Archive for December 2nd, 2008


Links For Brains: 12/2/2008

December 2nd, 2008 by Oskar Kennedy

I’m getting back on the horse, people. Let’s hope it’s only mostly dead.

  • AC Grayling questions the supposed biological origin for belief in a supreme being. (I have evidence for an innate belief in a Supreme Taco, but it’s mostly anecdotal.)
  • Health economists argue that funding for the fight against HIV/AIDS is overshadowing more immediate health crises. (Note to deniers; nowhere in this debate is there any question as to the cause of AIDS. Not that this will stop their spin.)
  • New Humanist kicks off its advent podcast series, featuring alternative figureheads for your winter celebration. (Putting some actual reason into the season, for once.)
  • President Bush tries to pad his legacy by butchering federal environmental protections, and making it harder to regulate workplace exposure to toxic chemicals. (It won’t matter that the air’s not fit to breath, because you’ll have to carry your own canister on your motorized wheelchair. Unless you’ve had a cushy office job for the last eight years.)
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Jenny McCarthy Causes Autism

December 2nd, 2008 by Oskar Kennedy

I’ve uncovered the dark secret that the anti-vaxxers don’t want you to know. I have discovered the true cause of increased diagnosis of autism in children. Autism isn’t caused by a long-disused preservative with no significant toxicity, or a conspiracy to slowly poison generations of children with surreptitious injections of harmful chemicals.

Autism is caused by exposure to Jenny McCarthy.

If you’re skeptical, it’s important to keep one thing in mind. The evidence supporting the conclusion that autism is caused by Jenny McCarthy is just as strong as the evidence linking autism to vaccines. Let’s start with some basic statistics.

Studies in the United States and the UK show that the rate of autism diagnosis has increased as much as 20% per year since the early 90s. They conclude that this is most likely caused by a combination of increased awareness, and reclassification of symptoms that had previously been seen as indicators of other conditions.

But here’s something that the investigators missed. Jenny McCarthy’s entertainment career began in 1993, when she landed a cover shoot in Playboy. Since then, she’s managed to sustain herself as a C-list celebrity, actress and, most recently, author of parenting books.

During the time that Jenny McCarthy has captured some fraction of the public’s attention, rates of autism diagnosis have continued to climb. Despite millions of dollars and thousands of hours of research, more and more parents every year are faced with the sad news that their child has been diagnosed with this dreaded, and incurable, developmental disorder.

Parents of children who have been diagnosed with autism are confused, frightened and overwhelmed. They can’t understand what is happening, and why it is happening to their families. McCarthy has worked hard to convince these desperate, vulnerable parents that there is a simple explanation for an otherwise inscrutable illness.

McCarthy’s determined activism is unsurprising. What better way could there be to shift attention from her own terrible secret than making impassioned accusations about dangerous vaccine conspiracies? And to continue to doggedly reiterate the same claims, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary?

Science has consistently shown that McCarthy’s claims about the dangers of vaccines are incorrect, and based on misinformation and misunderstanding about the manufacture, application and composition of vaccines. The claims that she makes are provably false, yet she clings to them with the resolve of a small child, determined to cast blame for breaking the family cookie jar on an absent sibling.

The most obvious evidence? McCarthy’s son is himself autistic! Who, aside from Jim Carrey, has had more sustained, intimate contact with McCarthy than the son whose diagnosis is the basis for her passionate autism advocacy? Her rate of giving birth to autistic children is, to date, 100%. Clearly, McCarthy has something to hide, and she’s attempting to conceal it in plain sight by loudly blaming modern medicine for something that she is powerless to control.

But she couldn’t suppress the truth forever. As her claims about vaccines become less and less supportable, the pattern becomes more obvious, until the conclusion is inescapable. A generation of parents has been exposed to McCarthy’s television shows, movies and books. Now, their children are paying the price.

Although the exact mechanism is unclear, there can be no doubt that increased exposure of the population to Jenny McCarthy has corresponded with a sharp rise in the diagnosis of autism. For the good of the children and their families, Ms. McCarthy, it’s time to retire from the public eye. Or, alternatively, come up with some evidence, any evidence, showing that vaccines are more likely to cause autism than you are. When you find it, I’m sure Oprah will be waiting to broadcast it.

EDIT: See the excellent new site Stop Jenny McCarthy for more on Jenny McCarthy and her persistent campaign of disinformation.

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