Stupid bitch will kill your children

Well, admittedly the forum title will no doubt sidetrack this one into oblivion, but the point you make is solid: she's an actress, sure she might have had some medical schooling, but she's openly defying logic and many, many scientific studies. We don't know what exactly causes autism; but we sure as hell no it's not vaccines. Autism's a terrible thing and it's clearly afflicting more and more, but this ain't the way to combat it. Now we'll just have more dying and affected children from shit we effectively stopped years ago.

It just seems so very...I don't know, Bushian, or something? When did science and field testing become bad and evil and 'not right' and why are we still tolerating and even promoting these views?

Oprah is a talk show host...I would not expect her to be any less opportunistic than any other, whether that host be...Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, Larry King or Keith Olberman. Savage was lambasted for his views about autism, but McCarthy is given a free pass. She is a bit different than other far left people though, in that she is a little too close to the situation as she believes, a vaccine ruined her son's livelyhood.

No she's not. Not even by people who don't like Savage.

What's the politics? This is a Culture item, and I'm pretty sure we already have a thread about this 'Who Gives a Shit' topic.

As a parent I've been faced with this exact situation. Do you or do you not vaccinate your child? While it seems black and white that really isn't the case. There is a lot out there that makes it very grey around the dangers associated with the vaccinations themselves. And I think a lot of parents freak out because they think the danger of the vaccination is more possible/probable than the disease itself. Parents also think they may be guilty that if they give the kid a shot, and the shot makes him/her sick, the parent is at fault. Where if they catch a disease it isn't the parent's fault.

Now, for my son we got him vaccinated. Why? Science. I'm one of those crazy people who believes in science. And the science is 100% proven that vaccinations are beneficial and the pros heavily outweigh the cons. However, we did make what I consider smart decisions around the vaccinations. When my son was first born they immediately tried to give him a Hep-B shot. We said no, I don't have it, my wife doesn't have it and I highly doubt he will contract it in the next 24 hours. So we waited until he was 2 months old or so to give his immune system a little time to buff up (he was born a little bit early) and then had it done. When it came to the dreaded MMR we asked that they break the shot out into separate ones rather than one combined (a close Dr. friend recommended this). They said no problem and all is well. In my opinion those are the logical and safe things you can do if you're concerned about vaccinations rather than not getting vaccinated at all.

The problem with McCarthy is that Americans worship their pop-culture icons and she is becoming a bigger and bigger one. So now she has this platform from which she can basically LIE THROUGH HER TEETH and scare the bejeezus out of a lot of stupid people. And when those stupid people decide not to get Jr. vaccinated they are putting us all at risk.

Jenny McCarthy, and the philosophy she espouses, is dangerous. It's dangerous to the kids, it's dangerous to the understanding of autism as a condition, and it gives parents a dangerous false hope. I have nothing but contempt for her. She, and this "autism can be cured through diet and lifestyle" bullshit, makes me so, so, so, so angry.

I once read a book for school called "Welcome Silence: My Triumph Over Schizophrenia" or some shit. Most of the book was a first-person account of the descent into schizophrenia, and was compelling and eye-opening. The last section of the book was about how the author, today a practicing psychiatrist, cured herself of schizophrenia through...wait for it...dialysis.

I threw the book away.

Yeah, it's pretty irritating in its sheer stupidity. A friend of mine has two kids with autism - well, one is autistic and the other has Asperger's - and they both have a healthy family life, do track events at their school, and eat pretty well considering the diets of most kids their ages. Guess what? Still autistic.

I'm not sure what's grey about vaccination. You can either leave them to the potential ravages of some truly fucking horrible diseases or you can get then vaccinated. My wife and I made the smart obvious call.

The problem is we're a generation who has never seen an epidemic the likes of polio and have fallen into a sense of complacency. It's showing. We're staring to see polio show up again in countries where vaccination is available. Why? Because people are dumb. They think that we've wiped out polio. Or that a shot creates mistrust between child and parent. Or that shots lead to fucking autism (here's a clue McCarthy, if your child never made eye contact from birth, they were autistic from the get-go. There's some pretty obvious social clues when it comes to autism).

MMR isn't three separate shots in the US? Weird.

"You gotta get 'em dip-tet boosters yearly or they'll develop lockjaw and night vision."

According to what I've heard from my wife (she's a pediatrician), it's not actually clear that autism is affecting more people, but rather that they're getting so much better at recognizing the symptoms that more kids are being diagnosed correctly and treated. So the number of reported cases increases, but there were probably a large number of people with autism who were just not diagnosed in the past.

And I'm all for taking a scientific look at the side effects of immunization, but this is just a pissed off parent who has found something to believe in, and has a pulpit from which to preach. Plus there's always a willing audience to get worked up.

There are two different groups that some people are getting mixed up. One group believe that vaccines are all bad for you, and the other group believe there are some small ricks to vaccines, and proper scheduling is important. McCarthy belongs to one group and JudgeSmails the other. Some vaccines have toxic elements to them, like mercury, as an example, and others can cause server reactions.

This just aced the thread.

There's also a debate as to whether or not autism and aspergers need to be cured. Many doctors don't think it should be classified as a disease.

I think that curing Asperger's completely might have a detrimental effect on the computer industry...

Interesting article alert here: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9...ergers_pr.html

Hep B is the only one that contains thimerosal in the US. (I'm not sure why it still contains it as other countries have removed it from their Hep B vaccination). What are the other risks?

Severe reactions? How do they compare to the effects of polio, the mumps, rubella etc?

Right, and even then there's the question of "how do you cure it?" Same friend also teaches a small Special Ed class at LAUSD for children that have been diagnosed with various levels of autism, and some of her stories about the students' behavior coupled with a pretty incompetent bureaucracy makes me want to break shit (oh man maybe I have it too). I seriously wonder how she manages to deal with it in practically every aspect of her life.

Anyways, I'll back up this viewpoint as well -- my wife is medically trained (both as a doctor and a dentist) and I have my sheepskins in math/physics/computers but we both cede most of the judgement to the family doctor, who we're confident understands the science.

From a cold hearted risk analysis viewpoint, the numbers clearly favour getting the shots.

Vaccines, are not totally safe, and many of them have very strong effects. Small pock Vaccine almost killed me, and I might even be immune or highly resistant to small pock itself. I am naturally immune to many of the childhood diseases, and I am highly resistant to the others. All I am saying is that getting a lot of vaccines in a very short time is not the ideal practice for the most part. With some planing and forethought you can minimize both the risk to the vaccines and the diseases.


Before you ask I am immune to the the mumps, got four Measles , and 9 chicken pocks and no fever either time.

And you should. Vaccinations are supposed to be at three months, six months and 12 months. Then you move on to 18 months and two years. You aren't meant to get them all at the same time and if people are getting that done it's not the vaccination that's damaging the child it's that people are being dumb.

That's the equivalent of saying I got into a car accident without my seatbelt and lived so why does anyone have to wear one.

Here's what it comes down to, the risks of the vaccinations are very, very minor in comparison to the effects of the diseases they are preventing.

From what I remember, all three of those diseases are infectious prior to the appearance of symptoms. Do you know if you infected anyone when you got them?

Not meant to be insulting, but part of the push for vaccinations is that it's only really effective in eradicating a disease, and preventing mutations in diseases, if enough people are vaccinated.

preschool was fun, back in the early 70s.

I think some of you put far too much trust in doctors and pharmaceutical companies. I am not 100% against vaccinations, but I think many are unnecessary, and those that are beneficial are often given too early. There may very well be a link between introducing toxins into babies' systems and an increased chance of them developing autism-like symptoms. Or not. But it's not crazy to think that it is probably not very good for them.

My nephew is 7 months old and my sister has been researching this issue since she found out she was pregnant. She still hasn't decided exactly which vaccinations he will and will not get, but she is putting them all off as long as she can. I think, though she may have changed her mind on this since I last talked to her about it, that her plan is to ideally put off any vaccinations until he is 2 years old. She is not so much into "alternative" medicine as traditional medicine. For now, she wants to let his immune system develop naturally. I don't disagree with her.

I do think that Jenny McCarthy is getting way too much publicity, but her point about nutrition is worth considering. No, nutrition alone will not cure autism, but it probably can have some very positive effects. I don't know what the hell is wrong with me, but I do know that when I eat salads and fruits I come a lot closer to functioning like a "normal" person than I do when time constraints make it difficult to avoid eating processed "convenience" foods. Just saying, it can't hurt to eat better.

Whatever you believe, please, please don't have your kids vaccinated with any vaccine until it has been around for a few years. Unfortunately, FDA approval does not mean much these days. Seen a Gardasil commercial recently? I haven't, and they used to be on constantly.

Ok, one unless I have my own personal medical research team avilable I would have to trust the doctors. Also, Im unclear how are benifitical vaccinations are given too early? If they are beneficial, then wouldn't adding them to the immune system earlier be better.

Also what is it with this idea that desease can be stopped by eating healthy. I heard Bill Mahr state the idea on his show. What are people really saying "you know why those kids got polio in the 50's, unhealthy diet. If only they ate better."

This thing reminds me about the parents against cell towers business which caused a big commotion at my kids schools. They even have their own set of experts, but they are never well known scientist, medical doctors or engineers but usually turn out to be sociologist (I have nothing against sociologists btw) or some other discipline that really has you wondering what they do in real life.

I'm all for people cleaning up their diets, but...seriously?

She's Duke Fleed's dietitian.

"Jennifer....those Wolverine fruit snacks were...a cut above the rest."

Ugh, I can't believe I just did that. I hate myself.

Douse yourself with gasoline and have a smoke. It's cleansing. So much, that in fact, to a certain degree I believe it cures autism.

I don't think most people realize just how much your health is affected by what you put into your body, but it's common sense really.

Look at all the cancer and heart disease and osteoporosis we have! Animals in the wild don't have all the health problems we do, but when we domesticate them and start feeding them processed cooked pet food they start suffering from the same problems.

Diet doesn't account for everything, but eating well is the most important thing you can do for your health. If you're drinking lots of fresh clean water and eating lots of fruits and vegetables and whole grains you're going to fare a lot better than the guy who guzzles beer and cheeseburgers all day.

Now can a healthy diet cure autism? Highly unlikely but I'm betting a healthy well nourished autistic kid would be easier to deal with than one who's pumped full of sugar and chemicals.

Though less exclusively partisan, anti-vaxers are fast becoming the left wing's answer to creationists. Gotta clamp down on that or else it won't be as fun to lambast Republicans for stem cells, global warming, and all those nice things.

Oh yeah, and kids will die.

Yaaaaay!

So they'd be healthy well fed autistic kids.

They'd still be fucking autistic.

This really is one of those issues where the rest of the world - as one - is simply laughing at you while we shake our heads in disbelief.

The fact that Jenny fucking McCarthy of all people is the poster child for the movement - and now OPRAH is on board - just makes it all the more 'only in the US' hilarious.

This is what an empire imploding looks like guys.

Here's a link for the idiots still out there. There is no, I repeat NO connection between ANY vaccination and autism. It was a hugely flawed study.

People wander around every day letting their kids eat and drink whatever junk food you can get at 7-11, they smoke in front of their kids, they spray their yards with pesticides and allow them to be taught Intelligent design at school and this is what gets people worked up. Something that saves hundreds of thousands of lives and prevents physical damage to the very young. Fucking idiots.

Saying that a healthy eating habit can cure autism is as retarded as saying that jogging can cure Down Syndrome. Sure, jogging will get you in shape, with the related health benefits, but that's about it.

To be fair, I really like the idea that giving a retarded kid a salad is somehow going to make him prescient enough to not dump it in his lap and talk about how he has lettuce balls.

If people are stupid enough to buy into this bullshit because Oprah told them so, then they probably shouldn't have bred in the first place.

It's just social Darwinism thinning the herd for us folks.

I don't know why anyone would want to eat that many tomatoes in one sitting in the first place, haha.

And I know autism is another problem, my point is if you're feeding ANY kid mostly sugar and chemicals and processed foods it's going to affect their behaviour. It's the difference between a normal autistic kid and an autistic kid on a massive sugar rush. I don't agree with Jenny McCarthy's stance on vaccination and stuff but I'm pretty sure that's the improvement she was noticing.

I don't think healthy eating is being overhyped all that much. Claiming it's going to fix every conceivable problem is just stupid but lets face it, we have an incredibly unhealthy diet in North America and it really shows. If you put a bunch of fake processed garbage into your body and no real food you're going to be unhealthy and obese and more likely to get heart disease or any number of other problems, that's just a fact.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with healthy eating - in fact it's integral for a childs growth... kinda like vaccinating them from deadly diseases.

Werewolf Girl, please read Jenny McCarthy's book and some of the things she believes about diet vs. autism. Then read some of the articles written about diet vs. autism by medical professionals. I understand your grudge against processed food, but it's not the issue at hand here.

Frontline just aired an episode covering this issue. It's a terrific overview.

"Between measles and autism, I'll take measles"

You know what, how about between sterility (caused by measles) and autism? How about between polio and autism? How about between your child dying a crippling, horrible fucking death from meningitis and autism?