A counterpoint to Jenny McCarthy’s autism narrative

[SidDithers]

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/01/13/a-counterpoint-to-jenny-mccarthys-autism-narrative/

There was a time when I used to blog about Jenny McCarthy a lot. The reason, of course, is that a few years ago, beginning in around 2007, she seized the title of face of the antivaccine movement in America through her “advocacy” for her son Evan, whom she described as having been made autistic by the MMR vaccine. She even described his diagnosis thusly to Oprah Winfrey in 2007:

Right before his MMR shot, I said to the doctor, I have a very bad feeling about this shot. This is the autism shot, isn’t it? And he said, “No, that is ridiculous. It is a mother’s desperate attempt to blame something on autism.” And he swore at me. . . . And not soon thereafter, I noticed that change in the pictures: Boom! Soul, gone from his eyes.

The many contradictions in McCarthy’s story have been pointed out elsewhere, but, for whatever reason, she latched onto vaccines as the cause of Evan’s diagnosis of autism and joined the antivaccine movement with a vengeance, being appointed President of Generation Rescue, the antivaccine organization founded by J.B. Handley. What probably most thrust her into national prominence, after her having appeared with Oprah Winfrey in 2007 was her leading the infamous “Green Our Vaccines” rally in Washington, DC in 2008, which I described as celebrity ignoramuses on parade, pointing out that it was not, as McCarthy and the organizers of the march claimed, about being “pro-safe vaccine” but rather it was about being antivaccine. As I said at the time as I showed photos from the march, you be the judge.

Since then, McCarthy has been a speaker (often keynote speaker) at the Autism One quackfest every year, a collection of the quackiest of the quacky autism “biomed” treatments and antivaccine activism; that is, until this year, when her name appears not to be on the list of Autism One speakers. One wonders whether it was due to her having scored a gig on The View and not wanting to blow it by continuing to press her antivaccine activism. Indeed, I’m sure that when she accepted the job on The View her producers made her promise to tone it down.

Gorski goes on to detail an interview with Joyce Bulifant, Evan McCarthy's grandmother, which sheds more light on the story of McCarthy and her son.

Good read.

Sid

[snooper2]

1. You ever notice that she talks like Sarah Palin?

Seriously!

Close your eyes, listen and picture Palins nasty mug

[rock]

2. I see what you mean

Stupid.

[madrchsod]

3. i had friends that bought this bullshit

they received personal phone calls from jenny referring them to a doctor in new york. a hundred thousand or so later their child is`t any better.

the whole thing was a new york doctor`s scam .