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Jenny McCarthy has a Body Count
Andre the Giant may have a posse, but Jenny McCarthy has a body count. At least according to TV producer Derek Bartholomaus, who has been tracking vaccine preventable illnesses in the U.S. and blaming Jenny for them since she first went on Oprah to support the theory that vaccines cause autism.
And some of you thought I was being mean to her last week after she called the Lancet’s retraction of Andrew Wakefield’s controversial autism research “censorship”.This guy really has it in for the celebrity-turned-activist.
The Jenny McCarthy body count lays almost 500 deaths at Jenny’s feet, and thousands of illnesses. Even the dude who runs it acknowledges that Jenny isn’t actually directly responsible for all those tragedies. There was a large vaccine resistance movement before she ever took on the cause.
In fact, anti-vaccination propoganda is as old as vaccination itself. The first vaccines had to be administered in secret because the authorities in Boston, where the technique was pioneered, outlawed the practice. There were riots over it in the first smallpox epidemic to hit the city after vaccination was invented.
People have continued to oppose routine childhood vaccination ever since. Some for religious reasons, some because of health concerns, some just because they don’t like the government telling them what to do with their kids.Vaccination rates rise and fall. Recently, the anti-vaccine side has surged in popularity, and we’re seeing the lowest rates of vaccine compliance in a generation.
It’s hard to gauge how much of that is Jenny McCarthy’s doing and how much she’s just part of a larger cultural trend toward alternative medicine. Jenny is certainly a very compelling spokesperson for this strange cause, and she has a very large soapbox to stand on.
This is why I feel perfectly justified in being mean to her when she mouths off about the many-times-over disproven link between vaccines and autism. It’s one thing to make that mistake in the privacy of your own home. It’s quite another to make it on Oprah.
Jenny has set herself out as some kind of authority on autism and vaccine safety, and the simple truth is she just doesn’t know what the hell she is talking about. In addition to calling her out for encouraging people not to vaccinate, Derek Bartholomaus uses his site to educate the public a little about the realities of vaccines and illnesses. He’s not exactly an expert either, being a TV producer, but he seems to have done somewhat better homework.
Photo: Humanitarian Development Project
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7 Comments
[...] Jenny McCarthy Has a Body Count: Andre the Giant may have a posse, but Jenny McCarthy has a body count. At least according to TV producer Derek Bartholomaus, who has been tracking vaccine preventable illnesses in the U.S. and blaming Jenny for them since she first went on Oprah to support the theory that vaccines cause autism. [...]
Sierra Black Writing — ChildWild commented on Feb 22 10 at 2:59 pm[...] Jenny McCarthy Has A Body Count [...]
Museum Says Member Cards Not Safe for Kids | Strollerderby commented on May 12 10 at 3:25 pmMiki Speed commented on Feb 20 10 at 12:22 pmWell I have a body count of my own: our eldest son suffered severe brain damage, cortical atrophy, spastic quadriparesis from his whole cell DTP vaccines- which all meant that he was non-ambulatory, non-verbal and needed hand-over-hand 24/7 care- until he died as a result of the damage incurred by those vaccines. WE noticed a problem- but the side effect was not a recognized reason to decline further vaccines yet. That means – either the pharmaceutical companies didn’t KNOW or wouldn’t DIVULGE.
Lest you thinm I am only a robid anti-=vaxer, no. We have documentation of this damage, and actually went on to have 3 more children, all of whom ARE up-to-date on their vaccines. But I will tell you this: after the pharmaceutical companies have repeatedly suppressed evidence that proved thee popular drugs like Avandia, Celebrex, Vioxx et al, as dangerous until too many died, do you REALLY trust their bottom line all the time?
Michelle commented on Feb 23 10 at 5:12 pmHere, Here Miki! You tell it! I appreciate that vaccines were ORIGINALLY conceived with the intent of saving lives, but don’t tell the girls that are now paralyzed because they got the Gardasil vaccine when they weren’t sexually active to begin with that it wasn’t motivated by profit. Jonas Salk – a saint. The modern pharmaceutical industry, however, is a profit-motivated and dangerous machine. And yes, my kids are vaccinated…but I’m also not dumb enough to believe that the corporations – I mean the government – I mean the corporations – are always on my side.
Marj commented on Feb 27 10 at 8:35 pmVaccines are one of the few medicines that routinely lose revenue. Big Pharm isn’t trying to get your money by making you get vaccines, Big Pharm is cheaping out on your health care because vaccines are cheaper than treating the disease.
Why is it you say Lone Gunman you are a conspiracy nut, and if you say Big Pharm you are a concerned parent who does their “research”?
BMS commented on Mar 10 10 at 11:37 amMiki, I am sorry for your loss. Bad reactions do happen. Bad reactions also happen to peanuts, penicillin and other things in the environment. Doesn’t mean there is a conspiracy behind it. No one can predict the way every single complex human organism is going to react to a vaccine. But we’re pretty sure how many people react to polio, smallpox, and tetnus, and that it is best to avoid these things.
Sierra Black commented on Mar 10 10 at 2:31 pmMiki, I’m sorry I didn’t respond to your comment sooner. I wanted to tell you that I have a close friend whose brother had a similar reaction to the DTP vaccine. He survived, but has been severely handicapped – he’s in his 20s now and can’t walk, eat or use a toilet on his own.
I would certainly never suggest blindly believing the claims of large pharmaceutical companies. Drug companies have a long, sordid history of hiding the risks of vaccines and outright lying to the public about their dangers and efficacy. Government agencies are often little better, since they have such a compelling public health interest in winning compliance for vaccination programs.
This is actually part of why I’m so frustrated with Jenny McCarthy and the whole autism-vaccine link: it is stupid, and wrong, and not only draws needed money and attention away from valuable treatments for autism, but also makes it easy to pigeonhole ALL vaccine critics as anti-science or anti-public health. In fact there are areal risks to vaccination, and we need a vigilant, respected public health discourse about those risks and how they can be weighed against the benefits of any proposed vaccine. People like Jenny just polarize the discussion further and help Big Pharma dismiss any complaint about their vaccines as kooky fringe stuff.
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