the exact name of it (it’s been literally 20 years this past month since I took the final exam in that class–AND I got one of only three As in the classroom), but it’s the fallacy of cause and effect. Basically, although A and B might have corrolation, it does not follow that A causes B, or that B causes A.
Example: 99 percent of all bank robbers ate bread the day before they robbed a bank. Therefore (the logic of the fallacy would state), bread causes people to rob banks!
To quote Angus Oblong, “Stupid humans.”
May 16th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Good article, DOB. Nice to see that you are tackling an actual issue.
May 16th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
One aspect of McCarthy’s story that has never gotten any kind of publicity that I’ve seen anywhere was something I figured out just by reading one of her interviews: Jenny McCarthy’s son does not have autism.
Raising a kid is hard, difficult, thankless, stressful, and not the least bit rewarding at all. Too many mothers are led to believe that there is some kind of magical, noble, connection between them and their kid. That’s not true. Kids, for the most part, suck. They are demanding, selfish, self centered, beasties who have no sense of your life at all. They DON’T care what you go through to raise them. They’re not little people. They’re kids. They were born to suck the joy out of your life.
The parents job is to raise a kid who, hopefully, someday, will be a productive member of society and not become a serial killer, drug addict, prostitute, or all of the above. The very best you can hope for, as a parent, is that they don’t hate you too much when they grow up.
Society these days, however, expects all kids to be perfect. If little Johnny is quiet and shy, and doesn’t make friends easily within in 5 minutes of being dumped into a brand new day care center, or public school classroom, they get sent to the Social Worker, and then begins the blame game.
A quiet, shy, introvert? In todays public schools? OMIGOD!!! We have a potential future school shooter! CALL THE PARENTS!!!
Asperger’s, and other “autism lite” labels are simply convenient excuses parents can make to themselves for simply being overwhelmed by how hard it is to be a parent.
Autism isn’t on the rise at all. They just expanded the definition to fit kids who used to grow up to be in the history books.
May 16th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Jenny McCarthy really should do research, it’s not right for her to be out there, acting like an authority on a subject, when she doesn’t know a damned thing about it. If she really loves and respects her child, and cares about what happens to other children out there, she should learn more autism and vaccinations and then use the REAL information THAT SHE MAY BELIEVE in after reading it and then go out there to correctly inform the Oprah-hypnotized supermom viewers. Thanks DOB.
May 16th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Is it just me or do I not see a major issue here. Yeah sure some people don’t want their kids to get a jab or two and some that do. And yes it will affect the herd immunity of the commuity in which you live; which is a bad thing. But I look at it this way if your to stupid not to vaccinate your and they happen to die from some totally preventable disease or illness does that sort the problem out? It’s basic survival of the fittest in action. There really isn’t a problem here. If your dumb enough to listen to some one that lists “dvda capable” on her cv, then you should expect what ever happens to you and your children.
I liked her more when she was cheek deep in man meat. At least then she was doing some thing useful with her mouth.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
We actually talked alot about the whole ‘vacines are bad’ thing in my psychology class this semester. I have never seen my professor get so pissed about something. The guy who did this original study published this whole thing about how vacines cause autism, and then when other people in his field asked to see his research so they could do a more extensive study he was all “Yeah, I totally made that shit up”. Also, while Jenny MacCarthy’s son is autistic, he is barely autistic. I’ve helped in a summer school with children who had such severe autism that they couldn’t speak and had to have feeding tubes in their stomaches because they couldn’t eat. Jenny needs to shut the fuck up, she has no idea what she’s talking about (obviously).
May 16th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
ROTFLMAO!! now THAT was some good reading there!! as a mother with an autistic child, i think that my opinion that vaccines did NOT cause autism in my kid, I JUST FEEL IT should cancel out jenny mccarthys ‘research’, seeing as how i’m using the very same scientific research technique she uses.
oprah?? do i get a show now too??
May 16th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
…I’d be thinking to myself: ‘Hey… I’m fucking Jenny McCarthy in the ass… wait ’til I tell my friends… and show them the video, and go on Cracked.com to tell everyone! Y’know… her butt-hole feels pretty nice. I’m bet I’m hitting the bottom of her stomach! I wonder if Jim ever has (so I ask… as he’s beneath the 2 of us parking in her front garage) - Yo Jimbo… you ever hit stomach Bro?!’ http://neilsnotes.com/index.php?page=13&catid=17&sku=ENGL-CD00424
May 16th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Wow DOB! No offense, I have always liked your stuff, but this is not the usual perverted, voyeuristic, drug-fueled, psychotic rants I’ve come to love. This was different…..but good. Actually really good! It was a sincere address with a real meaning, while still being funny. Hmmmm…you must be on something really strong this time!
May 16th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Jenny McCarthy has the same interview/debate style as John Stewart! She just wags a finger at the people that she doesn’t agree with from a Bully Pulpit where she can sit protected from any criticism.
This is the same Jenny McCarthy who took a picture of herself taking shit when I was kid, so I have a hard time taking her seriously. I have only vivid memories from the 90’s to go on, so it’s impossible for me to look at her as anything more than a joke. Anything she has done in the last 12 years, I don’t know about. It would be like if Al Bundy started being the spokesperson against steroids. I’d just be thinking, “Hey, it’s AL! Can I get a woah! Bundy!”
May 16th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Vaccines are also linked to autism:
http://www.sweetremedy.tv/pages/alzeimers.html
May 16th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Just kicked her fish-mouthed face out the door to go do something with her life (even if that meant publicly spewing garbage about her retarded bastard child).
Even I would get tired of fucking her in the ass.
GO DO THE DISHES… BITCH!!!
May 16th, 2009 at 11:38 am
If I hadn’t already gotten the chicken pox, I would get the vaccine. Even if you go through the chicken pox without issue (some people don’t; my friend was in the hospital for a week due to complications with the chicken pox, and my mother was quarantined from my younger brother when he was an infant when she was infected), you can developed shingles later in life, and it’s quite brutal.
Why autism, though? Couldn’t you make the same case with obesity, or depression? “Europeans are less autistic, obese, and depressed than Americans, and they have fewer vaccines! Vaccines are causing all three! CASE CLOSED.”
May 16th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Incidentally, DOB that image is haunting my nightmares.
May 16th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Try letting your sauce simmer for a really long time. Slow cookers are great for not burning your sauce. The longer it sits the better it blends and the more delicious it is.
The key is not using too many ingredients and spices- simple and hearty is the best.
May 16th, 2009 at 11:03 am
@Zach:
Most vaccinations stay with you for a lifetime, if I am not mistaken. Only certain ones require boosters, but even then I think they stop at a certain age. I haven’t had a booster, I don’t think, since my late teens or early twenties, and I’m 38 now.
And for the record, the ONLY serious illness I even had was the chckenpox–before you laugh (and you have my permission to do so, since I won’t be offended), note that I was 24 years old when I got them–ONE MONTH before I got married! I got them at the end of May, 1995, and was married the first week of July. . . and it eventually developed into pneumonia, and I didn’t recover fully until October of that year. That shit really fucked me up!
And wouldn’t you know it? A vaccine for the chickenpox was introduced only MONTHS after I got the damned stuff! (Actually, THAT is kinda funny!)
May 16th, 2009 at 10:58 am
@Rachel: You said it! I thank God EVERY single day for the good health that my two wonderful daughters have had so far.
I actually saw Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey on CNN or some other news channel a few weeks back spouting off all this nonsense about vaccines and autism. Granted, I was a philosophy major, and the FIRST course I had to take in that field was Logic. And although I don’t recall the exact name of it (it’s been literally 20 years this past month since I took the final exam in that class–AND I got one of only three As in the classroom), but it’s the fallacy of cause and effect. Basically, although A and B might have corrolation, it does not follow that A causes B, or that B causes A.
Example: 99 percent of all bank robbers ate bread the day before they robbed a bank. Therefore (the logic of the fallacy would state), bread causes people to rob banks!
To quote Angus Oblong, “Stupid humans.”
May 16th, 2009 at 10:17 am
“There is a plethora of scientific evidence for vaccine dangers and inefficacy.”
Citation needed.
May 16th, 2009 at 10:02 am
I haven’t been vaccinated in 10 years and I’ve only been sick once. I think we need to be more skeptical about what we are vaccinated against, but thats not to say many aren’t useful.
May 16th, 2009 at 10:01 am
KIMBERLY!!! WOOO!!!
May 16th, 2009 at 9:39 am
It’s probably thyme. My red sauce was always missing _something_, until I added thyme.
May 16th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Scary botox lady wants your first born.
May 16th, 2009 at 8:48 am
She is really hot,i just heard that she is hooking up with a ta ll basketball player on a ta ll da ting place named: http://tallloving.com ,really?
May 16th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Yeah, good post, she seems like a dick. She clearly just needs something to fight, but while she’s out there spouting bullshit, she doesn’t have time to spend, like, with her kid. I can’t believe she said that she’d rather have measles than autism (or more importantly, implied that she’d rather her CHILD had it).
And here’s the thing, I know two people with Asperger’s and one with Autism - their definitions, not mine.
First Asperger’s guy: extremely smart, got a bright future ahead of him. Used to have trouble interacting with people, but now whenever I see him on the bus he’s always in a conversation.
Second Asperger’s guy: One of my best friends, I didn’t even realise he had it until he told me about the time he smacked a bully over the head with a chair. And fuck it, that’s just bravery imo.
Autistic guy: In my college class, going on to be a film editor, which is what he loves and wants to do in life.
My opinion: if you treat em as special, or different, they’ll believe it and act accordingly. If you treat em as human beings, they probably won’t give a shit.
May 16th, 2009 at 8:40 am
@Rotcod
Not sure if you have already, but maybe you should read my (admittedly) long post a few posts down where I mention that big ol’ evil pharma companies cannot simply start selling drugs/vaccines simply because the public needs something, anything and they are willing to provide empty answers just to make a profit. These drugs/vaccines go through 10 YEARS OF CLINICAL RESEARCH before being released onto the market, and that is after they have been researched by THIRD PARTY CROs and submitted to a product safety authority such as the TGA here in Australia and the FDA in North America.
The big pharmas cannot just snap their fingers and start selling whatever they want. While that may be their only motivation for being in the drug making business, there are guidelines and authorities in existence that prevent them from peddling any old shit.
May 16th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Personally, I’d rather have an autistic kid than a dead kid. Just throwing that out there.
May 16th, 2009 at 7:48 am
It is clear to those of us who have spent years reading about vaccines that all the people on the side of vaccine safety have barely skimmed the surface.
There is a plethora of scientific evidence for vaccine dangers and inefficacy. The repeatedly regurgitated “science” claiming that there is no link to autism is fraught with monetary conflicts of interest.
I’d like anyone to name just ONE multibillion dollar profit corporation that would not put their bottom line before “acceptable losses.”
Big Pharma, by making people well with their drugs, would put themselves out of business in the process. Tell me they want that over repeat customers. Or how about we make EVERY PERSON BORN a customer. I see $dollar signs$ already.
May 16th, 2009 at 7:00 am
Well I’d just like to add, thanks mom and dad for giving me all my shots.
May 16th, 2009 at 6:52 am
There’s a great segment about this on Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe by Dr. Ben Goldacre (it starts about three minutes in)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn8trMXe8ok
P.S. your mum sounds awesome.
May 16th, 2009 at 6:24 am
My nephew is autistic and his parents are on the anti-vaccine train, which is fairly frustrating since there’s no scientific basis for it. Really at all.
As a new parent, it sucks. It’s hard to ignore all the brouha even with knowledge on my side. But I’d rather have an autistic kid than one dead from measles.
May 16th, 2009 at 6:02 am
It’s rosemary and sweet basil.
And Jenny McCarthy is a scary idiot.
There are plenty of people who posed for naked pictures but are still smart and are plenty useful and functional and shouldn’t be judged for the rest of their lives for having done that, but Jenny McCarthy would still be a scary idiot if she had a PhD in biochemistry.
May 16th, 2009 at 5:32 am
JV Returns: You are the reason these conspiracy theories exist when it comes to autism vs. vaccinations. For example:
“what the fuck does a one year old need with a hepititus B shot?”
Yes, let’s keep the thought process at “if he’s not sick with it, what’s the point?”. Analgiesics not only start with the ord “anal” which in itself is funny, but the idea is that they’re PREVENTATIVE. Do you want your child to get on a city bus and touch something a hobo with an open wound and HepB has touched? Of course not, because your child has never heard of a Twinrex vaccine that has built their body’s immune system with antibodies against that virus.
“they’re gonna stick 6 needles full of this shit into my kid every two months, for a year and a half? And he’s not even sick to begin with?”
You know, besides the obvious issue here, you need to just sit down with a doctor, an honest to god doctor, not an “alternate medicine” gypsy, and ask them how immunities work, then you’ll understand why they need to happen in phases (every few months, or weeks sometimes), and some you only need to get once. Also, what the hell requires sick needles every few months? Are you sure your alternate medicine practitioner isn’t a vet?
(in regards to the baltimore forced immunization) “If that doesn’t seem excessive to everybody, than they should look forward to it happening more often”
I’d prefer it if every idiot who refused to get their child immunized had machine gun force against them. A client I saw last year had polio as a child due to excessive parent idiocy and as a result she never was immunized. By the way, she’s just forty and can hardly walk, requires two canes to move around and the run of the mill ninety year old could move faster than her.
Give your kids the benefit of the beefed up immune system. Also, why do you think they have Mercury, formaldehyde, aluminum, thimerosal, etc in them?? Where are you learning all of this?! I’d rather you never speak of all this again then pass on this horrible information.
May 16th, 2009 at 5:03 am
Lol, this was a definite high point for DOB. Cracked owns celeb culture.
May 16th, 2009 at 4:27 am
Right on rrpostal. I am hearing you. I am offering real life. Frick. Hell yes there is emotion. Give me absolute fact and we’ll talk. All you are offering is numbers, and weak ones at that. I want proof positive. I want it etched in stone. Til then, it’s freaking hearsay. I am a weak scientist at best, but I still get it. You got nothing.
I am not trying to piss you off..but the truth of things is sometimes sandwiched in pasta. Clam sauce?
May 16th, 2009 at 4:13 am
When you get the recipe for the pasta dish please tell us! =)
May 16th, 2009 at 3:57 am
@Josie
I think you just said because you know someone with autism that numbers don’t matter. I think. Or something like that. Emotion does not equal facts or reason. Just because someone is sad or justifiably angry does not mean they know everything, or anything for that matter.
May 16th, 2009 at 3:38 am
The spice in your mum’s pasta dish can’t be thyme as thyme is a herb.
May 16th, 2009 at 3:02 am
FYI: Doctors and scientists rarely claim to know something with absolute certainty because they have gone through so much schooling that they are aware of how little they actually know in comparison to what’s unknown. So when a doctor says vaccinations are “extremely unlikely” to cause autism, that translates to layman speak: “they don’t fucking cause autism.”
People who claim they “just know” are not only totally unscientific, but also revealing to the world just how stupid they are and how little they’ve tried to learn.
May 16th, 2009 at 2:43 am
Good article.
Has everybody forgotten that the only reason any of us know who this lady is that she was very good at posing naked in front of a camera? Now I’m sure that involves more work than just stripping down but it does not make her a medical expert by any means. Are we supposed to jump up and down screaming for our daughters to be just like her? I hope not. Simply put, she is a mom now and better looking than the doctor who is being set up for a fall by the massive industrial Oprah complex. That is the whole list of credentials.
The rest of us should do our own research to make our own informed decisions.
May 16th, 2009 at 2:37 am
Down here in Australia I have never really given thought to this autism vs. vaccine debate before because A) I don’t have kids and B) it has never really been widely discussed here or brought up as a media debate. I did however catch that Oprah show featuring Miss McCarthy the other day while I was busy trying to avoid working on a college assignment and I have to say that the only thought I had about it at the time was “that bitch was scary”. I haven’t even really considered it much since watching the show but I have been aware of the issue for some years now as I read quite a few American websites/blogs/magazines. I’ve heard opinions from all sides.
As I said, I don’t have children of my own so I am not really in a position to take the parents view point but I had up until recently worked for a global clinical research organisation (CRO) and this is what I know (please note that this information may differ in different parts of the world but this is a demonstration of how it works in Australia)…..
When I read the opinion of people that the reason that these “evil” vaccines are pushed on paranoid parents is because the pharma companies want to fill their back pockets with wads of cash, I find this hard to understand. While working for this very large CRO I learnt a lot about clinical research – that is the processes that are involved with researching drugs and vaccines before they are released onto the unsuspecting public and never have profits been used as critieria for passing a drug by my previous employer or any other company like them. There is a reason the pharma companies use third party CROs to gather and collate research data before releasing these drugs – because we make a profit for each drug and vaccine tested, whether it makes it on to the market or not. We are not motivated to skew the results of unsafe drugs just so the TGA (or the FDA in America’s case) can still allow the pharma companies to sell the damn stuff.
The process starts with the discovery of new drugs and vaccines. Companies with shop anywhere and everywhere for them as the few that make it through testing and onto the market are obviously very valuable. Many of the big organisations have their own scientists working in their own labs but they also scout from smaller labs and universities. Each process of research, testing and selling has about a 20 year life cycle as that is the maximum length of time a pharma company is allowed to patent a drug/vaccine. The first 10 years are spent testing and researching, the second 10 years are spent selling the drug/vaccine and trying to recoup all the money they spent in the first 10 years. Once the patent runs out all pharma companies can get their hands on it and that’s where the generic medicines come from – same drug, now patent free. Also, for every thousand drugs and vaccines that are discovered, about 100 get through to the research and testing phase, and then only about 1 or 2 are deemed safe for human use.
A medical trial consists of three phases - phase one involves testing on animals, phase two is testing on healthy human adults and phase three is actually testing the drug on the people who are suffering from the condition that the drug is being developed to cure, prevent or reduce in severity. We can spend up to 5 years testing the drug in phase three and it is the job of the CROs to record any and every case of adverse events in all the patients that take part in the trials, no matter how petty or seemingly insignificant. The size of the study will vary depending on how global the sale of the drug/vaccine will be but they generally take place in several large countries (Australia, North America and the United Kingdom) with up to 100 hospitals in each country and up to 30 to 50 people at each hospital.
At then end of the trial, all research results are submitted to the TGA (or FDA), who will make the decision based on all the data that has been collected. At no time will the TGA (or FDA) pass an application based on the money that the pharma companies need to recoup. That is ridiculous to even suggest. Anyway, sorry for my rambling response but it felt good to be a kinda expert for a quick minute and I thought I should let everyone know that even though the pharma companies might be money grubbing jerks, they aren’t always allowed to do whatever they want in the name of profits
May 16th, 2009 at 2:27 am
I would just like to mention that the anti vaccince campaign in the UK is pretty ridiculous amongst tabloids in, managing to cling on long after it has been discredited. First off they attacked the MMR vaccine and then they moved onto the HPV vaccine which prevents cervic cancer. The worst thing about it is that the same newspaper is marketing a “Roll out the vaccine” campaign in Ireland despite in the UK campaigning against it. http://layscience.net/node/507
So it seems that this story that seems to circulate just to scare overprotective parents and then sell newspapers.
May 16th, 2009 at 2:16 am
Oh man do I wish Dr. Cox from Scrubs or Dr. Greg House were real life doctors so that they could both tear into Jenny McCarthy’s inaccurate arguments she spews out of her mouth. Seriously, why the hell do people listen to celebrities when it comes to health and medicine?
Last I checked, they don’t have any sort of medical experience. And no, it does not count if you played one on TV because its only TV.
Why can’t she just admit that she is afraid of vaccines, because that seems to be the truth about all of this. Otherwise, why is she so against it?
May 16th, 2009 at 2:11 am
toolahroolahroolah, that was fantabulous.
———————————————————————-
“If doctors aren’t suppose to know about where illnesses and disorders come from, then why is everyone here so ready to take a doctor’s word as the gospel truth that vaccines don’t cause autism?”
They know that HIV causes AIDS, and all about antibiotics and medical treatments and the human body. I’d be surprised if they know how HIV evolved, that’s outside of their field really (and is an open question anyway).
Being a doctor is applying the knowledge about the health that has been gleamed by thousands of extremely smart scientists working methodically.
The fact that they’ve got the peer-reviewed papers which back up what they say is the reason you should believe them when they say that there is no link. It’s not because it’s an opinion or something they know as a mother, it’s fact.
“I trust no one…doctors give you their opinion, not facts, not truths, just opinions”
Just look at that. Look at it. That’s something, it really is.
———————————————————————————-
“I know very little about the wrong and right of vaccination; a bunch of my girlfriends choose not to. I can’t really judge; I have no children. ”
I can judge. I may not have children but I have facts that say by not vaccinating they’re putting their children and society at large at risk.
“I think, as a woman, I too would research anything going into my child’s body.”
Scientists are already doing that. Unless you can do your own actual research, like going into a lab and doing experiments (it doesn’t have to be a lab, there’s plenty you can try out at home with some not too expensive equipment) then you must accpet what these scientists say.
If you want to actually know more about it and are willing to read actual science and not some crap on the internet you can go to google scholar or pubmed (google it) and search there.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:59 am
Agreed. The woman’s an idiot.
I appreciated how Dan hasn’t taken a personal attack as such, but pointed out factual reasons as to why she clearly hasn’t researched any of this mess.
I’ve yet to hear even the overprotective parents i know come out with anything like that yet…
May 16th, 2009 at 1:59 am
Don’t listen to Warren..Nobody in their right mind CARES if thyme an herb. (Duh) Gross. It is a huge problem with the two of them. Hee. Let it be. Are we forgetting the point, kids?
May 16th, 2009 at 1:59 am
I think it’s funny she’s so worried about injecting vaccines into bodies, but has no problem injecting tons of Botox.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:40 am
Thyme is not a spice, it is a herb…you’ll never guess the recipe if you don’t know the basics.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:39 am
thyme is an herb, not a spice.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:25 am
scaremongering bitch
its bullshit
May 16th, 2009 at 1:11 am
Someone’s been taking lessons from David Wong! Way to go DOB, topical, though provoking and STILL manages to veer into a list of women you’d like to screw.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:10 am
I loved this article, but unfortunately, this will not get wide spread recognition, because people are more likely to take notice of the angry lady screaming expletives at how bad vaccines are than a well thought out and well delivered article like yours.
Brilliant work.
If only people were forced to read rather than listen, they might be able to calculate an intelligent opinion rather than just regurgitate what they hear from celebrities.
May 16th, 2009 at 12:51 am
One thing that shows how little use Ms. McCarthy has made of her Google U. degree when she states that genetics can’t account for the rise in autism rates, is that she fails to explain why diagnostic substitution and changing diagnostic criteria (such that, aside from addition of Asperger’s, the criteria for autistic disorder have also widened, and a study on diagnostic substitution demonstrated that many people previously diagnosed with speech disorders and sensory integration dysfunction or mental retardation would actually meet criteria for ASD). That, and the twin studies showing high concordance.
While there are more vaccines now, the impact on the immune system consists of fewer total antigens than if one were to get the actual diseases (and meningitis or pertussis, as two examples, in a baby can be VERY serious and life-threatening).
May 16th, 2009 at 12:51 am
God I was hoping this was about her autism crusade when I clicked on the article. A professor of mine ripped into her a while ago about this issue and showed us a pretty good clip of her on larry king debating some doctors on vaccines. Well it was more her yelling misinformed bullshit about mercury and whatnot at them while they looked stunned, probably because of that terrifying death look she does. I’m not gonna lie, if she gave me that look i would probably pee a little
Anyways, someone needs to explain to her that the reason the rate of diagnosis has jumped so much is because the criteria for diagnosing autism has changed. They added a new category for the mildest cases of the disease. I don’t have the numbers anymore but I remember that the newest category makes up the majority of the new diagnosed autism cases. Hence the sudden jump in frequence….
May 16th, 2009 at 12:19 am
That was a very well-written article, DOB! I’m kinda in shock, because I expected comedy and got a well-thought-out, non-ranting takedown of idiocy instead. It’s just a pity Jenny & Oprah don’t read your stuff. Well, maybe they do…but they’d never admit it.
May 16th, 2009 at 12:08 am
I have a friend who has two autistic children. I introduced her to her husband. I never realized the toll on people’s spirits. I am forever in awe on the stamina and normalcy required to raise beautiful, yet different, humans. I can’t get over the joy and love these parents have for their kids. It blows me away.
I know very little about the wrong and right of vaccination; a bunch of my girlfriends choose not to. I can’t really judge; I have no children. I think, as a woman, I too would research anything going into my child’s body. I like Jenny because she is outgoing and what have you. I don’t find her huge stupid..but a bit. I can see Dan’s point.
The math is irrevelant. And I never say that. But in this case..I believe you are all justifying. It’s is still an unknown. To use numbers is..gratuitous. I am not trying to be a dick or anything..but what do you know? The woman who posted and actually has 2 kids autistic..I am in awe off you. I really am. I know my girlfriend and what she goes througfh on a daily basis…and the existence is huge!
Big fat joy from Hawaii!
Aloha.
jo
May 15th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
@ Big Jimmy
I’ve always wanted a way to get back at my in-laws, I applaud your deviousness!
@Ita
I agree, vaccines be good, public hysteria not so much. Canada is being slammed by Swine Flu, proportionately far worse than the US, but we’re keeping calm for the most part. This vaccine=autism debate is virtually non-existent in Canada, which is probably due to the fact that Celine Dion moved to Las Vegas so many years ago.
May 15th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
…when a woman thinks she has something important to say?
Answer: check to see if she has a vagina.
May 15th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
@Big Jimmy
You give kids caffeine and then marvel at how hyperactive the sugar made them? Excellent logic.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Jimmy, from a medical encyclopedia:
Refined (processed) sugars may have some effect on children’s activity. Because refined sugars and carbohydrates enter the bloodstream quickly, they produce rapid fluctuations in blood glucose levels. This might trigger adrenaline and make a child more active. Sometimes, falling adrenaline levels bring on a period of decreased activity.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
kevin smith has mentioned awhile back how idiotic jenny mcarthy is. didn’t realize it till he told a story about her. did some research, didn’t know how idiotic she is.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
“What is that, a Rice Krispie treat covered in chili? My dick is hungry and my stomach wants to have sex with her, nothing’s making any sense.” -
i had to stop reading i was laughing so hard. im sure the rest of the article is great. ill get back to you.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
*claps* thank you!
May 15th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
Hooray for DOB! Great article.
I’m still amazed at the level of ignorance people have over his topic.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
This article doesn’t mention the drug companies, which I assume is related.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
Okay home boy. Hey Dan! Pasta is one of the most versatile foodsutff on the planet (probably second to rice or potatoes.) Even if you had the recipe from you mother, I doubt you could duplicate it; moms are just sneaky like that. Not to mention your memories are wrapped up in that sauce.
Sauce..that is the key to any pasta. Elaborate if you feel the need..red sauce? white sauce? clam sauce? Work with me. Italian seasoning is awesome..whoever said it.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
I believe the main reason schools are forcing vaccines onto parents is because the community has an underlying fear of epidemics. Look at how freaked out people are about Swine Flu, even though it really hasn’t hit that many people in the United States.
The thinking goes that if kids get vaccinated early, they’re able to build up their immune systems before they have a chance to catch a particular disease or virus. If all the kids are vaccinated, the virus won’t have a chance to spread (or will affect very few children, instead of the entire population).
Personally, I see no problem with vaccines and getting children vaccinated. The more opportunities for them to build their immune systems, the better.
Look at it this way, a parent can choose to vaccinate their kids on the off-chance that a particular virus does break out in the community, or they can pass up the vaccine and wait it out. If their child ends up ill, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Science has a way of being totally batshit crazy like saying there is no correlation between sugar and hyperactivity. However, as a parent, I instinctively know its fun as hell to give my kids Hershey’s Kisses chased down with a Pepsi before leaving them with the in-laws.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
That was well reasoned, funny, informative, wondefully equal parts hate and love. And mildly boner inducing. Everything I want from a DOB article.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Dude, you should be making BANK for the quality of your articles. Keep it up!
May 15th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Thanks DOB I really enjoyed this article.
As im sure it has been mentioned here many times (im too lazy to really read all the comments), vaccines are only fully effective in a group mentality where everyone gets the vaccination; not vaccinating is irresponsible towards everyone.
Instead of shreaking on talk shows wouldnt Jenny McMethface be best sinking some of Jims money in some medical reasearch and actually do something to find the cause instead of leading a propoganda campaign? Or is that too proactive?
May 15th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Well said, Dan O’Brien. And Dan O’Brien’s mom.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Hey swaimfan!
“ ‘I’m not so sure the medical community can be wholly trusted either.’
So you trust who with medical issues?”
Answer: I trust no one…doctors give you their opinion, not facts, not truths, just opinions.
” ‘Just ask a doctor this question: where did AIDS come from?’
Doctor’s aren’t suppossed to know that. ”
If doctors aren’t suppose to know about where illnesses and disorders come from, then why is everyone here so ready to take a doctor’s word as the gospel truth that vaccines don’t cause autism?
Thanks for validating my point.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Jesus, this is ridiculous. I think every pundit and furious pseud-celebrity should have the words “CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION” tattooed onto their chest. The lack of understanding for this basic principle of scientific thought is at the root of so much fear-mongering. I mean, jeez, that bloated Conan wannabe guy saying that countries with less vaccines have less autism and sitting back like it’s freaking universal truth. Someone should beat him with one of his flabby arms.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
I think you got your facts crossed DOB. Her name is “Tanya”
May 15th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
I think this is the best article I have ever read at cracked.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
@dave
First of all, I’d like to say that I’m halfway through medical school. That doesn’t make me an authority on all things medical by any means, but I did want to respond to your comment.
Autism is a terrible disease, and it must be heartbreaking for Jenny McCarthy. I’m sure she’s done of research on the subject. That being said, she’s NOT HELPING.
Do you know how many children around the world still die from measles? What about epiglottitis due to H. influenzae? How about pertussis? You think pharmaceutical companies make all their big bucks from vaccines? Maybe YOU should do a little research.
Consider the risk/benefit. Vaccines are saving lives, and yet parents are turning away from them because of a “link” for which there’s no good evidence! What kind of logic is this?
So what? You’re saying pharmaceuticals are evil? They push medications on people? They’re not perfect, no. Then again, no one FORCES an antibiotic on you for a serious infection, but I find it hard to believe you’d refuse one.
In any case, what is your point? Even if Jenny’s argument is completely wrong and likely dangerous, that she should not be criticized for it because she has a child with autism?
Try doing a little more thinking before speaking. Maybe this strategy would give you AND Jenny something worth saying.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Wait, I’m confused…people still care about Jenny McCarthy? I don’t think I’ve given a shit about her for nigh ten years or so. What’s with all of these has-beens suddenly popping up out of the woodworks, grabbing for any scrap of attention they can, however they can? I don’t care about Flavor Flav, Jenny, Ozzy, anyone on celebrity “[blank]“, etc etc, yadda yadda. They fell out of favor for a reason. Your time has passed, my friend. If you wish to come back, you have to completely reinvent yourself. Oh, and it helps not to be a douchebag as well.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Marvellous, DOB. Wonderful. I love it when you start being more serious about stuff, makes me all warm and fuzzy.
Cracked, the readers have spoken - more articles like this, please, please, please!
May 15th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Truthiness writ large. When you feel, you don’t have to think. Which makes Jenny sigh a big sigh of relief. Whew!
May 15th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Nuff said.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Great Article! Seriously, it’s terrible that we haven’t fully developed ways to appropriately give praise, but I sincerely love this article.
Also:
Toolahroolahroolah said:
“She endorses KFC chicken when hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease kills more blacks than the KKK.”
I really hope what you mean is:
“Black people listen to Oprah because she’s black”
and not:
“Black people love fried chicken, but they’re in bed with the enemy.”
-A.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Daniel, have i ever told you how much i love you? cause i really really do. you’re amazing.
As a person with an ASD, and with connections to hospital high up, i happen to KNOW that Autism is genetic, which means, in a way, that it’s actually YOU’RE fault JENNY if your kid has autism.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Thank you toolahroolahroolah for saying it so eloquently.
I remember working at an Urgent care and a couple had recently returned from Burma. One of their kids had freaking POLIO. They had homeschooled their kids and never vaccinated. Our clinic treats a lot of disadvantaged and hispanic that may have never been vaccinated due to poverty/neglect.
I thought of all the money we were going to have to spend educating and testing. I thought of this child going on disability and being supported. Worst of all I thought of how their child will feel if she ended up damaged knowing her outcome could have been prevented.
You now, I could accept Jenny and her ilk if we didn’t have to pay for it in lives and money.
The anti-vaccine crowd has been around awhile (although what they blame it for has shifted); If you want to fear something, fear a bunch of unvaccinated kids coming into contact with a real disease.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Fibrowitch
Please tell me you are kidding about the tv autism correlation.
This is no different than vaccines cause autism. Correlation does not equal Causation.
Further, the study had been discredited for various reasons. It was not peer reviewed, it was done by a freaking economist with no medical background, and there was not control group.
In a nutshell, the author states that coastal areas have more autism because it rains more ergo children watch more tv. Taking that into account, we could also say that rain causes autism.
Finally, in essence the author blames the parents (mother) which harkens back to the 1950s and 60s “refrigerator mother” meme.
I’d suggest you stop playing Jenny McCarthy and stick to the real science.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Doesn’t the fact that there are children who have had absolutley no vaccinations yet still develop autisim kind of cast doubt on that theory? How does that work?
May 15th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
J.T. - MSG is in every single menu item at McDonalds, and ive never heard a thing about it until I worked there during college. I doubt it is anymore unhealthy than the other crap in that food. Also, they sell it in Japan like its Mrs. Dash or something, and they have a longer life expecentacy than us there.
May 15th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
I also always wanted to bone the pink Power Ranger.
May 15th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Great article, except it didn’t go far enough.
Don’t listen to Oprah, Dr(not) Phil, McCarthy, or any celebrity about anything. Everytime McCarthy, or Oprah, or Shill opens their mouth they detract from the sum total of human knowledge.
Any of the 3 would happily endorse feeding crack cocaine to starving orphans if some crack dealer ponied up the endorsement fees.
Oprah has only been scammed how many times, has claimed to suffer from every goddam disease that hits the news, has never been married or raised a child yet dishes family advice left and right.
She has yo-yo dieted about 1500 lbs. yet offers diet and self image advice.
She endorses KFC chicken when hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease kills more blacks than the KKK.
The only thing Oprah cares about is Oprah.
Oprah’s main audience is neurotic white middle-class terminally disatisfied women who have never had an original thought in their head.
So they watch Oprah to be told what to like and also get to feel racially enlightened for liking her show as the only other people of color they interact with are in a subservient position.
My wife worked at Borders for a little while. After every bookclub show, the mercedes and beemers would pull into the parking lot. Fans: Give us the Oprah book!
Wife: What is the name of it?
Fans: We don’t know! Give us the Oprah book!
Wife: Who wrote it? What is it about?
Fans We know not and care not! Give us the Oprah book!
My wife would then select a book at random and they would buy it. None ever complained or returned the book.
Dr. (not) Shill is a chancre on the field of psychology who should have been hauled up on child abuse charges at least 50 times in addition to his other patient shagging activities.
McCarthy should be the poster child for Lobotomies-R-Us. And quite frankly I would rather shag the dead Bea Arthur than this bottle blonde orange faced empty headed twit. At least the dead Bea Arthur would still make for far more intelligent post-coital conversation. Probably be a better lay too.
Anyone who takes any child rearing advice from any of these posing hucksters should have their present children removed from their custody and their ability to breed permanently terminated. Then they should be killed and composted to protect future generations.
May 15th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
You are a genius Reece, you truly are
May 15th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Agreed, that segment pissed me off. I was hoping to learn something about autism, instead I learned that Jenny McCarthy cannot form a legitimate argument to save her life. She bases this “belief” on a faulted study as you pointed out, and on her own observations after her son got a vaccine. She said he went into the doctor’s office smiling and happy, then came out quiet and detached, and remained that way for most of the afternoon. No shit Sherlocke! He just got a vaccine! Vaccines make you mildly ill for a short period of time in order to prevent you from being deathly ill later on.
May 15th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
@reece - you are so right.
May 15th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
I live with autism every day. And longer than Jenny McCarthy has, too. My brother’s autistic and I work as a behavioral therapist for children with autism…So that makes me the best most biggest expert on autism ever. And I agree with everything in the article.
McCarthy looks at the data from studies and disagrees with it. Because what she’s seen must be right. Her child was “normal” until the vaccines. Then he changed. Must be the vaccines. Or the lactose. Or gluten. An environmental trigger that can be fixed holistically. Just as long as it’s not genetics.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8020837.stm
May 15th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
i fail to see any problem. think about it–the more people that fall into the Jenny camp will ultimately lead to less stupid people inhabiting the earth.
darwin rules.
May 15th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
How about one on: “Ivanka Trump: those lips… her titties!”?
May 15th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Great article, thank you Cracked. Lots of feeling judging by the comments! I’m so glad there do seem to be rational people out there that are openly disdainful of the cult of celebrity.
The scientific method is the best thing humanity has done and is likely to do. Those who ignore it as and when they feel like deserve all of this mockery and more.
I think this article reinforces my growing belief that comedy is an important tool to re-examine some of society’s more ridiculous attitudes. (Organised religion anyone?)
Keep you mouth shut and your clothes off Jenny, or else go get your science degree and then I’ll listen.
May 15th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Dan’s mother is my new hero. Can we get the lady a cape? Or, like, a fanclub or something? At the very least a few copy-cat Mom O’Briens?
I get all fluttery and smiley when Cracked columnists write about something serious.
May 15th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
wow.
not the usual D-baggery. Very well written and well structured. I thoroughly enjoyed the article.
May 15th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Apparently when you sign up to send their FREE Adult eCards (even ANONYMOUSLY) God saves a kitten!
May 15th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
OK, I was joking. It’s all pretty funny!
May 15th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
1. This article was funny. I liked it.
2. It also had something important to say and I respect the writer for that.
I wouldn’t mind seeing more articles in which the Cracked writers share their opinions on issues like these.
May 15th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
That spice could be oregano, maybe?
May 15th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
How disgusting?! Should I get a towel?! BA-BOING!!!
May 15th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Neilsnotes is a site filled with disgusting pictures. Unless you’re into that sort of thing, don’t click on the link in the post below this one.
May 15th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
“I’m a pediatrician and after reading this, I love you more than I loved Jenny McCarthy when I was in college and she was hot instead of merely milfy.”
Homo.
Since Jenny has a son with autism, I’m sure she’s done more research on the subject than the author of this article. It’s not often that you hear people taking the side of the pharmaceutical companies that tell us all that we just have to have this medicine.
To the gay pediatrician: How much do you get back from the pharm companies when you prescribe their products?
I don’t know if McCarthy’s argument is complete ignorance or has an actual basis for some people to bring attention to it but she lives with the disease every day - more than either of you can claim.
May 15th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Okay, DOB, I’ll continue not listening to Jenny McCarthy.
Also, swaimfan, you seem to think that DOB is saying not to listen to what Jenny’s saying _because_ she’s a celebrity. What he’s really saying is, don’t listen to what she’s saying because she doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about. You’re also undermining your own point by using an analogy that’s not a good parallel because, y’know, we’ve had solid evidence of cancer and smokes for decades. There’s no evidence for autism and vaccines, and considering that quitting smoking won’t kill you, whereas quitting vaccines just might, polarizing the issue into black and white is dangerous.
I think McCarthy’s heart is in the right place, but she can’t seem to find her brain. Same goes for that screaming crackpot in the audience. Yelling on TV that vaccines cause autism is dangerously irresponsible. He yelled at the TV doc for not doing research (unless the doc is the head of autism research, that in and of itself is retarded) while giving no evidence whatsoever for his side. We’re just supposed to accept it because a luke-warm celebrity and a guy who’s clearly just a big-headed mouth piece (who’s antire bloody organization has been researching this issue for 4 years and has yet to produce a shred of evidence) say they can just _feel_ it?
As you say, no fucking chance sunshine.
P.S. — gerald, Get off of infowars.com and go outside. Seriously.
May 15th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
I certainly LISTEND TO DOB’S MOM LAST NIGHT!…I went to the hospital where she provided excellent care and some really helpful reccomendations…pervs.
May 15th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
I think it’s relevant: http://neilsnotes.com/index.php?page=15&catid=28&sku=E-CD00349
May 15th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
I don’t know if this has been posted in the 268 current comments, but if it hasn’t, it should be posted as some people are claiming there have been no studies about vaccines and autism:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1003673,00.html
Probably the most comprehensive and persuasive study I’ve seen on autism and vaccines (surprise, there is no link).
As for the people bitching about this article’s ‘lack of comedy’ I don’t think writers need to be cracking dick and fart jokes every sentence to make something funny, and it’s possible to discuss a serious topic in a serious fashion and still generate a few laughs (which is probably why I love Dave Wong’s work so much).
Personally I thought this was a great read.
May 15th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
I’m a pediatrician and after reading this, I love you more than I loved Jenny McCarthy when I was in college and she was hot instead of merely milfy.
May 15th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
People who share experiences that go something like, “shortly after my child was vaccinated, symptoms developed” will grow and unite. Conventional wisdom throughout the medical industry will continue to try to discredit those who have watched their child develop autism after a round of vaccines.
In fact, vaccine induced autism is good litmus test to determine if you are working with a doctor you can trust. Ask your doctor. If the doctor makes statements like “vaccines are safe” and “aspartame is safe” and “msg is harmless”, then you know it’s time to find another doctor.
Cracked can distinguish itself further by questioning the conventional wisdom found in a bad healthcare system.
May 15th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
So gave some thought to this topic. Using my two sisters as a study group. Both have 3 children. All of those children where born when they were under 30. One sister, limited the amount of television her kids watched. Got all the necessary shots and made sure her children were healthy and active kids.
The other used TV as a constant companion. Only got half the shots her kids needed and fed them junk food. She never taught her kids to ride bikes or play.
One sister has 3 children who are all healthy and active young people. The other has 3 children who are spread out across the autism spectrum. Guess which one?
I am surprised no one has mentioned this study yet.
TV and autism possible link
May 15th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Your mom seems pretty BA, DOB.
May 15th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
“Listen, smoke all the cigarettes you can……no it won’t cause cancer…..nah, smoke around the kids……..why listen to jenny…
maybe she has a point.”
Wait, Jenny correctly says smoking causes cancer and therefore everything else is magically valid? No fucking chance sunshine.
In fact this shows that the only time she’s not making an ass out of herself is when she’s accepting what the scientists say.
——————————————————————————
“I’m not so sure the medical community can be wholly trusted either.”
So you trust who with medical issues?
“Just ask a doctor this question: where did AIDS come from?”
Doctor’s aren’t suppossed to know that. Ask an epidemiologist or a viroligist. They should be able to tell you that the origins of HIV is an open question. THe most widely supported hypothesis is that it mutated from monkeys (just like how swine flu mutated from pigs) thanks to the bushmeat trade but the hypothesis of “the river” has not been ruled out (though it is falling more out of favour if I remember correctly).
May 15th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
I get this feeling, this belief, that you have brought the funny.
May 15th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
The last thing I expect to see on a humor site is a well thought out intelligent article about an important subject.
And yet you surprise me by doing just that.
Stay classy Cracked, stay classy
May 15th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Listen, smoke all the cigarettes you can……no it won’t cause cancer…..nah, smoke around the kids……..why listen to jenny…
maybe she has a point. Maybe you should read what Rober F. Kennedty Jr. wrote about thimerisol in vaccines since 1930’s….it’s just a thought
May 15th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
This is why you’re my favorite columnist.
:]
May 15th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
… so hard, she’d cough up shit for a week!
May 15th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
While I don’t believe Jenny Mc has the credentials or research to back her claims, I’m not so sure the medical community can be wholly trusted either. Just ask a doctor this question: where did AIDS come from? The popular theory amongst the medical community is that a few lonely African men had mad sex with some infected monkeys, then with an airline steward from San Francisco, and that caused the global epidemic. The fact that polio vaccines are cultured in pureed monkey kidneys and were administered to over a million people in central Africa (where the first cases were reported) seems to slip their minds when the question comes up. Ask yourself, which is the more logical answer? A million people shot up with SIV contaminated vaccines, or a few chance encounters behind the hut with Bobo? The other thing the med folk don’t want you to know is that they don’t remove viruses from vaccines that they believe won’t affect humans. There were 17 different monkey viruses in every polio vaccine before 1985 that were thought to not effect humans. Turns out, they were wrong about one of those viruses, right? So maybe, just maybe, there is something in those vaccines that has been deemed “harmless” but in fact can cause autism. I’m not saying that Jenny is right, I’m saying that you can’t put 100% of your trust in medicine. Two good books on AIDS and the polio vaccine are- The River: A Journey Back to the Source of HIV and AIDS by Edward Hooper, and The White Death by Julian Cribb
May 15th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
“Are these the same scientists that recommended thalidomide, causing sever birth defects in a bunch of children?”
Probably not the exact same ones as that was in the 50s. But yeah, I see your point. It’s that scientists are only human and of course they can make mistakes.
But you know who makes more mistakes about scientific matters than scientists? Everyone else.
So I’ll see your thalidomide and raise you satellities, sequencing the human genome, superconducters, silicon chips and the supernintendo console (and that’s just sticking with the “S”s).
“are those the same scientists running the studies, funded by parties with vested interests? ”
I’m not familiar with all the studies which examine and possible link between vaccines and autism so I only know of one that was funded by a vested interest (that would be the Wakefield paper which claimed there was a link, that was funded by a vested interest. It also turns out he fabricated his results)
However, when I search Google Scholar for papers with the keywords “vaccine” and “autism” there was 11,200 results. Now, how extensive do you think these vested interests are to say that they can put out so many papers by researchers all over the world?
When something is this well studied, it’s impossible to cover up.
In addition, many studies get funded by the government so there is no vested interest involved.
A further point, to get published such studies have to be peer reviewed. This means some other scientists look at the work before publishing it to see that it all makes sense. So not only would the scientists who did the study have to be willing to change their results because of the vested interest funding them, the journal itself would have to go along with this.
May 15th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Sambobly you are right America does have a weird “anti-science” culture, and it all has to do with people still believing in a fairy tale called Religion. People think that’s just $$$ is that all doctor’s want. Well couldn’t you say that people who just say that vaccines causes autism are just doing this for the $$$ so they can get richer and exploit some child because their DNA is royally fucked?
Is that to say that people haven’t been hurt by vaccines in the past? No people have been hurt by vaccines my grandmother being one of them, but I don’t think that vaccines cause autism. This is one of those topics that will NEVER please anyone, if science fully comes out and says look this is genetic and not caused by vaccines, people will still bitch and say that it is caused by vaccines and that doctor’s are lying to get more $$$, so that those people who say that can get even more $$$ from people blindly believing that what this person says is like the word of “God”
May 15th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Even if there was a significant correlation between autism and vaccines, anyone who has taken an entry level Psychology, Statistics, or hell, any science class has had this phrase drilled into their skulls relentlessly: CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION.
Finding a correlation is the first step to MAYBE proving something. MAYBE. And they don’t even have that first step.
I see a lot of correlational studies in the news, and if I believe every single one of them, I’d be an agoraphobic because apparently EVERYTHING causes cancer. I understand the people that are mad and want something to blame, and I know no one wants to be wrong about something so dire, but they have to face the facts. There is no significant relationship between autism and vaccinations.
Here’s a correlation: Being alive is correlated with having autism. If you’re alive, you’re more likely to have autism! OH NO!
May 15th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
@ Cynic
Vaccines are different from drugs. They introduce antigens that are similar to those of the disease they are trying to stop and let the child’s immune system react to it. The child’s immune system will create memory cells that recognize those antigens as intruders and this will allow for a faster immune response and that will allow the child to fight off the disease more quickly when they actually encounter it.
May 15th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
seriously?!… i’m gonna stop readin DOB if he keeps tryin to teach me stuff. i was thinkin, “how hard can it be to make fun of Jenny McCarthy?… and she’s hot.” so i open the article and make it about halfway before i get tired of the reason and logic and skip on down here to give everybody a piece of my mind. Come on, Dan. You’re a smart guy, we get it. now, go back to your regularly scheduled crazy funny programming so i can laugh at least once a week instead of thinking some more. my head hurts…. where’d the JD go? i need another shot…..
May 15th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Shes an expert because she showed her tits and vag in Playboy. Don’t question her.
May 15th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
If your kid had autism like jenny mc’carthys you would be looking for something to blame too.
May 15th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
As someone who works with special needs children I can say that the most frustrating thing in the world is when a parent stops listening to the doctors a decides that their ideas are totally better. When it comes to children people get stupid and instead of working on ways to control behavior using proven methods they look for a cure all. We have kids on diet and cleanses that most Hollywood starlets would find extreme and is it helping their behavior? No. The fact is that these kids don’t think like we do and will always need modifications to live comfortably in society. Parents need to focus on those modifications and teaching their children how to live in the world independently. This is who these children are and they’re all amazing and funny and adorable in their own way. Their parents need to learn to appreciate their children for who they are and maybe change their own outlook on life so their children will be successful.
May 15th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Nicely put.
May 15th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Awesome awesome awesome.
Why do people hate science? Science is delicious. It’s like lasagna, but with facts.
As for people saying that Anti-Science is an American thing, no. It is not. I am Irish. My science teacher believes that her children can see auras. Also, reincarnation is caused by breathing in the molecules of Egyptian princesses. I’m not even kidding.
May 15th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Just wow! Great article!!! McCarthy is the devil and a selfish one at that. Thank you for writing on such a hot button issue on this wonderful website.
I’ve been a fan of Cracked for awhile and tell many friends about you folks, now I think i’ll be out proselytizing for you.
Go Cracked!
May 15th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Sorry, I meant to say:
Schizophrenia manifests itself in the late teenage years!
Kids go to college in their late teenage years!
College causes schizophrenia!
It’s called a logical fallacy. Assuming that two coincidences are directly related despite clear evidence to the contrary. Saying that vaccines cause autism just because they occur in the same basic timeframe is the exact same thing.
May 15th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Kids go to college in their late teenage years!
College causes schizophrenia!
It’s called a logical fallacy. Assuming that two coincidences are directly related despite clear evidence to the contrary. Saying that vaccines cause autism just because they occur in the same basic timeframe is the exact same thing.
May 15th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
yeah……i doubt writing long ass ranting ariticals noone wants to sit thru is helping……state your peace briefly so we can cheer in agreement with you, show some tits and stfu
May 15th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
3 reasons vaccination autism conspiracy believers are ignorant.
I could say I just ate peanut butter and then got the hiccups 5 minutes later and it wouldn’t mean that theres a correlation between hiccups and peanut butter.
Autism is genetic, and that means %’s can be vastly different in different places, and they will always go up because it’s genetic.
Vaccinations contain small and/or weak strains of what the vaccination is for, so because of that even if a vaccine for [whatever the fuck] caused autism it would still be a good thing because [whatever the fuck] itself would be less prevalent and therefore cause less autism with the vaccination in use.
May 15th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Awesome work, Dan.
May 15th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
It’s a great day when Cracked becomes the voice of reason. Thank you for this article. I know too many people who only remember the headlines and never get the actual facts. (Most of them were wearing masks two weeks ago.) Bravo to you, Mr O’Brian for daring to go against the all powerful Oprah Machine.
May 15th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Is it weird that I kind of want to start shipping DOB/Swaim?
Cause I do.
May 15th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
I’m not sure whether this is just the impression I get from over here, but it seems to me that America has a weird “anti-science” culture. From the evangelical anti-evolutionists to these guys, it seems quite prevalent. Is this correct, or just an impression fostered by the media?
May 15th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
So, as someone who works every single day with autistic children, is going to graduate school to work with kids who have autism, and has read the literature on research regarding the use of vaccinations….I have to say, I loved this article.
You’re right…there IS no link. They have no idea. And saying one way or the other is doing MUCH more harm to the research for autism. As I recall from one of my classes, autism rates were on the rise. The mercury in the shots was removed and lo and behold…..rates continued to increase. Basically, the way the definition has been broadened over time and the fact that the definition has been made more clear over time has caused an increase in diagnosis.
McCarthy also makes things worse by saying her child is cured. And no offense, but as far as the majority of the scientific community is concerned (the majority being those who are willing to share their research, results, and statistics with the general population), there is no “cure”. There are certainly treatments for behaviors and such, and you can definitely improve functioning and skills and such, but there is no “autism removal” treatment. It’s a sad thing to say, but it’s also the truth. I love my job, so it makes me more than a little sad to see so many people put faith in a woman who has absolutely NO credentials to say any of this stuff.
So, again….thank you. It’s refreshing to see someone put forth this idea rather than just following her. It’s be great if they could find a cure, or a definite link (current research has identified possible genetic links, but this too in unclear at the time). All I hope is that more and more people will look at the available research and statistics themselves…
May 15th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
@Greendog, true, as I said I cant understand your POV so is something we’ll always have a different opinion on, unless unequivocable evidence either way comes out =S
We’ll just have to agree to disagree, though I do want to say how nice it is to have an open and intelligent discussion about such an inflammatory subject
May 15th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
this was way too smart for a DOB article
May 15th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
@ swaimfan
are those the same scientists running the studies, funded by parties with vested interests? Are these the same scientists that recommended thalidomide, causing sever birth defects in a bunch of children?
@noodlepie
i live in Canada where the vaccines are free as well. My point of view is different i guess because of my situation. And you didn’t say anything about curing autism…i just put that on there for everyone else’s benefit.
May 15th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Good article. Could you also convince the world that DDT is not as bad as Malaria? K thx bye
May 15th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
[...] popular, humorous sites such as Cracked.com, which attracts over 2 million readers a month, have taken issue with Oprah. Cracked contributor [...]
May 15th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
You’re a good boy listening to your mother (and for calling her; write an article about the bad things that might happen if a son doesn’t call his mother often enough so I can send it to my son).
As a mother with a child whose disorder was blamed on her vaccinations, it’s worth noting my other children didn’t develop the same disorder even though the child in question was initially given fewer vaccinations.
Over the course of more than 20 years, everything has been blamed for the child’s disorder - from her disposition, my parenting and our diet to our being poor and then later our not being poor anymore.
What’s worse, though — and what I’m so glad to see you pointing out (in a charmingly snarky way at that) — is the number of moms who listened to the crap they were told just as Ms McCarthy is spouting her litany of woe - as in, “Whoa Drama Mama! Where are your facts?”
If I believed what I’d been told about my child (and by “told,” I mean what the professionals speculated and never proved), I wouldn’t have bothered teaching her how to read and I would’ve stopped her from digging in our backyard because of the “possibility” of pollutants - that were also blamed for a disorder she’s had since birth. I’m very proud to say my child is about to graduate with a degree in archaeology. With all due respect Ms McCarthy, put that in your juice box and suck it!
May 15th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
i’d like to vaccinate jenny mccarthy…with my cock, oh! (read that in your mind with an andrew dice clay style inflection.)
May 15th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
What’s crackin’, BearMan
Either way, it opens up doors for the parents who seriously want to get compensated because their trusted health care system ruined their child’s life.
Maybe it’s just me, but shouldn’t every single child get their blood tested first to see if they’re going to have an inflammatory reaction to the ridiculous amount of shots being put into their little bodies at such a young age? Or maybe they should do a smaller amount spread out over a longer period of time, perhaps?
Whatever, my point is that the current vaccination program is too overwhelming for the child and it feels as if not even the doctors are too informed about these things. They’re just doing what they’ve been trained to do, which is to stick foreign chemicals into healthy bodies and wait for the bad reactions, if any.
I hate to see my kid sick, but atleast I know that when it happens, it came from being outside and playing like a normal kid. Not from a scheduled visit to the doctor.
I was vaccinated as a child, but like Greendog said, it used to be like 8 shots. Its a whole different world and a whole different agenda now.
Death and sickness is a multi-billion dollar business.
Guess who reaps the benefits?
May 15th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
I’m thinking baby food causes Autism. I know a lot of parents that just took what they happen to be eating and throwing it into a blender. Now everyone goes and gets the store bought stuff.
There is nothing wrong with some Meat and Potato’s in a blender. Woot Woot.
May 15th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
DOB, I’m Puerto Rican, and will gladly go into a cage for you, if that’s what you like.
May 15th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
It kind of reminds me of the episode of South Park where they make fun of Family Guy, and they all bury their heads in the sand instead of doing anything meaningful. Instead of actually trying to work to identify autism, they’re basically making people get their torches and pitchforks and march on the people, who, you know, are going to be the ones who identify it one day. I call bullshit.
@BryanJose: Awesome point. Never even thought of that. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that that’s right.
May 15th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
DOB, your mom’s pasta may knock your socks off, but my dad’s will take the very skin from the soles of your feet. And you will _love every moment of of it_.
I think a pasta-off is in order.
May 15th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
DOB, I’m in love. I have been furious with Jenny McCarthy and her ilk for years, written a research paper on it, used spanish google to tell a hispanic (Los Vaccinos Gaveio mis ninos autism-o) facebook group of concerned moms that vaccines do not cause autism, thrown shit at the screen when JM is on TV, and gotten into memorable arguments with family members on the subject. I’m just really, really happy that I am not the only person who thinks that Jenny McCarthy is full of shit.
May 15th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
DOB, if your mom reads what you write on here and still talks to you… she’s a literal saint.
May 15th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
I know Jenny McCarthy is stupid, but I still want to put things into her butt.
May 15th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
@JV
What’s up man? Just to play devil’s advocate here, Hannah Poling’s case is much different in that the court made the decision that the vaccine had exacerbated a pre-existing condition that made her more prone to mental development problems. Hannah’s own father stated after the court decided in their favor that parents should still continue to vaccinate their children since their situation was a rare one.
May 15th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
If autistic parents, as McCarthy is, are angry at the American Academy of Pediatrics it is because we have to fight tooth and nail to be heard. And being a parent of an autistic child does give one some authority in the matter-give me a fucking break.
I don’t know that I’ve ever been convinced that vaccines like the MMR are the sole and only cause of Autism. But there seems to be disconnect between “vaccinations are safe” and the so-called “affected minority,” who are acknowledged both by the medical community and the government to have been injured by vaccinations in the past. I don’t know of anyone of those affected who would think their outcome is acceptable in the grand scheme.
Government continues to do what it always does, seeking to solve a problem by creating other problems. If the economy is bad, let’s print new money, imperialize business and spend more. If sickness abounds, let’s not worry that some might be further injured or die when the general statistics are in favor of a majority. Numbers and statistics aren’t getting lifelong chronic headaches, brain damage and death, real people are. And it blows my mind that government and the medical community do not adequately disclose the issues and possible consequences so that citizens might intelligently decide for themselves. Instead we seem to be always hearing “vaccinations are safe,” but cases like these continue to abound. In all fairness, all that has been proven is that the vaccines did not cause Autism in particular cases for certain children. That very well may be the case, but where are the control group studies proving conclusively that this is never the case for vaccines ever? Why did the Health and Human Services settle in the Hannah Poling court dispute when the link between Autism and vaccines was challenged last year? If they’re so safe, why did the HHS not prove it in that case? If they’re so safe why does government need to have a federal fund that compensates people injured by vaccines? It makes no fucking sense to me.
May 15th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Is there a correlation between vaccines and autism? No one can be absolutely sure. We all have our own beliefs on the subject and personally, coming from a family of physicians, I seriously doubt that there is.
However, even if you believe that there is a link, supporting this type of “who can I blame?” ’cause’ is the worst thing you can do.
Autism is an incredibly complex and mysterious condition, effecting higher cognitive functioning that we still don’t fully understand. We’re not going to find a cause any time soon, and funneling all attention and funds into one strained, exhausted, and mostly nonsensical theory isn’t going to help.
Support non-vaccine-centric research, and hopefully autism will eventually no longer be a concern.
Until then, stop worrying about one of, literally, hundreds of potential causes and love your child no *in spite* of their autism, but love them *and* their autism.
I hate seeing parents grimace as they, as if it’s embarrassing, tell me their child has autism. (because of volunteer work this happens rather frequently)
Lastly, Oprah needs her show, magazine, and other various merchandise canceled. It’s all becoming far too cult-like to be anything other than evil.
Also, beware of Dr. Phil. As the “be-all, end-all” for so many housewives it’s irresponsible to give *his* perspective of people’s problems, when there are always several other legitimate psychological schools-of-thought that would say otherwise. (i.e. Biological, Psychoanalytical, etc…)
/endrant
May 15th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
“So she uses her influence to attempt to sway the vaccine makers to NOT USE MERCURY TO MAKE VACCINES. Seriously, that is the problem, that is the mechanism by which vaccines cause autism.”
No it isn’t. THere’s no actual scientific article out there that gives the suggestion.
Also, there isn’t any mercury in the vaccines as far as I’m aware.
“My son has autism, diagnosed at 3 1/2…was normal developing until he received the MMR at 18 months. Coincidence? Maybe.but who knows.”
The scientists would probably be the people who know, and they say, yeah that’s a coincidence.
May 15th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
While I agree with you, I also must point out that all medical research is funded by someone and the “someone” who funds the research usually has a vested interest in the outcome. I half agree w/ McCarthy. I find it hard to believe that we can shoot our kids up w/ all of these vaccines (i.e., drugs) and only a few out of of hundreds of millions will have an adverse reaction - that, scientifically, does not make sense to me. I mean can we all take Tylenol? No. Can we all take Advil? No. And if someone gave us a cocktail of Advil, Tylenol, grape juice, Excedrin in one shot - well who knows what could happen. I have a three year old son and I will admit, when you read the list of vaccinations they are giving your kid it’s scary. And all they ever ask is - “Do they have any allergies?”. If you take an over the counter drug it has a list of questions and warnings for you. So while I totally agree that Jenny McCarthy needs to shut her trap, I also believe that the medical professionals need to start spending a little more time trying to figure out if, for example, there is a way to tell if certain children will have an adverse reaction to these shots and what they can do to protect them in an alternative way. Until they do that, it’s going to be a Black and White issue.
May 15th, 2009 at 11:59 am
“So she uses her influence to attempt to sway the vaccine makers to NOT USE MERCURY TO MAKE VACCINES. Seriously, that is the problem, that is the mechanism by which vaccines cause autism.”
except it ins’t, because they don’t. And they don’t even USE mercury in MMR, the vaccine at the centre of the scare.
http://www.immunisation.nhs.uk/Library/News/Mercury_thiomersal_and_Vaccines_Statement_16_01_03
May 15th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Great article Dan. When will the stupid of the world realise that D-list movie stars aren’t the fountain of wisdom they think they are?
It’s obviously internet columnists that truly know the score….
May 15th, 2009 at 11:54 am
CAUSES LAZY EYE! http://neilsnotes.com/index.php?page=15&catid=32&sku=E-CD00268
May 15th, 2009 at 11:52 am
@Gore motel; I totally have visions of McCarthy going ‘I’m super serial guys, vaccine cause autisms, thats Sciencing!’
May 15th, 2009 at 11:52 am
I believe that the current rise in rates of autism is caused by youtube and Red Bull. Look within yourselves, you know it to be true.
May 15th, 2009 at 11:51 am
I’ve seen this r-tard on TV talking about autism and vaccines as though she was addressing a room of mentally disabled pre-schoolers, and she clearly had only the vaguest grasp on what she was talking about.
“I think.. because, like my emotions.. and I’m a parent, and I’ve got… instinct? Vaccines are so bad. So fucking bad, you guys. They cause autism.”
May 15th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Simply brilliant. Thanks Dan!
May 15th, 2009 at 11:44 am
@Greendog, re-reading my posts i realise I might be coming off as a bit snarky, I dont mean to, I’m honestly in a totally unrelated mood and looking to pick arguments for just that reason.
But I stand by my values, and do remind people that I’m from the UK where vaccinations are not a matter of money, so we dont have that same…I dont know how to describe it, that same anger that its all a push for money, that the pharamceutical companies dont care as long as they get paid. We dont have that concern, our health care and these vaccinations are free. I understand seeking to blame someone or something when something bad happens but I do believe that its irresponsible and dangerous not to vaccinate your kid. Obviously your opinion comes from a place of experience, and obviously mine doesn’t, I’m one of five kids in my family who all had their jabs, and every last one of us is …well there’s no way to word it without it coming off insulting, but not one of us developed autism.
I dont know, personally, any one who did develop autism after getting their jabs, so thats where my argument comes from. To me, Mcarthy especially just…comes off oddly. Tje fact she claimed her kid was one of those Indigo children for years, then declared he was autistic just makes me wonder, Indigo children, as near as I know, are highly, highly, genius level intelligent children who are also capable of incredible emotional intuity and empathy…i dont understand how that contradiction works.
But that isn’t the issue, my issue is that there is nor medical correlation between vaccination and autism, no more than there is a correlation between being autistic and having been born with skin.
I said earlier that diagnosis of autism have been on the rise since the umbrella of autistic symptoms widens(which it seems to every year, seriously, EVERYONE is autistic according that that thing) but at the same time, maybe the numbers are on the rise because of awareness of the illness spreading, regardless of vaccinations or no.
Also, did I say autism can be cured? not in a confrontational way, I just dont remember if I said that and if I did I didnt intend to, but i dont think i did
May 15th, 2009 at 11:44 am
So she uses her influence to attempt to sway the vaccine makers to NOT USE MERCURY TO MAKE VACCINES. Seriously, that is the problem, that is the mechanism by which vaccines cause autism.
May 15th, 2009 at 11:31 am
@noodlepie
I wasn’t implying you stole the idea…i saw the episode too and found it insulting, heavyhanded and ignorant.
If you want me to make sure my kid can’t infect your kid fine…but you have to make sure your kid can’t infect my kid with MRSA , VRE or other superbugs, which can be transmitted by your child to mine.
Third world countries need vaccines because of poor living conditions, the unavailablity of proper medications like antibiotics and antivirals, and the lack of clean water and healthy food.
And for the record…i don’t care for Jenny McCarthy and her rantings. Spouting off like she does sets back the autism awareness movement. My son has autism, diagnosed at 3 1/2…was normal developing until he received the MMR at 18 months. Coincidence? Maybe.but who knows. Yes, correlation does not equal causation, and no, my wife and I aren’t trying to find someone or something to blame for our son’s autism. We got the diagnosis and went to work trying to help our son as best we could try to acheive a level of normalcy in his life. But as a parent you always want answers…in this case, we do want to know why he is autistic. Blaming one thing or the other is not going to change things, but we still want to know why.
Oh, and most autistic individuals do not view autism as a disease that needs to be cured…in fact many get upset when people suggets a “cure for autism.
May 15th, 2009 at 11:29 am
No way am I jumping into the ongoing comments shitstorm long enough to get sucked in and have to start swimming for my life, but Dan, you fucking rule.
May 15th, 2009 at 11:28 am
I don’t have the medical knowledge or experience with autism to contribute anything significant to this debate. So I’m just going to say good job DOB. You’ve managed to generate a (mostly) intelligent discussion about this issue, unusual for a cracked article.
May 15th, 2009 at 11:28 am
“the concerned parents that know what’s best for THEIR OWN children?”
Yes, because you had a kid you are now an expert on immunology…
Fucking morons. Why are there so many fucking morons?
May 15th, 2009 at 11:23 am
@Stressbunny
And I understand that its natural to not want to be the reason your child is autistic but even if it is the case that it is something biological that caused the autism it isnt the parents fault they didnt choose the child to have the disorder.
and for the record I cant convince my mom that its not vaccines that are causing this even with all the doctors and studies showing it isnt. I think its because she is a mom and moms always believe these kind of things
May 15th, 2009 at 11:19 am
@Nukewhales
Gotcha, sorry. You’re right. Could be anything that causes this, I’m just a bit knee jerky (or just jerky) because so many people DO try to blame the parents.
Yeah, we CHOSE to have a child/ren like this, dammit. We WANT to spend our lives circling around the…Frothing…sorry
May 15th, 2009 at 11:18 am
@Greendog, yeah its off law and order, in my first comment on this article i referenced the episode, on the off chance you’e implying i stole the idea.
But the idea behind it stands, no im not saying you should stay home wth your kid because they MIGHT be sick, im saying you should make sure that your kid cant infect other children by ensuring the risk doesn’t exist.
Honestly…i dont want to sound…infammatory, but I think its incredibly selfish not to vaccinate your kid, its dangerous for them, and for other children and the elderly, who ae both more at risk from these diseases. If you want to seek alternate forms of vaccination, thas totally fine, but DO get it done. The child death rate the world over used to be incredibly high. That changed when vaccinations became wildly available. Why do you ‘bleeding hearts’ like doctors without borders are constantly flying to third world countries to vaccinate the kids there?
May 15th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Sorry….
AND: That article was only published recently (April 27 2009), any refuting research would not have had time to be published.
….sorry, I also do this to my poor husband…
…AND: ….false alarm
May 15th, 2009 at 11:15 am
You know what I don’t get? Why anyone would listen to Jenny MCCarthy anyway.
I mean, her claim to fame is that she took a bunch of nude pictures, and became a playmate cause her pictures were great to jerk off to.
Where in that does she get any credibility to talk about anything other than how a g-string feels when its stuck in the crack of your ass?
May 15th, 2009 at 11:15 am
there are more studies you just have to find them that one I linked isnt even the same thing I read from a while back ago.and hell my mom was was 38 when I was born and im fine. Biological things are not like chemistry, its not an exact science. Im just saying I have read more than one thing that shows there is some sort of correlation, and I know that doesnt determine causality but there are multiple different studies that show this. I guess my main point from the beginning is that its probably a combination of a lot of factors not just one thing like vaccines or other environmental things
May 15th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Thanks Dan! this was your best article yet!
May 15th, 2009 at 11:12 am
@Nukewhales
Really not attacking you, nor the scientific method, gotta respect the Method. But too much faith is put by the under educated into cod research and its results. Hence the whole ‘vaccinations cause autism’ debacle. Some body publishes that rubbing blue mud into our belly buttons solves all the worlds problems, doofus reads it and all of a sudden we are surrounded by blue belly doofuses (doofi?)
And I do respect your education, barely finished high school myself, just was fortunate enough to be taught how to think for myself. Which again sounds like an attack…bugger
May 15th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Word!
May 15th, 2009 at 11:07 am
The guys at Cracked are still working on the fame thing…
May 15th, 2009 at 11:06 am
@Nukewhales
And: The sampling was from a single birth year
And: All of the children are from a single state (Utah)
And: causality wasn’t linked, just sorta hinted at
And: neither of my two is first born, breech presentation, born to an over 35 year old mother, nor an over 30 year old father
That’s why I get so mad at ‘research’ like that. Maybe my friends and I are anomalies, but ignoring us to cover faux hypothses just makes it harder to find root causes.
Geez, I’m frothing more than usual today.
May 15th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Since when does showing your tits make you an expert on anything other than boners?
Bitch should shut up, go back in time to when she was hot, and take off her clothes as God intended.
May 15th, 2009 at 11:02 am
U kill me buddy!
As for Jenny… man, I’d fuck that mouth in a heartbeat and make Jim hold the web cam!
May 15th, 2009 at 11:01 am
@stressbunny
Yeah but my field is in the sciences(biology) and I trust science because its hard for them to sway their statistics too much cause either the journal they are publishing in will call bullshit on them, or another group of scientists will redo the study and confirm or call bullshit on them. and it makes sense in a way because humans were not really designed to be giving birth and having children at 35+ its been medicine that has really increased the age a which we can live and reproduce, so i think it makes sense that there are more problems with child birth at that age
May 15th, 2009 at 10:57 am
@noodlepie, the scenario you bring up is from that recent episode of Law and Order. Question…if my kid isn’t symptomatic, then how do I know he/she is sick. Basically what you’re implying is that if I have an unvaccinated child, i should stay in my house, just in case they’re sick?
May 15th, 2009 at 10:54 am
@Nukewhales
Pretty much, yes my ‘head-poll’ is a statistical fallacy, my sample pool is waaay too small, and yes GIGO, regarding your information previously, and I just did a quick peruse of the article, so maybe I’m wrong.
BUT:
Pretty much any statistic can be made to fit the researchers hypothesis, hence this article and following comments. If a more global statistical pool was available and surveyed and presents similar results, well, who am I to argue.
“Lies, damned lies, and statistics” as the saying goes.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Thank you for posting this! It I hate that people will believe a friggin has-been “actress” over their own doctors. I spent almost 10 years studying autism and its causes in college and grad school and there’s no scientific evidence saying that there’s a link between autism and vaccines, but plenty of evidence that there’s a genetic link. Both Jenny and Jim Carey site only “anecdotal evidence” as their evidence for vaccines being the cause of autism, but as often said on teh internets the plural of anecdote isnt data. The initial study they site also confused correlation and causation. You can’t demonstrate causation without random sampling.
The initial study suggested a link between mercury and the vaccines, so they took mercury out and autism rates didn’t drop, so rather than admit they were wrong the anti-vax nutjobs decided that it was the vaccines themselves. I’ve even met people who refuse to believe that autism existed before vaccines, that it occurs in places where vaccination is scarce, and occurs in children who have never been vaccinated. They will never admit that they’re wrong and people will get sick and die as a result.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Hi Noodle. Hope I didn’t offend there.
I know you may not agree with anything I said today, but I still like reading your stuff whenever I get the chance. It’s good to see you posting again.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:50 am
I believe Tom Cruise when he says “we are the authorities on pretty much every fucking thing”. Scientologists? No. I believe he was speaking on behalf of all celebrities. And to all uninformed activists, I’ll quote my science book: “Correlation does not prove causation”.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:50 am
oh and some of the studies show that the fathers age could also have something to do with it. so you dont have to blame everything on the chicas.
but it is still same to say that most of the worlds problems are caused by women
May 15th, 2009 at 10:45 am
@Starman,
Oh, MAN, Amanda Peet is a completely different but equally aggravating story. Do you know if there’s any truth to the rumor that she AUDITIONED to be the spokeswoman for vaccines? The whole campaign just seemed so damaging and transparent.
Meanwhile, I didn’t know so many readers knew someone with autism. I appreciate you coming out to the discussion, and I wish you all a tremendous amount of luck.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Kathleen,
“I do believe sadly it’s going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe. If the vaccine companies are not listening to us, it’s their f___ing fault that the diseases are coming back. They’re making a product that’s s___. If you give us a safe vaccine, we’ll use it. It shouldn’t be polio versus autism.”
Jenny McCarthy in Time Magazine, April 2009
=)
May 15th, 2009 at 10:43 am
@Stressbunny
I typed that before I reread the reasearch I looked at from a while back ago. The age wasn’t 30 it was 35. still not much of a difference. But polling your head from the extremely few people you know is the first way that statical fallacies start up.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090427091115.htm
there is the article. its kind of interesting but short
May 15th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Damn computer reacted badly to previous froth-fest. I am not advocating getting together etc with special needs parents, just would be interested in finding out how many others like a stress reducing giggle in their day…still wrong, but you know what I mean.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:40 am
actually-it was in TIME magazine where she said “If you ask a parent of an autistic child if they want the measles or the autism, we will stand in line for the f—ing measles” she also went on to say that it might take these diseases coming back in order to get the pharma’s to pay attention…and if people get sick-it’s pharmas fault. As I stated before-she has the I.Q. of dryer lint.
I have two autistic children-four kids altogether. They are all vaccinated. So I guess I won’t be standing in line for the measles any time soon
May 15th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Stressbunny, I like you, you seem somewhat awesome. Im also very intimidated by anyone who can cope with something as difficult as an ill child, let alone two. You have my upmost respect, plus you seem fun as hell, and also, as if your head is screwed on right
May 15th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Would be interesting to find out how many Cracked fans have autism etc in the immediate family. Y’gotta have a sense of humour to deal with this shit sandwich. My boys are 12 & 10 btw.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:34 am
You’re not alone Jerry. I’m in pretty much the exact same boat.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Dan O’Brien, if I hadn’t already wanted to marry you before reading this article, I would want to marry you now. I am an advocate for autism research, since my sister had autism, but I am disgusted by raging zealots like Jenny McCarthy. Even if all the talk about vaccinations is true, no one will take her seriously if she keeps acting like this. She’s not accomplishing anything. I’m ashamed to be lumped into the same category as her. So I massively appreciate this article, and I would be happy to provide you with any offsprings you may need.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Wow DoB. Thank you. I don’t know if you set out when writing this article to encapsulate the anger and frustration that parents such as myself feel when it looks like the whole world is going insane because of pretty celebrities and convenient answers. My wife and I have two autistic children, both boys, ages 4 and 2. Like good parents we’ve done tons of research. I’ve signed up with every autistic news mailing list in the US and a few in other countries as well.
I know you’re not a superhero. You’re a comedy writer, and a darn good one by my reckoning, but today you made the life of this nerd-raging father a little happier.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:31 am
I love it when the DOB gets serious.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Awesome sh*t Dan. I would suggest this as entry #10 in Cracked’s top ten reasons why Oprah is bringing Armageddon down on our poor f**king heads.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Wow! I am so glad that someone outside of the science or medical community is making this statement. This horribly misguided and delusional woman needs more people to see and understand that there is no reason to listen to her. Thank you Daniel O’Brien. You are my new favorite person. Is it funny or sad that Cracked is scientifically and intellectually smarter than many other news outlets, like the Huffington Post?
May 15th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Amen, DOB.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:27 am
@Daniel O’Brien
Thanks for noting that McCarthy isn’t an anti-vaxxer in the comments. Now how about a hit-piece on Amanda Peet and how she became a celebrity whore for the Vaccine Industry
May 15th, 2009 at 10:26 am
@Greendog, the issue with choosing not to immunise your kid, while other kids ARE immunised is about age and timing;
- say for example you have an un-immunised toddler, for, what ever, religious reasons o autism concerns, and you’re at a park with them, and they’re actually sick, not showing symptoms but ill? And a parent there has a younger kid who due to their young age, hasn’t yet had all their jabs.
- Your kid’s older, stronger immune system might fight off the disease with little more than an overnight fever, but if that younger kid contracts an illness off your kid,they’re way, way more at risk of a serious illness. If that kid does get sick and dies? In my opinion you’re culpable.
- As I said, I’d rather not have Batch immunisations, the MMR freaks me out, i’d spread that over a few weeks or months. My kid might be in pain for a few more days than they would have been before, but i’d consider it a lesser evil.
But avoiding vaccinations is risky. I agree maybe the chicken pox jab is silly, i mean come on, its practically a right of passage when you’re a kid, one kid at nursery or school gets it, the parents all expose their kids, you all get two weeks at home being cuddled by your doting parents!! But of course, if you dont have it as a kid, you’re at risk as anadult and since NOW you cant guarantee you’ll catch it as a kid, maybe its worth it.
But the others exist for a reason. People ask why we immunise against illnesses kids are unlikely to catch, or that are unheard of nowadays. They’re unheard of because we immunise, reducing the risk of spreads and out breaks. I mean yeah human immunity should be given more consideration, we have a jab over here that kids get at about 14, called the BCG, for Tuberculosis. Its a jab that usually leaves you with a nasty scar on your upper arm. I’m naturally immune to TB, never had a BCG, dont have the scar, unlike literally everyone in my entire family, and every single person i went to school with. But i went to school with several thousand people. At university, with 20,000, I didnt meet all of them, but I met a lot of people over three years and all of them had BCG’s, even foreign students.
What i’m saying is natural immunity to certain diseases is RARE, i’ve never been exposed to TB so its not like i developed immunity after having the illness, im just a fluke of nature.
I understand fearing autism but i have to agree with what a lot of people have said, Autism being on the rise can be correlated with damn near any thing. The planet has been more notable heating up for what, 20 years now? Maybe these kids brains are melting.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Great post, thank you.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:25 am
The Jenny McCarthy death count. http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/Jenny_McCarthy_Body_Count/Home.html
Surprised this hasn’t been posted already.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:23 am
schickfu-
Look up Hannah Polling and Bailey Banks. The court ruled in their favor stating that vaccines WERE the cause of their autism. Just two small victories versus a consensus herd mentality that will stick anything in their kid as long as Dr.Asshole tells them it’s perfectly safe.
Vaccines don’t cause autism, the extra chemicals and preservatives in the vaccines cause autism.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Thank-you so, so much for this article! Maybe someone will read it and change their minds about not taking their children to be vaccinated.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Great article.
To those wondering why it’s a big deal, why not just let idiots be idiots and walk around with unvaccinated children if they choose, look up “herd immunity”.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Didn’t it turn out that Jenny McCarthy’s kid doesn’t have autism? I feel like I remember reading an article that talked about her “experiencing a miracle” and that the kid isn’t autistic any longer, which mean he never was because there isn’t a cure for autism and she just scared a bunch of parents out of vacinating their kids because he kid was kinda stupid and didn’t like to smile.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:18 am
@I fuck ClownShoes!
Mom, I told you to stay off my computer! sheesh!
May 15th, 2009 at 10:17 am
I love you RacingStripes. Finally someone with an actual viewpoint that doesn’t fellate the celebrity in question. I honestly wonder if people actually even notice that most celebrities, are, in fact, partially retarded.
They believe that since people watch them on TV and listen to them, that they have to actually say something, or perform some cause that their agents, publicists and PR consultants have deemed ‘worthy’. They go onto television and are completely gung-ho about their cause, but there’s one problem.
They aren’t educated in the topic, and they come off looking stupid. But people still eat it up. Why?
Because they’re celebrities.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:17 am
@Gabriel,
I would have no problem having a discussion about this with you, if you didn’t come across as such a dick. So I won’t. Like i said earlier, debating about something like this is fine, until someone comes along who has a different opinion than you and resorts to insults and sarcasm. So i’ll take the high road and ignore your answers to my “spurious” questions.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:15 am
You know, my mother had her own “I just know” moment. It was the day after my brother was born. She “just knew” that something was wrong with him. Two years later, guess what? The kid has autism. So, by Jenny McCarthy’s infallible logic, we can see how wrong she is. My brother obviously had not had any vaccinations in the span of that 24 hours.
Or, you know, my mom’s full of shit, too. That’s the more likely explanation.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:13 am
In 1995, chickenpox suddenly became a major health problem. Six children were reported to have died from chickenpox; frequent and repeated TV coverage lasted for weeks without anyone mentioning that two of the six children had leukemia and the others were on cortico-steroids. HYPING VACCINES: AN INVESTIGATION By Dr. F. Edward Yazbak
May 15th, 2009 at 10:09 am
As of now ,DOB, you are forgiven into eternity, as is pretty much any male who thinks I’m attractive, hence the still being married part of my life, if you knew the crap he gets away with….
But the pity party was also a knee-jerk reaction to all the people who ask “How does your HUSBAND cope with this?” Like I made him stick around and parent his children, and I must therefore be the tough as nails bitch. Ask any mother of a special needs child, and you find that pretty much most of them are ‘grateful’ for their partners support, not expecting him to take on his share of what is really a burden….Sorry, the froth is starting…must go have a lie down.
BUT: Autism as a mental disease/disability/disorder (pick you pc-ness) was around before vaccines. Just not named. See any reference to the ’slack-jawed village idiot’ who ‘lives in a world of his own’ but in many cases ‘is just magic with [fill in some refrence].(which btw generally refers to a savant, idiot or otherwise)’, and you’ll find many indicators of autism.
AND
Vaccines prevent many thousands of deaths.
AND
If any mother EVER in my hearing ever said that she would rather her child have a more-than-potentially life-threatening disease, well, I did mention three squares and peace and quiet earlier on. That sort of statement, whilst hopefully hyperbole (hers, not mine), is tatamount to child abuse. Her son is apparently a high functioning autistic, he will understand Mommy saying “I wish you were dead, instead of being you.”
Going to lie down now, frothing at the mouth is tiring.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:04 am
The reason no one has successfully sued a vaccination company for causing autism is more a legal issue than a scientific. It is hard to prove LEGAL culpability of autism in vaccination. But what nobody talks about are the thousands of people have very successfully sued vaccination companies for causing severe brain damage, which was the cause of the autism, and many many more have sued successfully for just brain damage.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Thanks JV…I actually peruse the forums under a different name (hell, I even got an article published on here)…I just used this alias so that I wouldn’t receive any personal attacks in my inbox.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:03 am
it’s always thyme! and my dad says there’s no link, either, and he is also a nurse. but he was also in the army, so it would be a grave mistake to make fun of his nurseness.
everybody should watch aisha tyler’s future show instead. she’s superhot and also an a comedian with a degree from dartmouth who brews her own beer.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:03 am
“where is the long-term studies on this”
That’s an excellent question. Where is they?! Wait. Actually, given the fact that the people who’ve been getting those injections have been alive for decades, that’s not really a problem, is it? You see, I haven’t looked, either, but when there are millions of people who are potential subjects, it’s not hard to believe that there are studies out there. Again, I haven’t actually bothered to look or anything, but then again, I’m not making the assertion that the entire medical community has failed to publish a single study on the long term effects of immunization.
Of course, someone advocating that we research it would look pretty retarded if they were to ask where the studies is, and in fact you could find them easily with even the tiniest amount of searching. Call me crazy, though, but I’m going to devote 2 minutes MAXIMUM to searching. Be right back.
OK - 181 results for scholarly articles as opposed to web searches. One second, I want to find the name of that Themowhatever stuff that just about every result that said there was a link mentioned. Themoserol or something. Ah, screw it. That’s been disproved enough anyway. No need to pile on.
However, what I did notice was that all the articles (no need to list, there are thousands) hinting that there’s some hidden conspiracy to make kids sick with vaccinations so that they’ll have to spend more money on doctors for the rest of their lives were all written by either:
a) People like the esteemed Ms. McCarthy - with no fucking education on the topic at all beyond, “This just seems like common sense to me, heh heh. So . . . I must be right, huh? ‘Cause it’s a conclusion I came to on my own, and I’m clearly the smartest person alive, right?”
b) People with a degree that they like to show off to pretend that they’re an MD, but turns out to be in something completely different. Huh. So your point is good, but you like to be misleading? Weird! Funny, ’cause the REAL doctors aren’t shy talking about their qualifications. They aren’t acting like, “Vaccines are awesome and . . . Me? No! No, not a doctor, here. Just a concerned parent with a degree in . . . Creative Writing. Yeah. That’s the ticket.”
or c) People who are actual doctors, who may or may not be parents, who continue to repeat discredited theories. You can tell this because most of them start with something akin to how their theories have been discredited, but they think that’s bullshit.
But . . . to answer your question, that’s where the long-term studies is. They’re OUT THERE AVAILABLE FOR PEOPLE TO LOOK AT! Though you might have to wade through a few dozen pages of mentally retarded people ranting about their conspiracy du jour to find them.
SECONDLY! “Why can’t the medical association come up with a new vaccination schedule, one that has the majority of vaccines after the age of 2?”
I dunno. Perhaps because the entire point of vaccination is to boost the immune system when it’s at it’s weakest - the same reason why, at 33, no doctors tell me, “Hey, Gabriel, you’re gonna need a flu shot this year.” Because you could rub my face in a big pile of the flu, and I’ll be just fine. However, babies and old people probably wouldn’t handle that too well.
However, I can answer your bullshit questions meant to make people lean towards your OBVIOUS conclusion, even though you’re pretending not to offer any answers, only questions:
Shit is on the rise because with the advent of vaccination and modern medicine, we are allowing people with weaker and weaker genomes to survive longer and longer, allowing them to actually reproduce so that shit that wouldn’t have normally been able to move on from one generation to the next can do so. Shit that would’ve been life threatening 100 years ago is ‘meh’ now. And now we’re finding out the consequences of letting people reproduce when each of ‘em has different disorders that, just a coupla generations ago, would’ve killed them by puberty. It’s a whole new world. And if you have a problem with it, then the only way you’re going to solve it is if you get out there and march on Big Pharm with a banner that says, “LET THOSE KIDS DIE BEFORE THEY CAN SPAWN”. Good luck with that.
There - an actual answer for your spurious questions. Love to see you and Jenny out there spearheading that cause.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:03 am
I cannot even understand why some of you people even argue about this, if you don’t want to give your child vaccines, that is your choice. Besides the estimated length of life has gone up. Think about it really, you talk about asthma and other things on the rise…. how the hell are vaccines causing this? seriously, you tell us to use our brains… think for yourself! Pollution, emission and even stress levels have gone up around the world, the state of things we drink and eat are getting worse every decade. Yet you still seem to think a vaccine is gonna hurt you. Compared to dirty, tainted foods and water. The way I see it is be your own judge, you wanna believe that vaccines are killing people causing disease and controlling your brain.. so be it. Just people who listen to whatever the TV tells them without question needs to be shuffled from their mortal coil, or kicked in the crotch… whatever seems better at the time.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:02 am
The important thing to remember here is correlation does not imply causation. When looking at violent crime and ice cream sales over the course of a year, there is an almost perfect correlation. As ice cream sales go up, violent crime goes up at almost the same rate. Does this mean that ice cream causes violent crime? No. There is a third variable that is effecting both…heat.
So what is another reason that autism rates could be on the rise? How about the fact that the umbrella for autism diagnoses has gotten much much larger. High functioning autism, Aspergers, these are things that would have qualified people only as eccentric or weird in the past, but now they fall under the Autism umbrella.
Statistics can be misleading. Make sure you think through all the possibilities before doing something drastic like cutting off your child’s vaccinations, and don’t just look for the results that confirm your belief, look for studies that are scientifically sound.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:02 am
@DOB
Chicken pox vaccines are being forced on parents who question their pediatricians about the efficacy of vaccines and their safety. The death rate in adults who get chicken pox is 0.03%. Yes, this is greater than the risk of side effects, but once again it goes into my argument about injecting children under 2 years old (in the case of the chicken pox vaccine it’s recommended kids 12-18 months receive it) with a developing immune system. What role does this vaccine play in childhood diseases such as asthma?
And I didn’t come on here to debate, or call people out. I just hate how others disregard people’s right to choose and their opinions because it differs from theirs. Name calling, insulting, etc. does not make for a healthy discussion (which surprisingly happened on Cracked..i come hear for the dick jokes damnit).
May 15th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Great article. Informative and (somewhat) funny.
This just has to be said:
Correlation does not imply causation. Correlation does not imply causation. Correlation does not imply causation. Correlation does not imply causation. Correlation does not imply causation. Correlation does not imply causation. Correlation does not imply causation.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:00 am
hush, dob! this is natural selection at work! jenny mccarthy may actually be improving the human gene pool, you ever think of that?
May 15th, 2009 at 9:58 am
U’re so sweet! XOXO! http://neilsnotes.com/index.php?page=13&catid=17&sku=ENGL-CD00371 BA-BOING!!!!
May 15th, 2009 at 9:57 am
I have my own theory, maybe I can get Oprah to back me up. In order to be famous, the Devil comes and takes about 50 IQ points from these people. Most celebrities are so fucking stupid it’s unbelievable. As for the part of the article about people listening to celebrities, I don’t. In fact, I’m more inclined to think,”Well if this idiot thinks it’s a good idea, I should probably think the opposite.”
May 15th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Greendog-
Finally someone with some common sense. That’s what I’v been saying around here for months, just not as articulate and with a whole lotta “Go Fuck yourselves” thrown in for good measure.
I’v never heard of you before, but I’ll definitely watch out for your posts, dude.
Good job.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Wow, great post DOB. I love this site and everything about it. I never realized the amount of really intelligent people who read it. I mean, I knew there were tons of idiots but wow, eye opener! I found it really well written and thought provoking. But, the fact that I learned stuff from a dick and fart joke site makes me kinda sad.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:54 am
@DOB
Great Article! Now, Don’t ever apologize again for writing a meaniful article on cracked! It is refreshing to read articles that focus on real issues while still providing the lols!
May 15th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Rachel Ray has man hands…
May 15th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Look, if a parent doesn’t get their child vaccinated, but you do get your child vaccinated, then your child should be safe, right? And if you want to blame the parent of a non-vaccinated child for getting your little baby at home sick with the measles or whatever, because heaven forbid it couldn’t be your vaccinated child, remember that diseases can live on hosts and be transmitted by uninfected individuals. And think about this…the decline in disease such as measles, etc, can be attributed to vaccinations…and improved antibiotics, antiviral meds, cleaner/healthier living conditions, improved hospital care. That’s why these diseases are running rampant in third world countries…if these ultra poor countries had access to clean water and proper meds, the diseases would probably not as big a problem.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Thanks Dan.
I guess it really depends on where you live to be able to bypass all that fear-mongering.
Southern California is a good place to start. They have some of the more lenient school systems that will allow parents to bring wavers for religious reasons and such, and not put up much of a fight, due to all the cultural diversity out here. Sure, I would LOVE to home school my son, but I’m just gonna have to settle for a good school in a descent area when the time comes. Wavers, wavers, wavers. Thats all it takes nowadays.
I’m not gonna deny my kid a normal childhood. (How normal can it be when mothafuckin’ JasonVorhees is raising a kid?)
I also hear that New York and Maryland have some of the worst programs when it comes to fucking with parents who refuse vaccinations. About a year ago, in Baltimore, they were using military force and threatening parents with jail time if they didn’t subject their kids to On-The-Spot immunizations from their school nurse. MotherFuckers had machine guns and everything, just to scare people into sticking shit into their kids.
If that doesn’t seem excessive to everybody, than they should look forward to it happening more often.
I guess my stance on vaccinations is: If a trusted alternative specialist or a sincere pediatrician can recommend where to get immunizations that are free of any Mercury, formaldehyde, aluminum, thimerosal, ect., than I would get the minimal amount of shots in a heartbeat. Like the really important ones that can ruin lives, but what the fuck does a one year old need with a hepititus B shot?
But If some local clinic thinks they’re gonna stick 6 needles full of this shit into my kid every two months, for a year and a half? And he’s not even sick to begin with?
Well, they know what they’re gonna have to suck,
and they know where they can stick those needles.
Peace out Dan. Even though I may not agree with ya on Jenny and Jim Carrey and your stance on mandatory vaccinations,
I still dig the column.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:41 am
“If you ask a parent of an autistic kid if they’d rather their kid have cancer or autism, they’d choose cancer in a fucking heartbeat!”
She really said that? Way to offend people with cancer and autism at the same time!
Also how come this article has no mention of Jenny McCarthy’s boobs?
May 15th, 2009 at 9:40 am
@Greendog
“Why do people get chicken pox vaccines?”
Because if they get chicken pox as an adult, they might die. Also, chicken pox vaccines aren’t required by anyone, so no one is forcing this issue. Also, the amount of people who’ve experience mild side effects from the vaccine is low. Lower, we can confidently say, than the number of people who’ve died or gotten severely ill from chicken pox.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:39 am
Nice. I see Fisto touched on the six thousand year old earth thing. Good to see I’m not the only one who saw a similarity between these.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:39 am
Good article DOB. i haven’t seen a picture of Jenny McCarthy in years, and she’s looking pretty damn terrifying these days. the plastered-on expression she wears tells me that at some point between now and Singled Out, her stupidity reached critical mass and collapsed under its own weight, creating a mental black hole that devours all intelligence that gets too close.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:38 am
DOB, you’re my fucking hero. I hate celebrities.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:35 am
This is the same sort of horseshit that pisses me off when it happens in court. When families tearfully point at the wrong guy and sob and swear up and down that he did it, and how he deserves to die, only to find out much, much later that the DNA proves it’s someone else.
I just want to grab them by the throat and say, “Listen, assholes, I understand you want to have someone or something to blame. That you can’t accept the idea that you might not find an answer in your lifetime, and therefore the answer needs to be already found so you can have something to be pissed about. If the answer is already right here in front of you, you have someone you can blame for your problems, someone you can hold responsible right now . . . but . . . AND THIS IS IMPORTANT . . . the longer you sit around and insist that everyone humor you while there’s no evidence to support your retarded conclusions, the longer the REAL culprit is still out there NOT being hunted down.
“DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? This means you’re going to have to remove your head from your ass, and admit that just like the rest of humanity that you can be wrong. Yes, I know that you feel that you’re right, and you feel that that means you have some sort of divine mission to tell everyone else that regardless of whatever they actually know to be true that your knowledge handed down from god is better. I also know that puts you in the same boat, logically, as young-earth creationists, snake handlers and those people who don’t take medicine because it’s not god’s will.
“Actually, those latter two are one step ABOVE you, because their beliefs don’t affect anyone outside their own families, whereas you’re going out of your way to try and convince everyone that your lack of evidence makes you right. You’re in there with young-earth creationists and Scientologists.”
It’s not cool in either situation, and I’m frankly sick of seeing people who make their money off of emotion (like Oprah) go for shit like this just because they know that a crowd that turns in for an emotional reaction is always likely to respond to the story of the mom fighting against the odds for her kids, even if the mom in question has the IQ of a cactus.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:35 am
When i was a kid we got 8 vaccines…now a child gets 32-36 before the age of 2..and parents that dont’ vaccinate are the ignorant ones? I’m amazed at how people will spend weeks researching cars before buying one, but as soon as a doctor says your kid needs a vaccine, boom, no questions asked. Research people…why so many vaccines. Why do kids need a chicken pox vaccine–used to be that you’d get the chicken pox and there you had your natural immunity. Flu vaccine? Crock o’ shit. Unless you are immuno-compromised or near death to begin with, the flu shouldn’t kill you. Do people never question the rise of childhood asthma, and deadly food allergies are on the rise. Why is it accepted practice to inject 32 foreign substances (yes, that’s what vaccines are–foreign to the body) into a developing immune system…where is the long-term studies on this? Why can’t the medical association come up with a new vaccination schedule, one that has the majority of vaccines after the age of 2? Why are some parents bullied by their family doctors and pediatricians to have their kids vaccinated, when ultimately it is their choice? People need to research things like this–not blindly follow what big pharm and the government tells them.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:34 am
As someone who works on developing vaccines, let me tell you that I don’t do it for the money. In fact, as any grad student can attest, I may as well be getting paid in burritos for all the cash that I’m pulling in. Vaccines are not solely developed by big bad “Pharma”…in fact, it’s mostly the universities who are doing the research into better and safer ways to protect the health of the people. Some labs do get funded by pharmaceutical groups, others by private companies, and, as is the case with my lab, get funded by the government. We are not mad scientists who cackle insanely as lightening crashes around us, bent upon taking over the world one evil vaccine at a time.
I got into vaccine research after traveling overseas and the poorer areas of the Americas (the US included), and seeing how many kids were dying of easily preventable diseases. It’s not right for someone to run around screaming that vaccines are hurting more than they’re helping when it’s simply not the case. And for those who believe that the rise in autism cases directly correlate to the rise in vaccination, let me tell you a fun little statistic:
As the rates of vaccination have gone down, the rates in diagnoses of autism have gone up.
So does this mean that not vaccinating your children causes autism? The fact of the matter is, research this subject, and not just through websites that hold the same opinion as you do. Why trust a doctor to give you antibiotics for your infection, but not to vaccinate you? Inform yourself, listen, and learn. Pointing figures isn’t helping anyone.
Sorry about the length.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:28 am
@Greendog-
You’re probably right. I was basing my assumption on the two states where I’ve lived: New Jersey and California both claim that it’s mandatory to have proof of immunization. I also completely underestimated how likely a school is to cave if a parent makes an issue out of it. Good point.
@Stressbunny-
I thought Deansinger was a woman, for some reason. I just think everyone’s a woman, because in my mind, attractive women are the only people who read Cracked. Is… Am I off base?
May 15th, 2009 at 9:26 am
God gave us retards to laugh at to take some of the heat off of midgets. http://neilsnotes.com/index.php?page=15&catid=23&sku=E-CD00425
May 15th, 2009 at 9:25 am
Jenny McCarthy’s crusade against vaccinations makes me think that the STDs and other diseases have taken over her brain and are using her as a vehicle to ensure their kind is able to take over other human beings. The only thing that keeps me from being sure is that even a collection of diseases would have chosen a better, more important host.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:23 am
I agree with whomever said that the rise in autism is really just a change in the way autism is diagnosed/categorized. But since there is no proof of any causation, anyone who speaks about autism should list the theories and call them just that — theories. I know one autistic kid who became more functional via a change in diet, but he’s still autistic, and it would be irresponsible for me to start advocating that all children be put on this diet at birth so they won’t develop autism. The fact is, we simply don’t know YET what causes autism, so there’s no reason to risk a life-threatening illness in the hopes that you’ve staved off something that isn’t life-threatening.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:21 am
“What is that, a Rice Krispie treat covered in chili? My dick is hungry and my stomach wants to have sex with her, nothing’s making any sense.”
That line ought to be engraved into a gold brick and used to beat lesser writers into a coma.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:16 am
How could I listen to her if when the first time I see her I’ll be jamming my manhood down her throat?! As for her mouth… last time I saw one like that it had a hook in it! As for retards… I’ll fuck ‘em too (if they pay for dinner… and by ‘dinner’ I mean the condoms and soft music (and by soft music I mean K.Y. and a baseball bat for foreplay!). http://neilsnotes.com/index.php?page=13&catid=18&sku=ENGL-CD00429 Holy boners Batman!
May 15th, 2009 at 9:16 am
This is messed up. It reminds me of the zannyness surrounding the whole “teach the controversy” business they have going around, what with ID/Creationism being taught in science class along side evolution. Some people are just crazy. DOB, you should totally do an article on that. Although, it would probably be more sad than funny and would probably start an even larger flamewar than this one.
And yeah, I too had totally forgotten how hot that Pink Power Ranger was.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:16 am
People who refuse to vaccinate their children are not just stupid they are selfish and a huge danger to society. As others have pointed out here “herd immunity” plays an important role in keeping those who are not immunized (either because they are too young or because they have a pre-existing disease that would make the immunizations harmful to them) safe from the disease as well. Now that we have ignorant people preaching to even more ignorant people we are seeing a rise in outbreaks of diseases that were all but beaten by immunization. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/us/21vaccine.html Guess who is the most at risk of dying from these diseases? That’s right the infants and sick children who have not yet or cannot be immunized and are therefore more likely to contract the disease as well. When the general population was behaving like rationale human beings and protecting their children from real diseases rather than trying to fight off the boogey man these non-immunized individuals were safe too, now not so much. The best part? Most of these parents think their kids are safe because of “herd immunity”, but there are such large numbers of them now it’s just not true. So, when you are looking into little Jimmy’s eyes as he gasps for breath, covered by a tent supplying him with pure oxygen in a sad attempt to save his little life try explaining that mommy and daddy were too busy listening to the fear mongerers to actually protect his life. Oh, and if little Jimmy infects my kid, you’ll be joining him in heaven real soon.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Dan O’Brien,
It is illegal and unconstitutional for a school system to deny a child public schooling based on vaccination status. Some children are not vaccinated due to religious beliefs, but that does not mean that they cannot attend public school–they just cannot attend if an outbreak occurs. While some states have laws in place that say non-immunized children cannot attend public schools, if parents fight this they usually win. Freedom of choice and all that. As far as herd immunity–it may also be that that particular child, like many non-immunized children, has a healthy immune system, from proper diet and supplements.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:14 am
The only thing that disappointed me about this article was that I thought there would be photos of Jenny McCarthy wearing next to nothing. That is all.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:14 am
@ DOB
It’s not necessarily Herd Immunization, it could be simple evolution, the planet finds ways to kill us, we adapt and the disease, sickness, or whatever becomes harmless or a rarity. Look at the Flu for instance, I have never taken a vaccine for flu ever, only because i hate needles and if i catch it, i recover in a couple days.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:10 am
Pegerow, go to room right now, and don’t come out until you are ready to apologize! Bad, very bad!
May 15th, 2009 at 9:08 am
That secret ingredient your mother uses isn’t regular thyme, it’s a special sort that grows in the shape of a hammer, so you should stop asking her.
That’s right, stop; it’s hammer thyme.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:07 am
I am offended as a Puerto Rican because you want to see us in cages, I am angry, Im gona write you a personal angry letter, I will insult your moms pasta and destroy whatever credibility you have. I just need oprah to endorse me and your career is DONE!!!!!!!!!
Some Puerto Ricans should be kept in cages though.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:05 am
@JV
Welcome back. A couple of concerns for your child, though, not strictly health-related. How are you planning on getting him into public school? You’re in America, don’t you need to show proof of immunizations to get into school? Maybe you want to home school him, which is fine, but what if when he’s old enough to make a decision, he wants to go to college, or high school with his friends, but he can’t without his immunizations?
As for why he’s so healthy despite the lack of vaccinations, it might be that herd immunity. When 95 percent of a population gets vaccinated, the community develops a herd immunity. I don’t know the statistics of where you live, so maybe that’s not the case, maybe you’re just incredibly lucky.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:04 am
Awesome article. I’ve been following this whole story for a while… it’s pretty scary the way she’s promoting such nonsense. If anyone is interested, you can find out more at theskepticsguide.org check out the blogs on medicine, they have a lot on Jenny (who BTW argues that vaccines are toxins and therefor dangerous, but she uses Botox all the time… WTF?)
May 15th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Jv Returns says:
“I just have complete distrust for the entire medical industry because they’ve killed many of my relatives due to incompetence, negligence, and bad medicine. That is all. ”
Ok, so they would have survived with no medical treatment at all? If you live in a country with socialized medicine, your statement makes perfect sense. Sadly with the radicals in power, the US isn’t far behind.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:02 am
“Like the sweet Momma Bird that she is, she’s lovingly regurgitating a soft, warm, chunky career down the gaping throat of a hungry Jenny McCarthy.”
Pulitzer worthy. Seriously.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:01 am
Hey, DOB, how come a Dad gets conrats and condolences, and not a Mom? Is it somehow harder for him?
Pardon the pity party, but comeon!
May 15th, 2009 at 8:59 am
Maybe Sheryce is right, my eldest child is a lesbian! Maybe SHE turned her baby brothers autisitic! Finally, someone to blame!
Oh, wait…homosexuality is supposed to be genetic…Dammit! Still my fault.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:57 am
@Deansinger,
Congratulations, my condolences, and thanks for adding to the discussion. It’s pretty refreshing to hear your attitude, because Jenny McCarthy has said in TV interviews and in her articles COUNTLESS times something to the tune of “If you ask a parent of an autistic kid if they’d rather their kid have cancer or autism, they’d choose cancer in a fucking heartbeat!” And that always seemed like such a damaging attitude.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Wait, wait, wait.
I think everyone’s been looking at this all wrong.
Autism cases have gone up recently, but so has the fight for gay rights.
Clearly it’s those homosexuals turning our children autistic!
Done, and done.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:52 am
Wait…I’ve been reading through the comments…when Jenny first started out she was an” indigo mom” and her son a “crystal child” she wanted to clean up the enviornment etc.etc. please google this. You’ll find that she actually talks about the fact that no talk show would listen to her on this issue…now go and look up her partner in her last book-Mr. Handley..look at his web site. They sell cures-snakeoil-woo. Jenny McCarthy is in it for the celebrity and the money. She has the I.Q. of dryer lint-but a great publicist. I do not for one minute buy that she means well.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:51 am
Dan, sweety, it’s rosemary, not thyme
May 15th, 2009 at 8:46 am
JV- I wasn’t trying to make the point that everyone was at risk because your child isn’t immunized. There is little to no risk of a small number of unimmunized people in a group. (The exception being that your child would be dangerous to those for whom the vaccine was ineffective if your child brought measles or somthing into their school somehow. Not likely though.) The point was that if everyone took your stance and stopped immunizing, the number of cases would go up. Also, while all vaccines have risks, the chance of death or injury from them is much lower than the chance of death from diseases.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:42 am
Very well written..I can’t stand her..can’t stand the fact that enormous sums of money have been spent on vaccine research over and over again…money that could be better spent on research and perhaps even programs…
May 15th, 2009 at 8:42 am
Speaking as the parent of an autistic son, I will say this: You can live with autism. Given effort and therapy, you can live a relatively normal life with autism. My son will graduate from high school next month, and I believe he will be able to enter the work force and be a productive member of society. Even at its worst, autism is not a death sentence. Measles, rubella, diptheria, polio, and many others of those diseases that our modern medical abilities can prevent by vaccination… they KILL children. Dead. So, what’s worse, the risk of having an autistic kid, or the risk of having a dead kid? Not a hard choice for me.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:39 am
very well done sir, great work!
May 15th, 2009 at 8:38 am
If I had a dime for every stupid Aqua-Vulva Nipple Nazi anti-vaccine mother I’ve encountered in the course of raising my two kids, I could buy several hundred acres of farmland. Is there a stupid, lame, neo-Amish, ass-backward way to do something, a method that will make everyday 21st-CENTURY LIFE (with all its conveniences) a living, laborious hell? Well, let’s do it THAT way, then. Is there a way to be extra-crunchy granola in a self-righteous style, so that we can feel morally superior to everyone else? Well, let’s run with it. Stupid bitches.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:37 am
@JV Returns
I think you may have a little cause and effect fallacy going on there. Just because you didn’t vaccinate you child doesn’t mean that’s the reason he’s healthier. The only reason he doesn’t get mumps, measles, polio, etc. are because other parents DO vaccinate their children and yes there are inherent risks with vaccination but you reap the benefits from the risks taken by other parents. I hope he never contracts any of the potentially life threatening diseases because of your ignorance and fear because he doesn’t deserve that.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:36 am
@JV-
Just throwing this out there, for the record, kids have started dying of mumps in my hometown. Fucking *mumps*. I’ve seen young polio cripples. There have been cases of measles in the local news. The viruses are everywhere, it’s just that we, yanno, thought we’d cured them until society hit an upswing of stupid and decided we’re too cool for the cures we just invented.
As a denizen of the interwebs I’m really tempted to call troll, but I know that it’s more than possible for people to be that idiotic. Gasoline story, case in point.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:36 am
To the rest of ya’ll, sorry to offend. But it’s what I do best.
By the way, I would’v just gone ahead and vaccinated my kid if I can just get a hold of the alternative immunizations that do not contain any of the poisons that can potentially make you’re kid sickly and retarded.
I just have complete distrust for the entire medical industry because they’ve killed many of my relatives due to incompetence, negligence, and bad medicine. That is all.
Enjoy the rest of the debates and ass-kissing. I’m outta here.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:35 am
Sorry, Nukewhales, a random survey conducted in my head of all the mothers of autistic kids I know comes up that over half (10 out of seventeen) had their kids before they were 30. Not a large over-half (not solid on math, me) but, still. Blaming aging eggs just, once again, tries to put it all in the mother’s lap.
Do you know my mother-in-law, ‘cos she blames me, too?
May 15th, 2009 at 8:34 am
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s article on the subject. (If hearing it from a woman threatens you.)
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/06/16/thimerosal/index.html#share
May 15th, 2009 at 8:34 am
Wow… People thinking that vaccines cause autism?…. wow… just simply stunning at how stupid people can be. I mean they don’t blame their wonderful technology, or maybe drinking or smoking during pregnancy…. or ingesting crap and their growing baby feeding off of this… it has nothing to do with the polluted air we breathe or anything else like that… it’s the vaccines. Like how video games cause violence, it has nothing to do with the parenting. People’s ignorance is astounding and stupidity alone is causing alot of the problems on our planet, the rest is caused by greed. Learn from this example, everyone is stupider than they think, myself included, think for yourself before you jump on a bandwagon. Especially you hard core Bible-Thumpers that think the world is only 6000 years old… I mean that just plain stupidity, not saying your religion is wrong, just you follow blindly without thought or cause and do exactly what you are told like robots…. I am gonna step down from my soap-box now…
May 15th, 2009 at 8:29 am
Just talked to my brother about all this, he’s the last dinosaur and has no computer. And he had an interesting/horrifying response: “Maybe the rise in Special Needs children is a genetic Malthusian Solution?” Thanks, Bro.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:28 am
I have done a lot of reading in the vaccine autism debate and I hate seeing people not vaccinating their children and from the reading I have done I think the cause for the increase in autism causes is a combination between two things. for one autism is better identified than previously which leads to the nubers increasing, secondly there is a correlation between autistic children and mothers who start having children after 30. And now days more and more women are having children later in their lives. this could be another reason for the increase….PEOPLE VACCINATE YOUR KIDS!!!
May 15th, 2009 at 8:26 am
JDK-
So where does it say that if one person isn’t vaccinated, the rest of the cattle will suffer and die horribly from these diseases? (oops, I meant ‘herd’)
I just don’t buy into that shit. No offense.
I’v never met or heard of anybody that has Polio, Rubella, Measles, or any of the ‘rampant’ diseases that NEED to be cleansed from the subject before he even has time to develop past his infant stage.
Sure, it could be all thanks to the intense vaccination program being pushed onto dumb-ass parents nowadays, or it could be that these diseases aren’t anywhere near your area and you really have nothing to worry about for the time being.
If the rest of the kids are already immunized, than I have even less to be concerned about.
Now the only other thing I have to look out for are people who are gonna find out that my child is ‘unclean’ and start treating him like a bio-hazard.
Both me and my kid are gonna piss in their fuckin’ faces.
Good luck raising your kids, homes.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:23 am
Apologies for any offensive grammar in the last post. I was typing in a fit of passion.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:23 am
Oh, dear lord JV! I just hope that you were trying to offend people. Good job, btw.
I’d just like to point out that there are as many sides to the ant-vaccination campaign as there are people in it. It ranges from “I’m not vaccinating ‘cos I can’t be arsed”, thru “I’m not vaccinating ‘cos all pharm companies are evil soulless conglomerates” to “I’m not vaccinating ‘cos I don’t understand how it works, and I live in America where we don’t have 3rd world diseases” and “I’m not vaccinating ‘cos somebody on the internet said it’s bad”. I just wish there were a few more people saying “I’m looking at vaccinating, but I want to know more about it”. Then I would hold out more hope for the human race. My kids aren’t autistic from the vaccines, they are autistics because their brains, their genes, their whole frickin’ biological makeup made them autistic, maybe vaccination made it worse, maybe not, but it sure as hell didn’t cause it. Vaccinations, when they work, make the bad things go away.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:22 am
@JV- That is perhaps the most ridiculous argument against vaccinations I have ever seen. To say that vaccination doesn’t work because your kid has never been sick and is intelligent proves nothing.
When I was younger my mum fed me excessive amounts of Weetabix. I am now one othe healthiest people I know, and algebra is my bitch. Does this mean that Weetabix makes kids healthy and good at algebra? No of course it doesn’t.#
So who does win this debate? I’m gonna say the thousands of children worldwide whose lives are saved by vaccinations.
Peace
May 15th, 2009 at 8:16 am
@JDK: …Thank you for making an intelligent response (which won’t be replied to, most likely, but still) because the only thing I was able to think of after reading -
“I never vaccinated my child, and he is by far the healthiest kid I’v ever known, never caught more than a common cold.”
- was this one time I was at a gas station where a man was refilling the underground fuel tank with a giant hose, and a man standing right next to both of us l it a cigarette. The fuel man screamed, and smoker calmly responded: “this one time I threw a lit cigarette into a can of gasoline and nothing happened. You don’t really believe that shit is flammable, do you?”
I swear on my life and DOB’s abs that that is a true story. And I have become convinced that it is everything wrong with the world.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Amen brother! You forget to mention the fact that a couple of years ago, Jenny had a cover on People magazine about how her son recovered from autism. Heres an article she wrote for cnn.com http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/02/mccarthy.autsimtreatment/index.html She’s an idiot and I’d like to ask her to please sit down and shut up already.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:16 am
I’ve never commented on Crack but I’ve been reading every article for a little over a year. DOB, you are a genius, talented writer and one of my favorites in print, web or otherwise. Please write a book. I will buy two. One for the car and one for my kids’ dance recitals.
Also, I may or may not be wearing a cape while writing this.
hint: I am.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:15 am
This article was full of complete, unadulterated WIN.
Thank you, DOB. I’ve been yelling at retards who think not vaccinating their children will keep them healthy for years now and it’s good to know I’m not alone in thinking they’re batshit crazy.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:11 am
JV- Did you consider that maybe the reason your child never gets sick is because all the other kids are vaccinated? When they come in contact with measles or rubella or the like, their body destroys it, and it never has a chance to spread to your child. It’s called herd immunity, and while it works when only a small percentage aren’t vaccinated, it doesn’t exist when no one is vaccinated. Then you have epidemics like smallpox and polio. Oh wait, those were wiped out THANKS TO VACCINATION.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:11 am
“…the only danger I face when watching Rachel Ray is in deciding whether she or her food is responsible for my boner.”
Whoever says this article was not funny must have skimmed past this line. I lol’d. Of course then I went back to nodding in agreement with the rest of the article.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:08 am
I hardly ever comment on articles but read them pretty loyaly, but just this one time I have to say *damn*. I am stunned and impressed and a little bit in love - I didn’t think anyone else on the freaking planet was concerned about this Oprah-fueled landslide of horror.
And, uh, I know a lot of people aren’t liking the “DOB cares about an issue” posts, but I’m pleased that a very, very funny man has similar opinions as I do. Er, yeah.
And holy crap I had that same conversation with my dad, also an RN. Except it was ginger pork instead of pasta.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:05 am
Wussup DOB!
Good job, homes. You really stuck it to that broad today. The nerve of that fuckin’ woman trying to go on TV and spread awareness for a just cause.
Shiiet, if I were Jim Carrey, I would’ve gone to the Oprah Show with Jenny, and I would’ve held a valid, well-informed, arguement with those pretend doctors, but by yelling at them through my ass cheeks ala Ace Ventura. AND PEOPLE WILL LISTEN!!!!
I’m gonna go ahead and say it. I never vaccinated my child, and he is by far the healthiest kid I’v ever known, never caught more than a common cold. And he is also much quicker and more intelligent than anybody in his age group.
I don’t give a fuck what anybody says. Especially not in this society full of fuckin’ idiots telling even stupider people what to do with their lives. I made my informed decision and I’m sticking to it until a better alternative presents itself. (did someone say ‘Green Vaccines’)
So who wins in this debate?
The big soulless pharmacutical companies pushing their billion-dollar agenda onto the proletariate, while pretending to care?
(What’s good for your kid may not be good for mine)
Or all the concerned parents that know what’s best for THEIR OWN children?
Whoever wants to debate me on this, Kiss my Ass. I got work to do.
Peace.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:04 am
This was one of the best articles I have ever read online, not just on Cracked. Keep up the good work, DOB!
And the thing that makes Rachel Ray hot is the fact that she could probably eat an entire hotdog at once and let’s face it: that’s fucking hot not matter which way you slice it.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:04 am
@letjennylick-
That’s one of the things, is that there’s been very little autism study on anything beyond vaccinations. Granted, the studies on vaccines are far from complete, but that’s still the only thing we’ve been focusing on as a possible cause. So there’s all you mentioned, and more, as a possible cause that we haven’t gotten around to checking yet. What’s aggravating is that, for a while, the cry was “Thimarasol contains mercury and is in the MMR vaccine: It causes autism!” So a) they tested thimarasol and b) they stopped using it. The results of the test were conclusive: Thimarasol does not cause autism. As soon as that conclusion came out, the cries shifted from “Thimarasol makes autism” to “We have too many vaccinations, VACCINES cause autism!” That’s aggravating to me. They were worried about Thimarasol, which was reasonable, but when they were proven wrong, they backpedaled to say all vaccines are dangerous? How is that an argument? What happens when someone does study all vaccines and finds no causation? Will the argument shift to “No, it’s the NEEDLES we were worried about the whole time, not the vaccines. Test the syringes.”
Anyway, people much smarter than me are talking about this in our forums.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:01 am
DOB, bless you and your magnificent abs for writing this article. Right up there with some of Wong’s best.
I work on how new neurons are made in the adult brain, and I’m hoping to transition into autism research in the next few years. So with my (obviously minimal) qualifications in mind, here’s my two cents:
1. I also talked to my mom, who is also a nurse in pediatrics. She has seen more cases of diseases that used to be non-existent because of vaccinations. What these non-vaccinating parents don’t think about is vaccines require most of the population to be vaccinated to eradicate a disease. When they send their Typhoid Mary of a kid to daycare with a bunch of other kids who might not have been vaccinated yet, they risk infecting everyone else. Not only are they hurting their kids, they’re potentially killing someone elses.
2. Autism cases are most likely increasing because autism is now classified as an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), including Aspergers (which my little brother has), Rett syndrome, and pervasive developmental disorder. It’s also possible that there are some environmental factors unique to the US that are slightly increasing autism cases, but no one’s identified one.
3. The government has spent obscene amounts of money to show there is NO correlation between the mercury preservative found in some vaccines years ago and autism cases. As this preservative is what most anti-vaccination advocates are blaming for the increase in cases, most of their case is bunk.
4. Some forms of ASD do have a genetic cause. Rett syndrome is a widely studied ASD that is caused by one of several possible mutations in the MeCP2 gene. There have been at least a dozen genome-wide screens looking for mutations that would correlate to autism, but none have been consistently found. This suggests that the cause may actually be epigenetic: how the DNA is packed and tagged in the cell determines what genes are turned on or off at any time, so if the DNA is packed or tagged incorrectly, a gene may be off when it should be on. Incidentally, this is how MeCP2 works in the cell.
My guess is their probably is an environmental reason for autism. But it probably causes the problem before the baby is born. Most likely the neurons that make connections in the first few years of life are already messed up, long before the kid even goes to his or her first doctor’s appointment.
I pity McCarthy; it is so difficult to deal with a special-needs kid. But she really needs to shut up.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:55 am
BTW, there’s a correlation between that picture of the Pink Power Ranger and my boner, and in this instance (but not all) it’s fair to assume causation.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:53 am
Discover magazine had an article about this in their most recent issue:
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jun/06-why-does-vaccine-autism-controversy-live-on
It’s surprisingly similar to this article, although Discover’s had more dick jokes.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:52 am
Fact: Autism cases are on the rise.
Fact: There are more breast implants today than 20 years ago.
Fact: Jenny McCarthy has breast implants.
Conclusion: Her fake tits fucked her son up.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:52 am
Another lucid, intelligent, well-written article by D.O.B.
Well done, sir.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:49 am
I had really forgotten how hot pink power ranger was. Thanks.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:48 am
So there’s long been talks about mercury being the cause of autism, and a rise in mercury found in all the fish we eat. Could this be the link we’re looking for? I don’t know, I’d have to find out where the body stores it in the body.
Another thought is all the medicines that are in the earth, air, and water that we’re eating, breathing, drinking. Maybe our causality lies with all the drugs we’re all taking without a prescription (not the recreational ones of course.)
I sure hope we get off this anti-vaccination kick soon. Vaccines are among man’s greatest creations.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:43 am
Have any of you ever heard of the family from the seventies who claimed to ‘cure’ their son, entirely, of autism, in the first few years of his diagnosis, purely by playing games with him and mimicking his behaviour to make him more receptive? I saw a made for tv movie about it wherein he was shown to be pretty non responsive, only to grow up to be a ‘perefectly healthy child who shows no signs of his previous problems’
I cant help but think he was, as stressbunny says, either higher functioning, or he wasnt blooming autistic. I think part of the rise in the numers of diagnosis of Autism is the hypochondriacal world we’re becoming. I’m not saying conditions like aspergers dont exist, im sure they do, but lately it seems like everyone and their mother has aspergers, just like everyone and their mother is dyslexic now.
Like i say, i’m not saying these conditions dont exist, i know people who genuinely suffer from both, but maybe a lot of kids who are just…distant or independent or what ever, are being diagnosed as autistic or as being on the autistic spectrum.
Hell, according the autsitic spectrum, I have aspergers, but I know I dont…I think a lot of the diagnosis could re-examined, as well as spending money researching OTHER CAUSES not just vaccines. If they are the cause, well then fine, fix that. But since there’s no proof of that, ever, im inclined not to believe it.
Then again, the flip side of that argument is like the one you apply to smoking. NO ONE dies from smoking, there’s never been a recorded factual case of smoking killing some one, or giving them the illness that kills them. What there is, is a higher instance of these illnesses in people who smoke, but as i say, never a proven case. It’s one thats hard to debate. The same thing applies to salt, there’s never been a proven case of chronic illness caused by too much salt, if anything, not enough salt, even by a small amount, is incredibly bad for you…the whole thing is mind boggling
May 15th, 2009 at 7:42 am
Holy crap, that was one of the best, well-written articles I’ve read on this site. DOB is the man. Perfect mix of humor, fact, and nausia-inducing references to a Catwoman/snake hybrid abomination.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:40 am
Excellent post.
As for the pasta, do the experiment! Try thyme and see how it tastes.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:39 am
@Michael
Haha, jerk, beat me to it.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:38 am
Fantastic article.
….Scrubs doctor almost crying was totally worth watching that guy freak out first.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:38 am
“The rise in vaccinations directly correlates with the rise in autism, and anyone who ignores that fact is an ignorant fool.”
You’re the ignorant fool.
Correlation does not equal causation.
Did you know that the more ice cream cones purchased and consumed one day correlates directly to the number of drownings that day?
Does that mean that the more ice cream you eat, the chances of you drowning are higher?
No, it means that ice cream tends to be eaten on a hot day, a day you might be more likely to go swimming and drown.
Just because something is correlated does not prove anything nor does it prove it is connected at all.
If the only thing they have looked at is vaccines, that’s ridiculous. There could be any number of factors as to why autism as gone up. Maybe it is because of vaccines, but if that’s the only thing they have looked at there is no way to know.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:37 am
Wow, even though it wasn’t an overly funny Article, I couldn’t help but read the intire thing. Somebody needst to tell McCarthy that ‘a posible corrilation’ does not mean ‘causation’. Thats the first thing they teach you in any science or stitistics course. If we used that formulation then we can assume that the drop in number of pirates, and the rise in green house gasses/CO2 and global warming is more than just a coincidence. I saw, we all go back to being Pirates. Yar! Who be with me?
That….and there is a genetic link to audizem, and the audizem spectrom disorder. Ever wonder why if one sibling has it, the other future siblings are ‘at risk’ of having it?
May 15th, 2009 at 7:33 am
“Obama to saving rainforests to Tom Cruise to global warming to free-range chickens ”
You have a problem with saving rain forests and stopping global warming?
I do hate Cruise though.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:32 am
Wait a second….lemme see if I’ve got this right…..you’re saying that it is ok to masturbate to Kurt Loder, or no?!
May 15th, 2009 at 7:31 am
There is a high incidence of gastro-intestinal problems with autisic children, and a change in diet does help those kids. But changing the diet does not “cure” autism, it just makes the child more comfortable. Think about it, how co-operative is anyone, how able to concentrate and participate is anyone, who has a chronic, nausea inducing illness, or even just a hangover? Personally, I think those who spout “I cured my child’s autism with soy milk and rice cakes!” were just the lucky few who had a high-functioning autistic child in the first place, and they just took away one layer of the fog between their child and the world.
If soy milk could cure autism, well, there wouldn’t be any autisitcs. Or is this the second coming of Hippocrates, and she is his messenger. How does one ‘cure’ a gene sequence?
May 15th, 2009 at 7:29 am
http://www.safeminds.org/research/
May 15th, 2009 at 7:25 am
Keep your panties on, some of you people; it’s a writers opinion on cracked.com. Again, cracked.com. Geez, this thread is like a microcosm of this statement:
‘ The problem, Science argues, is that we’ve confused “famous” with “authority,” ‘
..which, IMHO, when applied explains just about everything from Obama to saving rainforests to Tom Cruise to global warming to free-range chickens (mmm… chicken…) to being told we love “From Justin to Kelly” to well, any damn ‘green’ cause know to mankind, really. I’m sure there’s more. A lot more. No, a lot lot more.
BTW, they key is to cut the acidity of the tomatoes just a pinch: I’ve heard of using a little sugar, carrots, potatoes, or even a small amount of baking chocolate.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:25 am
I don’t care what you say…I’d tap that
Boobies FTW!!!!
May 15th, 2009 at 7:24 am
DOB speaks the truth. Just people being afraid or what they can’t understand.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:22 am
[...] Comedy like this. [...]
May 15th, 2009 at 7:19 am
amazing article, dan. keep up the good work!
May 15th, 2009 at 7:19 am
I know few psychologists that work with autistic kids and I heard a pretty interesting theory… the reason that there has been such an uptick in autism cases is because 20 years ago, those kids were just called “mentally retarded”. It’s only been relatively recently that they’ve gotten better at diagnosing it.
And Jenny says they cured it with diet. BULLSHIT. If he was reacting to dairy, its called an allergy and he was misdiagnosed. I really hope her kid gets measles.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:19 am
Damn, this is one of the most reasonable articles I’ve ever read on cracked. Now i usually dont come here to be informed about actual issues, but you did a solid job of this one, while being pretty damn funny in the Process. Good work DoB
May 15th, 2009 at 7:16 am
BadAstronomy dot com also deals with Anti-Vaxxers.
Check it out sometime. A lot of post regarding this topic (And skepticism in general).
May 15th, 2009 at 7:16 am
“(Jenny) decided to put her celebrity to good use after doing her own research.”
She did her own research? Really?
What scientific journal did she publish in?
Oh and thank you Dan. I felt this was a very valid point.
“in fact, because the vaccine issue was so high profile, they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and several years studying and restudying vaccinations so much, that, as a result, they couldn’t examine any other potential causes of autism”
May 15th, 2009 at 7:12 am
The Rain Man dude was pretty cool. Just make sure you keep a good routine including timetabled visits to the casino. Fuck Tom Cruise though.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:11 am
I think you were far too lenient on her. Thes a freaking idiot. Half the people responding to the article are fricking idiots by the looks of it too. There is NO link between autism and vaccines. It’s been proven over and over, like…a million times. The anti-vac people have provided absolutely NO evidence to their cause.
A lot of these people take for granted just how DEADLY these diseases are. Before these vaccines were around, these diseases killed MILLIONS of people.
Jenny McCarthy are indirectly responsible for killing children. That is not an exageration either. Its a fact.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:08 am
Great article! Jenny Mccarthy is doing a deservice for the world, and I supose the real reason underneath it all is her friggin terror of neddles, or the fact that once a doctor from pediatrics told her to never procriate, for the sake of the human gene poll (can’t blame him).
The risks of being vaccinated are way lower than the ricks of eating peanuts, or shrimps, or even bananas. No one is telling they are dangerous in mass media.
all in all , screw her.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:06 am
Since I’m one of the ones going ‘oh Jenny is an Anti Vaxxer’(lamest name ever) I feel compelled to respond to Starman, I wont deny that pharmaceutical companies are up to some pretty shady shit, but you have to remember that I’m from the UK where we dont pay for out medicine, its free for us, so I/We have no reason to think our doctors are hiding any scary facts from us cos they make money whether we get the vaccinations or not, they’re not trying to to trick us into innoculating our kids because of the potential multi million pound/dollar loss.
I’ll hold up my hand and admit ignorance, I’m not above that, I’ve not read Mcarthy’s books, though I was aware she had an autistic kid. Explain to me, please, green-vaccines.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:05 am
@Rotcod
In 2008, there was a whooping cough outbreak in Australia. The death rate was slightly less than 1%. If we use this number as a death rate, and the pre-vaccination incidence rate of 150/100,000 the resulting number of deaths per year in the US is about 4000. This is ignoring the economic impact that caring for over 400,000 people with whooping cough would cause, along with the school and work time that is lost while people cough uncontrollably until they’re so exhausted they can’t move.
This isn’t the point, however. We can debate how necessary a whooping cough vaccine is all day long, and it won’t change the fact that you picked one of the least deadly diseases to illustrate your point. How about rubella, which causes birth defects and stillbirth? How about the fact that polio and smallpox have been almost eradicated thanks to vaccines? Or bacterial meningitis? The list goes on.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:01 am
Agree with the positive words that others have said. Great article dude.
*Thumbs up.*
May 15th, 2009 at 7:01 am
Whoa, WHOA, let’s just take a step back here. Are you suggesting the voices I heard coming out of my laptop when Jenny McCarthy was talking was connected to some sort of human brain?
Also, what kind of non-bias, informational, ethically responsible bullshit was this? Where’s the Hate, DOB? You didn’t even say anything like ‘people who don’t vaccinate their kids deserve it’ or ‘I would like put my penis inside Jenny McCarthy’.
I don’t even know who you are anymore.
I guess your family might be reading this, or you wanted to make an impact with reasoning into the heads of people who would actually listen to her, so you had to censor yourself a little bit.
But I mean, if repeating “You are listening to Jenny McCarthy” to those people doesn’t help, then I suspect a rounded opinion on the subject matter would do as well.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:00 am
AMEN! AMEN!! AMEN!!!
Dan,
I am a pediatrician, and I have been fighting this Jenny McCarthy insanity for quite some time. Thank you for putting her in her place since no one else seems to want to. I am going to forward your article to all my friends.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:59 am
It’s debatable that there even is a rise in autism.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:58 am
@Jenny_O_RLY?
Thank you. Your list points out that American fetuses are exposed to many teratogens that could adversely affect development. There are many harmful chemicals in our environment aside from vaccines and the biological causes of autism could be related to any of them.
Also, shame on you DOB for not including a single picture of Jenny McCarthy’s cans. That’s the whole reason I clicked on this article.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:57 am
“Darclipto”, you are a tool. He’s not dismissing her because she’s a celebrity, he’s dismissing her because she’s a moron. She has no scientific basis for claiming there is a connection between autism and vaccines. Can you even comprehend how many lives have been saved by vaccinations? Try contemplating that before you defend another dip-shit celebrity that has nothing better to do then go on crappy talk shows and voice non-existent concerns. Weak-minded people are inclined to believe people just because they’re celebrities (although, I’d hardly call Jenny McCarthy a celebrity) and will neglect to get necessary vaccines for their children, leading to sickness and possibly death. Is that what you want?
May 15th, 2009 at 6:55 am
If anyone is interested, Nature Magazine published a paper linking genetics with ASD, (I don’t know how to link things to here, google it.) Also, there have been papers published regarding the correlations between the so-called ‘Autistic Brain’ and it’s development, and the male brain…
BTW, DOB, I’ll listen to your mother, I’ll listen to you, I’ll listen to Jenny McCarthy, hell, I’ll even try hard and listen to Jim Carrey, but NEVER ask me to listen to Congress.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:55 am
oogabooga, you just made me laugh so dreadfully loudly that i scared my self a little.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:53 am
I dunno, seems like she did her research or at least her angry friend from the doctor’s show did. I mean even the MD’s only defense after he said all those statistics was, “stop being mean to meeee!” which alot of two year olds can relate to. Anyway, I can’t say one way or the other about autism but I did end up feeling sorry for McCarthy after reading that article. It does kinda seem she’s reaching for something to blame, however. Also, isn’t autism a genetic thing? Maybe it’s just shitty luck
May 15th, 2009 at 6:53 am
Just popping in for a second after a quick scan of the comments, (there’s almost no way this comments section WON’T turn into a flamewar), but a couple of points of clarification:
-@Some Commenters- Jenny’s son is possibly autistic, (there’s actually some debate, but that’s a totally different flame war). I guess I thought everyone knew that and I wouldn’t need it for context. Whether her unique position makes her both incredibly passionate/dedicated or incredibly biased or both, I don’t know.
- Jenny McCarthy is NOT anti-vaccine and she DOES mean well. She is, however, a biased and misinformed celebrity who doesn’t have a problem getting up on stage and spreading her message to a public that’s all too willing to eat it up and distort it. My problem is more with celebrity culture and irresponsibility than it is with Jenny and science.
@BryanJose- Dammit, you’re right and that’s a great point I forgot to mention.
@Anyone Who Enjoys Comedy- I’m really sorry you had to sit through today’s post, but it was an issue I needed to whine about for a little while. I should be okay now.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:48 am
I personally don’t think that “Slovania” is a real country.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:45 am
Funny how Autism skyrocketed when people stopped beating their kids.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:43 am
Is it just me, or does the picture under
“3) Jenny McCarthy terrifies the doctors into silence by making a face that is precisely a cross between Catwoman, snakes that can hypnotize you and all of my childhood fears”
remind you of Michelle Obama?
May 15th, 2009 at 6:40 am
Hey idiots correlation does NOT equal causation, get that through your thick skulls. You what else increased on the same timeline as the increase in incidence in autism, EVERYTHING! Using your asinine logic, it could be the amount of cheeseburgers the fat ass walmart mom had during the pregnancy that caused ( I would sooner believe that) or the gamma rays spewing from your computer screen that causes autism. Seriously the people who come with the vaccines didn’t bullshit their way through 15 plus years of post high school of hard-ass education and training and collaborate with other smart ass people to be debunked some idiot who talents that don’t involve her breasts include farting and burping on cue.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:37 am
@JDK
People want to point to the absence of some of these diseases as proof of efficacy of vaccinating.
The incidence and severity of whooping cough (pertussis) had begun to decline LONG BEFORE the pertussis vaccine was introduced. From 1900 to 1935, in the USA and England, BEFORE the pertussis vaccine was introduced, the death rate had already declined by 79% and 82% respectively.
(M. Burnet and D. White, The Natural History of Infectious Disease (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1972), p. 16)
and (Michael Alderson, International Mortality Statistics (Washington, DC: Facts on File, 1981) pp. 177-178)
May 15th, 2009 at 6:36 am
Stats 101: Correlation does not equal causation.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:36 am
@Darclipto: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation
FACT: I’m older today than I was twenty years ago.
FACT: There are more Autism cases on record than there were twenty years ago.
CONCLUSION: My age MUST be the cause for Autism. If you fail to see that, YOU’RE A MORON. THERE’S A DIRECT CORRELATION.
See what I did there? That’s the same logical fallacy you just applied. Oh, and “stop acting like a sheep and think for yourself?” That’s exactly the behavior DOB is advocating.
Also, he writes dick jokes on the internet. If you’re going to get worked up about things people write, try finding a serious forum.
Have a nice day.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:33 am
She is an awful woman, and I can’t stand the way she claims to be an advocate for autism research.
You know what we need more than research into why this happens, or worse yet, a cure? We need fundings for programs to help these people with this disorder continue their education and development past highschool. As it stands, there are VERY few post-secondary education programs for these people, and the majority of the time, their parents or guardians have to quit their careers to take care of them with what little government funding they are provided. Of course McCarthy wouldn’t care about that, she’s well off enough to support herself and her son.
Instead of treating these people like a problem we should learn to love and accept them for who they are and help them find their place in this world. But I guess it’s just easier to blame science.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:33 am
Thank you! It’s so nice to see actual, scientifically-supported information being spread through other media like this.
Incidentally, there’s strong evidence to support the fact that Autism is not actually increasing, it’s just being better identified. Up until about 20 years ago, there was no diagnostic criteria of “autism”, it was just lumped in with “mental retardation”. As a matter of fact, a recent study found that the perceived “increase” in rates of autism syncs quite well with increased awareness.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2006/04/evidence_against_an_autism_epi.php
Thanks again.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:31 am
I can’t believe that Dan didn’t try and correlate how the rise in the number of breast implant surgeries performed corresponds to the increase in the rate of autism. WON’T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!?!?!
May 15th, 2009 at 6:29 am
Here’s a question; why is an article like this on Cracked.com anyway? It’s not funny, unless you think going “huh huh huh… look at the bimbo who cares about stuff” is funny. It’s factually inaccurate. And it gives no information on exactly why McCarthy is a green-vaccine/Autism research activist - i.e. her son has autism and she decided to put her celebrity to good use after doing her own research. Judging from the comments a lot of people didn’t know that and were wondering why McCarthy cares about this in the first place.
You know, you might try reading one of McCarthy’s books before reading a hit-piece on her. If you had, you might have discovered that she is not an anti-vaxxer but is a green-vaxxer. This is a difference that Big Pharma is doing everything they can to discourage people paying attention to, lumping those like McCarthy with reasonable concerns about the ammount of testing (or lack thereof) before new vaccines are approved with those who fear that the vaccines contain the secret mind-control nanintes used by the Illuminate or some such.
In her books, McCarthy goes out of her way to note her own lack of medical qualifications, encourages parents to seek opinions from multiple doctors before making their own conclusions and gives a number of sources for parents seeking more information on the vaccine/autism controversy.
And to everyone who is reading this and going “Woah! I thought she was all about autism. I didn’t know Jenny McCarthy was an anti-vaxxer!”, she isn’t. Of course if you’re getting your news from Cracked.com, me trying to warn you off probably isn’t going to do much good.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:25 am
@Rotcod, less people die from diseases BECAUSE they’ve been vaccinated. Also, 9/11 wasn’t an inside job.
And as has been highlighted, there are more cases of autism these days because it’s been reclassified. Any basement dweller with no friends can self-diagnose themselves as having poor social skills and, bam, autism.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:25 am
Here’s the thing. I watched this clip and they mention Iceland in it. I’m Icelandic. We don’t have all the answers, not by a long shot, but let me break down some of the things we DON’T do (along with many other European countries):
- We don’t put as many chemicals in our water
- We don’t put as many chemicals in our livestock
- We don’t have 60 years of nuclear waste being dumped left and right
- We don’t use as many synthetic additives in our food
- We don’t have a privatized health-care system that fosters this kind of paranoia
- When our children tell us there is a boogieman under the bed, we tell them everything is going to be fine. We don’t go around spreading the idea.
- We don’t over-identify Autism, ADD or dozens of other hard-to-diagnose mental and physiological ailments, at least not to the degree we see in the US
- We don’t abuse the vaccination, immunization or antibiotics to the degree we see in the US
But yes, Jenny is right, of course none of the above could have anything to do with the lower rate of diagnosed autism cases in Iceland compared to America. It’s all the vaccines.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:23 am
DOB, I’d much rather listen to your MOM (Afterall she gave birth to the funniest guy in the world) than Jenny M. any day.
But really, why do some celebrities feel they know squat about stuff they don’t?
A great reminder not to follow “stars” blindly.(Except of course for DOB-I’d follow you anywhere!)
May 15th, 2009 at 6:20 am
What many people don’t think about is that the cases of atusim are on the rise because they are taking more care to diagnose and research it than they used to. I used to work at a college where we thought plagiarism was on the rise because we were finding more cases. The truth was that we had figured out better ways to catch it, so we were catching more. There weren’t necessarily more of them, we simply caught more, which would seem to indicate an upswing, but instead, we had just figured out a way to identify it faster and easier. While plagiarism is obviously not a comparison, the idea that we’re looking harder and are more educated in what to look for today means we are going to spot more cases that might have been overlooked before, and the public stigma with autism has begun to vanish, so more people are admitting to it.
The vaccination connection has no legs, but definitely needs to be studied, since you don’t want to rule out anything until you absolutely can. The fact that a lot of people are desperate enough — and in some cases, uneducated enough — to understand this is dangerous, since it could lead to a rise in the viruses and diseases vaccination prevents, just because some people are willing to believe a person with fake breasts over anything else because it provides them with an answer — any answer. My heart goes out to those people, and I feel lucky every day that my own daughter does not have autism, but that doesn’t mean we throw out science for populist belief.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:16 am
Hey Rotcod, did you ever consider that maybe, just maybe, fewer people die from the disease than the vaccine in the US because PEOPLE GET VACCINATED? Before vaccination, the incidence of whooping cough in the US was ~150/100,000. The worldwide death rate is about 1 in 80 cases. You bitch about less than a thousand deaths per year from the vaccine, but if there were no vaccine, over 5,000 people would die in the US alone.
Also, the reason that 95% of measles cases are in the vaccinated population is because almost everyone (aside from idiots) is vaccinated. No vaccine is 100% effective. That’s what you anti-vaccine people don’t understand: it’s not just your child that you’re endangering by not vaccinating- it’s also the kid they go to school with that the vaccine wasn’t effective for. When your kid gets measles because you’re a dumbass, that other kid is at risk too.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:11 am
Seee..I thought Jenny was just big on promoting like, research into autism and treatments etc, I didn’t realise she was Anti Vaccine…thats just….thats just irresponsible. Certain fictional crime shows recently aired an episode where an infant died of measles before she was vaccinated. SHe caught them from a six year old who’s mother had chosen not to vaccinate out of fear of the side effects.
While the show was fictional, this is a real risk, babies are especially at risk from death from diseases they could deal with if vaccinated, or older!
I personally think if i had kids, i’d have the MMR jab as three seperate jabs, just to be safe, but my children would sure as shit get every god damned needle doctors thought necassary.
I agree that autism must be a devastating, horrible affliction, I cant imagine how difficult it must be for her and thousands of other parents….but to me, blaming vaccinations is like when they blame violent media for students shooting up their schools…its like they cant just accept that their child isn’t as perfect as kids are ’supposed’ to be. Yeah, like DOB says, we all want some one to blame and i dont know who i’d blame if my kid was ill or did something really bad, i cant say i wouldn’t throw blame at medicine or drugs or the media. But for now…sorry Jenny but I cant agree with you on this, if you had a medical degree, maybe, but since basically ever doctor thinks you’re wrong…
May 15th, 2009 at 6:07 am
I have two autistic children, and I have to say that my husband and I have spent almost 12 years trying to reason out why we ended up like this…the anecdotal evidence linking vaccines and autism was almost a wonderful way of mostly getting out of blaming ourselves, and trust me, the parent of every special needs child blames themselves, their family, their gene pool, their neighbourhood, the guy who sprayed pesticides on the school garden they played in as a child…how nice to blame science! And prehaps science is to blame, gods know what kind of teratogens, in what doses, we are all surrounded by every day, but ASD pre-dates vaccinations, prehaps not in the numbers we see increasing every day, but it was still extant. (It was diagnosed and named in the early 1940’s, but existed prior, obviously.) I admit I was concerned about giving so many vaccinations to my children at the same time, and the youngest child had his spread out over a longer time period, and I paid a snootful of money for that, let me tell you, and yes he is autistic, but he is also much higher functioning than his brother. Mebbe he would have been as he is now if we’d followed the same schedule as the older boy, or he may have been as fascinated with fecal play and bursting into uncontrollable screaming like his big bro, we’ll never know. And that is why people have jumped on the anti-MMR bandwagon, they don’t know. Did they, by following a prescribed ritual of jabbings destroy their child, or has environment, genetics, the Great Cthulu and sheer bad luck, done this to their child and their lives? Yes, Jenny McCarthy is strident and brow beating. She is also frightened, self-blaming and has a whole life ahead with a child and then adult who will never be ‘quite right’, and screaming out in a forum that she lives in.
And, if you have never encountered a single solitary self-righteous, god-complexed, oops-I-thought-those-side-effects-would-never-happen doctor, I’ll understand why you’re holding all doctors in such regard, but they screw up, they make mistakes, and if one more talks to me like I’m sub-moronic…well, I’ll get three squares and peace and quiet for a while. Hmm.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:01 am
Science promotes drugs they just believe in all the time. What about Big Pharma funded drug studies? Nothing’s black and white. Vaccinate your kids if you feel like. If you don’t and they get polio and die then cry for a little while then I think you have a reason to feel a little guilty.
My question, what the hell does she expect them to do? You aren’t FORCED to get vaccines, it’s just that other parents look at you like you’re a freak who doesn’t give a shit if your kid infects the community with malaria or some shit (imagine how the mother of Swine Flu’s Ground Zero feels…). Jenny wants the doctors to help promote her social agenda with other parents, validate her into saying she’s not a fucking idiot. That’s all…if you don’t notice that, well, You’re really fucking stupid.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:01 am
@ Rotcod
Where is Cournoyer, C’s “What about immunization” published? Also, does it address the possibility that the reason more people die of the vaccine than the disease is because so few people die of the disease, owing to the vaccine?
May 15th, 2009 at 6:00 am
Very true, very thought provoking. However this article lacks the crazy zany humor thats normally found on crack. not a criticism, just an observation.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:00 am
Also, don’t forget, autism isn’t really on the rise. We see a rise from several years ago because they’ve redefined what constitutes autism. Until recently Asperger’s Syndrome wasn’t considered autism, but it now is. So when we look at autism charts from the 80’s that don’t include Asperger’s and the ones from today that do, boom, right there, it looks like an increase in cases if you don’t take the facts into account. Also DOB, nice article! And if you ever get that recipe, share it! And when in doubt w/ spices, always try “Italian Seasoning.” Even if it isn’t right, that shit makes everything better.
May 15th, 2009 at 5:59 am
This article is crap. It’s one thing to mock celebrities for endorsing cults, it’s another to mock them for trying to bring to people’s attention real concerns. Do you have children? Probably not. You probably live in your mom’s basement and never actually spoken to a female. Anyway, if you did you would realize that they are pumping more and more shit into our children, most of the time not even telling what the fuck it is or what it’s for.
The rise in vaccinations directly correlates with the rise in autism, and anyone who ignores that fact is an ignorant fool. Maybe instead of saying “DON’t LISTEN TO HER SHE IS A CELEBRITY” maybe you should stop acting like a sheep and think for yourself. You have just basically proven to me that you are the Bill O’Reilly of Cracked.
May 15th, 2009 at 5:56 am
@Bill - McCarthy’s child is autistic. That is one of the reasons she hooked up with Carey. He is apparently very good with her son and has been since they met.
May 15th, 2009 at 5:56 am
She should stick to getting naked for money.
I get so tired of Hollywood trying to act like genius’s’s (should there be one more ’s?). They know so much about everything that’s wrong with the world or with your life, but they can’t even keep their own marriages together, their kids off drugs, their taxes paid in full, or even read a whole script to see if their next movie with be flying feces of horror!
I love watching movies and tv shows, but when you are not acting, please SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Jim Carrey, Prime Example. Most famous for talking out of his ass in Pet Detective… Is this someone you really want to take advice from on anything that doesn’t require bending over and hold each ass cheek while butt-puppeteering stupid catch phrases?
So in summary… Jim, please make Pet Detective 3: Return of the Butt Puppet, and Jenny, Show us you bewbz…
May 15th, 2009 at 5:54 am
Your statement in your discussion with your mother that any studies have been done between vaccinations and autism is not correct.
Studies have been done about the connection between thimerosal (mercury) and autism which show no correlation. Between vaccines in general and autism? Not so much. It would be good if they did though.
I would like to see a study published of how many children who have absolutely no vaccines (not even the flu shot) also have autism. The numbers of totally unvaxed are high enough that statistically speaking a fair number should have autism.
If their numbers are roughly the same as the vaxed kids, then it would show that there likely is no correlation. If the numbers are vastly different, then it would indicate that further study needs to be done.
If anyone knows of a statistical analysis like this being done, please post it. I’ve checked with the bad science guy and he has never come back with one so I will assume there is not. There should be though.
May 15th, 2009 at 5:52 am
“5) The stupid doctor with the sideburns almost cries.”
i watch that doctor show sometimes and
that made me laugh histerically for like 5 minutes.
also, i love the caption under will smith’s picture.
well done, mr. o’brien, well done!
May 15th, 2009 at 5:48 am
This is the best article you’ve done in a while. Good job.
May 15th, 2009 at 5:48 am
You don’t really know what you’re talking about at all, do you? YOU are the one saying she is full of it because YOU “feel it.” Did you know that there is 94 times as great a risk of dying from the vaccine than from whooping cough itself? There is 3,888 times as great a risk of acquiring long-term damage from the vaccine than whooping cough itself? There are about 10 deaths per year from the disease and at least 943 from the vaccine.
source: Cournoyer, C: What about immunization?
Oh, measles outbreaks? Up to 95% of the cases are in people who were “vaccinated” against measles.
(FDA Workshop to Review Warnings, Use Instructions, and Precautionary Information (on Vaccines) (Rockville, MD, Sept. 18, 1992 p. 37)
Also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrIM2hwrLoc
May 15th, 2009 at 5:36 am
Not very funny, but damm true. Well written sir.
Check out badscience.com to see how this whole shitstorm has happened in the UK (yeah, it was our fault… Sorry.)
May 15th, 2009 at 5:32 am
Great article. Great points. Great pasta.
May 15th, 2009 at 5:21 am
@Don, you know, sometimes people just need to vent. I’m glad that DOB brought this to light, because he’s right in that many people do blindly (and stupidly) follow anything any celebrity says–however, I would contend that McCarthy hasn’t been “pretty” for about a decade now, but to each their own.
I thought this was a great article. I don’t care what McCarthy’s reasons are, unless she’s going to join in first hand on the research herself to see all the exhaustive methods being taken and pour some of her own money into said researches instead of letting the government fund it, I think she needs to STFU and show some respect to doctors who, you know, SAVE LIVES AND SHIT.
Even if her kid is autistic, I’ll bet she’ll start suddenly screaming out the other side of her face if all the sudden the kid dropped dead of measles or the like because the vaccine against it could have made the autism worse.
May 15th, 2009 at 4:57 am
there’s a limit to how funny an article can be when trying to get a message across.. and that limit is way way below the level of funny DOB can usually reach
May 15th, 2009 at 4:54 am
I like how that show made the doctors wear scrubs and a white jacket to identify them as doctors - like that’s all doctors wear, every day.com - perhaps they knew their target audience were stupid enough to need a visual aide.
At one point I thought blue scrubs doctor was going to laugh in J.B. Handley’s face - best way to win an argument ever.
May 15th, 2009 at 4:36 am
Her kid is autistic
May 15th, 2009 at 4:35 am
Oh man, this really was the least funny article ever - is this where Cracked is heading? Is it re-positioning itself as the new New Scientist?
It’s probably oregano, that stuff gets everywhere in pasta