jenny mccarthy wants your kid to get measles: autism, vaccines, and stupid idiots

the internet causes autism, as well as hispanic people

Who's afraid of the truth? Usually the people it would hurt the most.

~makes u think~

all my health care bros check out that "study" she linked to for a good laff

I do not think I will get laffs from it, this shit pisses me off so bad

My hatred for Jenny McCarthy has increased twenty-fold since she stopped appearing on Singled Out. Hence, MTV game shows caused autism.

I could use a laff

keithlaw I'm still not clear on how or why a woman who is known primarily for shedding her clothes is seen as an authority on immunology.

Jenny McCarthy’s honesty, humility and humor have enabled her to transcend the boundaries of her roles as comedian, actress, host, best-selling author and influential activist in the world of healing and preventing autism.

Shes claiming she's met "hundreds" of "recovered" autistics? WTF?

People dont recover from autism ffs, do they?

trayce, haven't you met hundreds of recovered gays?

Oh of course, yes, how silly of me.

Seriously, are parents just going "oh little oscar is really quiet and never behaves himself - HE HAS AUTISM!" or something.

vaccines aren't necessary! nobody gets measles any more!!

If you could vaccinate the whole world and no-one got measles for a generation or two, would measles come back if you stopped?

exactly! it's like unions, we just don't need em anymore

Sorry, fit of giggles, read that as:

exactly! it's like onions, we just don't need em anymore

modern onion farming is a sham perpetuated by onion patent holders

i mean answer me this - i made an omelette the other day with shallots and it was FINE!!

Maybe Jim finally realized he was dealing with a crazy person.

They're both so odious, I'm reluctant to ascribe blame. Also, Jim was pretty on board with the anti-vax stuff, too, IIRC.

jim-carrey-jenny-mccarthy-split-via-twitter

The anti-vaccination SVU rerun was on last night. I wish they had put Jenny McCarthy on trial.

I had to get a tetanus, etc. shot the other day because of this bitch's influence starting outbreaks all over the US. Apparently the CDC is harassing doctors about innoculating everyone who hasnt had a shot in awhile.

I got my own booster for it last year, but it had been ten years since my last one, so.

i cant read this whole thread but has anyone with medical knowledge talked about glycerin used to bind the other stuff in the MMR possibly triggering autism? pls link if so.

They're really grasping at straws now, aren't they? Glycerin's in everything.

srsly, where are you hearing this stuff

Sounds to me like one of those "hey, thimerosal is not in vaccines now but we're trying to claim it's still vaccines, so what's this glycerin thing? sounds scary!"

I've heard vaccines have dihydrogen oxide in them too, btw.

Don't let the daaaays go byyyyyyy

I've heard vaccines have dihydrogen oxide in them too, btw.

loooooooool

Sounds to me like one of those "hey, thimerosal is not in vaccines now but we're trying to claim it's still vaccines, so what's this glycerin thing? sounds scary!"

I've heard vaccines have dihydrogen oxide in them too, btw.

― mh, Thursday, April 22, 2010 9:36 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

otm and lol

don't think we can embed ted talks, this was pretty righteous

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/michael_specter_the_danger_of_science_denial.html

not news to pps on this thread, but puts the mccarthy denialism in larger context

That was a really good one. It contextualized denialism so well, it made me angry at Insane Clown Posse.

yup!

I'm kind of thinking having Jenny McCarthy as a parent gives you autism, but the scientific method isn't going to help prove that very well.

Why bring science into this now?

Hahaha we actually had an autism lecture a couple days ago, and at some point somebody did a study to establish that "parenting defects" had no correlation to the incidence of autism, and quality of parenting had no correlation to the prognosis of the autistic child.

kingfish otm

Just saw this in a local paper:

http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=127189135660662400

I guess Frontline is doing a special and using Portland for some examples. We've got a LOT of parents using this so-called “religious exemption” in local schools.

Sounds to me like one of those "hey, thimerosal is not in vaccines now but we're trying to claim it's still vaccines, so what's this glycerin thing? sounds scary!"

I've heard vaccines have dihydrogen oxide in them too, btw.

― mh, Thursday, April 22, 2010 9:36 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

otm and lol

― GREAT JOB Mushroom head (gbx), Thursday, April 22, 2010 10:54 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

yeah mad lolz. i was actually referring to an article i had read (that my memory is now very shady on the details of) where the gist was that some (non-medical, i think??) research group created a model based on the relationships between brain chemicals that they claimed could be used to find the probable causal path of a disease or disorder. i think this was late 2009? anyway they used this base to build one of these models for autism and concluded something along the lines of autism being the result of a disruption in the homeostatic relationships of a specific set of variables and that the trigger was an imbalance between glycerol and glycine or maybe glutamine and glycine. i cant remember which of the two (because im not really sure what they are?) but the imbalance of these neurotransmitters (?) can be caused by whichever of these is in some vaccines. obv. noone is claimed this is proof of anything but I still thought the process, if not the outcome, was pretty interesting. so the whole point of this is that my best friend’s 3 y/o son is autistic and she is understandably interested in pretty much any research or opinion in this area whether she concludes its a load of crap or not (and no she doesnt believe vaccines cause autism). i tried to explain this study to her but like i said my memory is shady on the details and also im obviously in no way educated in science unless you count 10th grade biology. she wants to know more and i cant remember where i found the article (i thought it was a link from a link from a link on this thread but who knows). i cant find it on google and i figured at least one of you med students would have read about it? the model itself (unrelated specifically to autism), which is supposed to be applicable to all kinds of science, is apparently a pretty big deal?

Yeek, this isn't gonna help matters:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/reactions-to-flu-shots-baffle-health-experts-20100426-tncf.html

"WHY 55 toddlers in Western Australia had convulsions and a child in Brisbane died after having influenza jabs has so far baffled health authorities but they hope to have some answers by next week."

i think my BCG made me a bit aspie

sound like febrile seizures (a known complication). v v weird that they'd be so localized to one area, though.

Yeah I believe it was febrile ones. Indeed odd that its localized and so rampant - maybe a particular batch?

Glutamate and glycine are amino acids, and both are neurotransmitters. Glutamate is the most common excitatory neurotransmitter, found everywhere in the nervous system. Glycine is an inhibitory neurotransmitter that is found mostly in the spinal cord. I suppose someone could be looking at patterns of glutamatergic and/or glycinergic activity in autism. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure what that would prove, and I don't know that it's any kind of standard model for analyzing the brain.

As I said upthread, one of the challenges in dealing with autism is that there's no clear-cut pathology, no specific damage to the brain that can be analyzed for clues as to a particular cause. Not to say the brain is entirely normal in autistic kids, but what abnormalities we've been able to appreciate so far have more to do with incomplete/impaired development. The hottest research into autism etiologies in recent years has looked at genetic influences on brain development, including the formation of microscopic synaptic connections. Nothing in that research so far would implicate anything in a vaccine as a cause of autism, not even as a "trigger" or as "part of the picture".

Meanwhile, glycerin/glycerol is a carbohydrate, and has nothing much to do with glutamate or glycine, either biochemically or neurophysiologically. It shows up in medical textbooks because it forms the "backbone" of triglycerides. It's sweet to the taste.

Btw, Plasmon - read Mad Travellers; its was great, thanks. You seem to go considerably (and fascinatingly) further in your extension of his theories than he would, is that fair to say? (this from a non-medicinal half-in, half-out lurker, so what do I know).

Thx for the explanation, plasmon. I did end up finding the article anyways.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/171457.php

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36730295

ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG So tempted to post this on Facebook to prod my ding-dong vaccine denying, chiropractor ex into fabricating reasons why this is all BIG PHARMA's attempt to discredit "natural" medicine.

Off topic:

Choice quote from the Frontline episode:

Jennifer Margulis: "This is our neighborhood. We love it. Ashland is a very safe town compared to everywhere else in America."

Narrator: "It's a college town, home to an annual Shakespeare festival, where a well-off and educated populace has easy access to alternative medicines, an organic food co-op, and yoga centers. Jennifer Margulis, a writer with a Ph.D in English literature is the mother of four children."

I'm embarrassed by the scientific literacy in the United States. Moreover, I'm embarrassed that a PhD in English literature is used to indicate "educated." Together they foretell a troubling future.

But I'm hesitant to disparage her or her supporters because the antecedent to this opinion is widespread. Scientific education in the United States is dismal therefore no one should act surprised when this ludicrous argument is motivated. Furthermore, the illiteracy on this thread should also be noted and checked.

If I were the so-called benevolent dictator I'd establish strong disincentives for my people to pursue the humanities in favor of strong incentives to purse math and science. In the last decade, the humanities have exploded; the ICES reported there’s been a 25% increase in degrees awarded in both the humanities and social sciences. In this same time period, both engineering and physical science (with the exception of a small increase in biology) were stagnant and formal science declined.