Don't Confuse Her With the Facts!

There is an eighth definition to “cult” that reads like a non sequitur: “any system for treating human sickness that originated by a person usually claiming to have sole insight into the nature of disease, and that employs methods regarded as unorthodox or unscientific.” I don’t know how much this relates to a cult per se, but it raises another topic that pisses me off.

Jenny McCarthy.

She was in Playboy, has written some books, and was, until recently, hitched to Jim Carrey. She also holds the belief that childhood vaccinations caused her son’s autism. Since then, falling back on her vast knowledge of pharmaceuticals and neurological disorders, she’s led a campaign against vaccinations. That started in 2007.

At first, McCarthy believed her son to be a “crystal child” and she an “indigo mom.” She believed he represented the next step of evolution for humanity and possessed gifts beyond what anyone else could do. I wish I’d made that up. Her son was diagnosed (perhaps misdiagnosed) with autism. It wasn’t long until she’d made the connection between her son’s autism and vaccines. It feels like she may have a disorder as well.

Best I can figure, she asked other parents of autistic children if they’d gotten their kids vaccinated. Certainly, the overwhelming majority had. Obviously, this correlation proves McCarthy’s claim.

Since then, there has been a marked decline in childhood vaccinations and an increasing incidence of preventable diseases—especially measles. One frustrated person created a web site called JennyMcCarthyBodyCount.com which serves almost exactly the information implied by the URL. Since June 2007, and as of this writing, there have been 60,744 cases of preventable illnesses, 515 deaths resulting from preventable illnesses, and exactly 0 autism diagnoses scientifically linked to vaccines.

In Jenny’s words from Time Magazine in April 2009:

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.

Think about that for a bit. Running with that eighth definition, perhaps she’s the unofficial leader of the anti-vaccination cult.

Also, I kinda hate Jenny McCarthy.