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Jenny McCarthy: "I Am Not Anti-Vaccine'"
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Jenny McCarthy is claiming she has been misunderstood and is not anti-vaccine. In an op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times, McCarthy tries to ignore everything she's been saying about vaccines for years and wipe the record clean. 'People have the misconception that we want to eliminate vaccines,' McCarthy told Time magazine science editor Jeffrey Kluger in 2009. 'Please understand that we are not an anti-vaccine group. We are demanding safe vaccines. We want to reduce the schedule and reduce the toxins.' But Kluger points out that McCarthy left the last line out of that quotation: 'If you ask a parent of an autistic child if they want the measles or the autism, we will stand in line for the f--king measles.' That missing line rather changes the tone of her position considerably, writes Phil Plait and is a difficult stance to square with someone who is not anti-vaccine. As Kluger points out, her entire premise is false; since vaccines don't cause autism, no one has to make the choice between measles (and other preventable, dangerous diseases) and autism. Something else McCarthy omitted from her interview with Kluger: 'I do believe sadly it's going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe,' said McCarthy. 'If the vaccine companies are not listening to us, it's their f*cking fault that the diseases are coming back. They're making a product that's sh*t. If you give us a safe vaccine, we'll use it. It shouldn't be polio versus autism.' Kluger finishes with this: 'Jenny, as outbreaks of measles, mumps and whooping cough continue to appear in the U.S.—most the result of parents refusing to vaccinate their children because of the scare stories passed around by anti-vaxxers like you—it's just too late to play cute with the things you've said.' For many years McCarthy has gone on and on and on and on and on and on about vaccines and autism. 'She can claim all she wants that she's not anti-vax,' concludes Plait, 'but her own words show her to be wrong.'"
Is it because of her advanced medical degree? Her first hand knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry?
Don't get me wrong, I have no issues with people celebrating human sexuality or whatever, but isn't it a bit ... overindulgent to be treating a former Playboy Playmate as an authority on much of anything, or really caring at all what she says? I get that debunking anti-vaxxers is a good cause and all, but why are we bothering with this anti-vaxxer?
Speaking as someone who contracted measles before I was inoculated and suffered mild brain damage from the same I can only say this woman is a fucking idiot. Personally I was lucky just to survive! When measles go bad they KILL!!!
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Mademoiselle McCarthy has as much right as the next parent to be wrong about something, but her point of view should have no more weight attached to it.
This occurs in politics too, as both sides of the US Congressional aisle have been guilty of courting Hollywood. Seemingly, the entertainment class is more likely to be unbalanced than well informed, and yet, here we are.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I don't remember exactly when the move started; but 'mainstream' anti-vaxers switched to the "green our vaccines"/"reduce the toxins"/"too many too soon" line some years ago to help distinguish themselves from the fringe 'Vaccines sully the bodily purity and weaken the vital essences with Aborted Fetus cells and zionist NWO population control schemes!!!' anti-vaxers.
Shockingly, this move has not led them to embrace any of the vaccines that have been reformulated by popular demand to reduce or eliminate whatever originally had them worried, nor has it led to any apparent interest in working with the toxicology people to determine what level of 'greenness'/'reduced toxins' is acceptable. Nor has there been a rush of interest to vaccinate according to some sort of reduced-pace schedule(though some individual doctors have various ones that they prefer).
Obviously, it would be hugely unethical and pointlessly cruel to advocate the use of vaccines whose risks outweigh their benefits (and, since vaccination for a selection of potentially-serious childhood diseases, as well as less common but more serious diseases, if we have the vaccine available and you are in a suitable risk group, is so enormously common, this is an area of medicine where studying safety both before and after approval is money well spent); but, despite their rhetorical shift, there appears to be no evidence that the 'We don't hate vaccines, we just want safe ones!' groups are actually at all interested in even setting goalposts that vaccines would have to meet to be accepted, much less reviewing evidence as to whether or not existing vaccines do meet those standards.
Honestly, I liked them better before their shift. There is a certain intellectual honesty to embracing a position that others see as lunacy and then fighting like a rabid weasel against all evidence. Not a...healthy...kind of intellectual honesty; but a kind of intellectual honesty. Mealy-mouthed disingenuous bullshit, though, lacks that virtue, and aggressively so. Even more cynically, it uses the cause of actual epidemiology, toxicology, and medical monitoring, safety standards, approval protocols, and other (vital) elements of keeping medicine honest and more useful than it is harmful as camouflage for a load of anti-scientific nonsense.
If they were willing to actually come out with some some sort of target (even if it seems pointlessly low according to current data), they'd just be the cautious wing of an actually scientific exercise in epidemiology and toxicology. As it is, no goals are defined, no data accepted, no improvement is ever good enough. It's pure smokescreen.
Rewriting history is nothing new for people in the anti-vax movement. At first, it was just the MMR which caused autism. (Wakefield's original study - since discredited and proven wrong many, many times.) Then, it was the mercury in vaccines. Then, it was the sheer number of vaccines. Then, it was "toxins" in the vaccines. As each claim was proven wrong, the anti-vax folks moved on to a new claim and declared that scientists had to now prove this new one wrong or they would be "proven" correct. (Never mind that science doesn't work this way. You don't get to make a claim with no evidence and then declare that you are right until people prove you wrong.)
Moving the goalposts is business as usual for the anti-vax crowd so why shouldn't McCarthy try to rewrite history?
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
There was a recent survey among people who do not vacinate their kids and fear of autism was not high.
Top reasons given were:
Would prefer more organic items in the vaccine; or prefer a more natural method of having the kid catch the disease and natural immunization.
That they were in a good area so the kids would not catch anything.
Feat of what "big pharma" is doing, how they are misleading people, and cannot be trusted.
Shockingly, this move has not led them to embrace any of the vaccines that have been reformulated by popular demand to reduce or eliminate whatever originally had them worried, nor has it led to any apparent interest in working with the toxicology people to determine what level of 'greenness'/'reduced toxins' is acceptable
That's because their objections to vaccines were never based in logic or evidence. Mostly its a combination of conspiracy theory and scientific illiteracy with a bit of confirmation bias and save-the-children thrown in the mix. The same people that would think vaccines cause autism despite there being huge amounts of evidence showing no link whatsoever are the same sort of people who are gullible enough to think homeopathy and other so-called "alternative medicine" is something other than quackery.
She is not against vaccines. She just wants safe vaccines. The fact that no vaccine will ever meet her definition of 'safe' is your problem, not hers.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
McCarthy is being highly deceitful when she says the only wants "safe" vaccines. What she means by safe is: 100% effective with no side effects and no unexpected reactions in anyone. No medicine ever attains that level of "safe." Not even the aspirin you take for a headache. No, vaccines aren't 100% safe, but they are about 99.999% safe. They are certainly much safer than getting the diseases they prevent. If she wants to wait until something is 100% safe before using it, she would have to avoid all modern medicine. That includes the botox that McCarthy loves getting injected with. (Vaccine toxins are bad but botulinum toxin fights wrinkles so it's good!)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
They stopped using Thimerosol because of public pressure; not because of any scientific reason. The mercury level in a dose of a vaccine is less than the amount you might get from eating a tuna steak.
That is her whole point. She claimed that vaccines cause autism. If you don't want to risk giving your children autism then do not vaccinate them.
Pointing out that she has NO medical training is NOT "attacking her personally".
She is making specific medical claims. She is doing so without any evidence.
Bullshit!
If that is so then you should be able to show which vaccines she claims are "safe". AND what her MEDICAL evidence is for those being "safe" versus the "un-safe" vaccines.
That is MORE bullshit.
The issue is whether "existing vaccines" cause autism or not.
So far, there is NO medical evidence to support her claims.
Over time, "negation tags" fall out of memory: "Saddam didn't plan 9/11" becomes "Saddam planned 9/11."
Her only option is to state unequivocally that she's pro-vaccine and say it a lot.
The mercury level in a dose of a vaccine is less than the amount you might get from eating a tuna steak.
It's also in a different form - fish contain methylmercury, which is extremely toxic, while thimerosol is metabolized to ethylmercury, which isn't something you want to have a lot of in your system, but isn't as awful.
Meningitis and encephalitis are known complications of measles, and either can lead to permanent brain damage. Depending on the location and severity of this damage, the symptoms can be indistinguishable from "true" autism (which is mostly genetic).
"Mercury is a known neurotoxin and is proven to kill brain neurons."
Mercury is a known element that naturally is part of the human body. Look at the FDA thimerosal content of vaccines currently mandated and add them all up (far over what a single person gets from vaccines) - it totals to 239.2 micrograms of mercury. How much mercury is in a newborn of average weight? 303 micrograms. How much mercury is in an average adult? 6 milligrams. Quit spreading this bullshit. Eat some tuna lately? you took in some mercury and you're doing just fine. Yes, there is an unsafe amount, but the fact that remains is the amount in vaccines is minuscule to what the human body manages.
Is culling of the herd necessarily a bad thing for humanity in the long perspective?
You first.
Or rather, to vaccinate or not is a decision lying at the intersection of parental rights vs. right of the general public to live in a world as disease-free as possible. It matters not why the parent doesn't feel vaccination is a proper course of action for the child. Ultimately, by force what matters is the right of the people to determine what sort of society we want to be living in.
You will willingly buy into unsubstantiated claims about dental fillings and ingesting mercury even suffer pain and monetary cost because of it (and possibly even harming your health) - but you will not vaccinate your children on an off chance that "something" might be wrong with the vaccines.
You do realize, your actions there are guided by pure ignorance and fear, right? Much like Jenny's.
You might want to have a chat with her. I had her number somewhere... Found it on the wall once.
It goes something like 86753... Dammit I'll have to look it up.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
" I had mercury fillings in my teeth when I was younger, which I was then told was poisonous and had to be drilled out and replaced. Very pleasant."
Whoever told you that was misinformed or lying (maybe they wanted to profit by drilling them out and replacing them). Your fillings weren't "mercury". Your fillings were mercury/silver amalgam. An amalgam is an alloy that forms when mercury reacts chemically with silver. An alloy is a stable chemical compound. It does not spontaneously decompose into its constituents. If it did, your fillings would have dissolved and disappeared long ago.
Yes, when amalgam fillings are first placed you are exposed to some mercury vapor. That is why the ADA recommends that amalgam fillings should not be placed in small kids or pregnant women.
Amalgam is a very durable, long lasting restorative material that has been in use for over 100 years. Amalgam restorations normally last much longer than alternative materials such as tooth colored composites which require frequent maintenance/replacement. Did they tell you about that before they drilled out all your "mercury" fillings?
For the ADA position see latest info summarized here: http://www.ada.org/sections/pr...
The summary on page 2 says:
"In the six years since the LSRO report was published the identified research gaps have
not been completely addressed. However a number of studies have added to the
growing body of literature on the topic of amalgam safety. The findings of the studies
published between January 1, 2004 and June 15, 2010 showed no consistent evidence
of harm associated with dental amalgam fillings, including for infants and children. There
is some evidence that mercury excretion may be affected by gender. There was no
evidence demonstrating that some individuals are genetically susceptible to harmful
effects from exposure to the low doses of mercury associated with dental amalgam
fillings. Overall, studies continue to support the position that dental amalgam is a safe
restorative option for both children and adults. When responding to safety concerns it is
important to make the distinction between known and hypothetical risks. "
Yes, and by "zealots" you mean people who understand basic science.
No, I'm pretty sure the use of zealots here refers to those who are so fanatically devoted to their position that they'll inevitably drive people away from the truth, due to their overbearing assholishness.
FWIW, it is possible to be right without being a dick about it.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
You get that when they study new vaccines, it's not done in a vacuum, right? A kid enrolled in a vaccine study will have all his other vaccines already, so every new vaccine that gets tested IS being tested in conjunction with all the other scheduled vaccines.
Furthermore, if the rest of the developed world has a much less intensive vaccination schedule (citation requested), and if vaccinations cause harm, then you ought to see LESS harm in other parts of the world. Can you show me some evidence that the vaccine schedules used elsewhere in the world produce better outcomes? Because (spoiler alert) no such result has ever been detected.
"Hello. I'm a famous person...and I'm for sale. Do have a product or a business that needs promotion? Do you sell something worthless? Something no one will buy because it's poorly built and doesn't work properly? Likely to come apart at high speeds? Perhaps with toxic side effects? Well, I'm here to help you. I'll take your product and I'll sell it to them because they trust me. That's right; they trust me because...I'm a famous person."
Now will somebody please explain to me why people shouldn't listen to this particular celebrity but we should all listen to and shout hosannas to the rogue's gallery of celebrities James Cameron got to spout off in his global warming movie.
Yes. You should appeal to scientific evidence. Which is entirely on the side of vaccines. While the precise benefit of things like the flu vaccine in non-vulnerable populations isn't always entirely clear, the risks and benefits of standard childhood vaccines are well studied and well known.
No, you shouldn't trust random doctors, whether they're on Oprah or not. And you certainly shouldn't trust random Playboy bunnies, whether they're on Oprah or not.
McCarthy's most important flaws are that she feels the need to give medical advice to millions of people based on absolutely nothing but her own prejudices, which she clings to in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Just follow a European schedule.
It's effective and works. They just wait a little bit longer before a child gets immunized.
This is a word, when spoken by anyone other than a respected and trustworthy medical professional or scientist, should put your bullshit meter on high alert.
They throw this word around like a catch-all, as if it trumps any argument. Hell, it even *sounds* ominous. It evokes mental imagery of a skull and crossbones and attempts to sway you into someone's camp by suppressing the logical and critical thinking portions of your mind.
What are these supposed toxins? They're toxins, duh! Toxins are dangerous! Are you stupid? You don't want people to think your stupid do you?
That's an illusion. You only think life expectancy has gone up, because you look at evidence. But suppose we ignore dubious things such as evidence, measurements, math done on those measurements, inferring general rules and then testing them, as well as all our everyday experiences where reality seems to be functioning according to understandable rules. Then what reason is left, for believing that life expectancy has been going up? None, that's what.
Balancing out that nothingness, there's my feelings and intuition and paranoia and whatever dogma I've been exposed to. And those things tell me medicine is bad. Ergo, it sure looks like life expectancy is going down.
HTH.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
It’s not mytical that some vaccines used to contain thiomersal, a mercury-based preservative. This was replaced with an aluminum compound, and aluminum is correlated with diseases like Alzheimer’s. Of course, we have no evidence that aluminum accumlation causes Alzheimer’s; it could just as well accumulate as a side-effect. Still, it’s cause for investigation. Some flu vaccines are grown in chicken eggs, which may be of concern to someone who has an allergy to eggs. In general, most preservatives aren’t a good thing to be putting into your body, although I’m at a loss how else you’d give vaccines a reasonable shelf life.
As for autism, there is a growing but confusing and often conflicting body of evidence that it is associated with a variety of different things: Inability of the liver to keep up with metabolizing toxins, over-activation of the immune system, food sensitivities, and a number of things I can’t remember right off. Actually, the three I listed aren’t entirely unrelated. Food sensitivities can cause heightened immune response (depending on the nature of the sensitivity), some of which are auto-immune like celiac disease. As for the liver, I don’t fully understand its role, but there seems to be some issue with competition for a limited resource (which is why taking too much tylenol and/or alcohol can cause liver damage), and it’s involved in doing some cleanup during immune response, I think, and if your body is busy dealing with a pathogen (perceived or real) then it won’t deal with other brain-affecting toxins well enough. (If you want to spend the time to check this, please do.)
One hypothesis regarding autism is that there is an accumulation of toxins in the system that the liver can’t keep up with, and those toxins impair brain function. If you eliminate foods you’re sensitive to, the liver has less work to do and can better keep up with the remaining toxin workload.
So the reasoning seems to be that vaccines cause an overactivation of the immune system and that that response is somehow different from the normal one if you contract the real disease, that over-activation lasts a long time, and during that period, the liver is too busy to metabolize toxins that cause autism.
Ok, fine. Let’s go with that. So vaccines may add ONE contributing factor that may, in some circumstances, overload liver function. Also, so do allergenic foods, polluted air, polluted ground water, BPA, pesticides, etc., etc. But the one thing they pick on is vaccines? Of course, because we HAVE to eat our shitty American diet and drive our gas-guzzling cars and blast our farms with neurotoxins. Oh, NO. We couldn’t possibly boycott those other things with the same vehemence (and possibly ignorance) that we do with vaccines!
So my opinion is this. If you think that vaccines cause autism and you’re being a responsible parent by keeping your kids off vaccines, then you’re a moron unless you also:
- Drive only solar electric vehicles or use horses
- Use reverse osmosis and only glass containers for ALL of your water consumption
- Eat a 100% organic paleo diet
Just to name few. Because only then will you at least have any semblance of consistency in your reasoning. I can’t say for sure whether or not you’d be RIGHT, but at least you’d be CONSISTENT.
As for me, I get my kids vaccinated but we also eat a mostly organic diet, high in nutrients, low in junk food, and we filter our water. Also, we live out in the country and get fresh air. So IF there is some kind of convoluted link between vaccines and autism, I think we’ve more than offset that risk by removing some of the OTHER potential environmental factors sometimes vaguely linked with autism. Also, we feel better because we eat healthier food, and I’ve lost 30 lbs (down from almost 190) since December 2013 by putting myself on the paleo diet (actually, it’s SCD, but you never heard of it). BTW, although I and my wife both have family histories of ASD, neither of our kids show any sign of it, despite the fact that they get vaccinated.
I'm not totally against X in a way that would make me seem like a total loon to any sane person, I just have certain important qualms with X which may seem reasonable on the surface but, if you pick at it, amount to something indistinguishable from total denial of the issue.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Is it because of her advanced medical degree? Her first hand knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry?
Because if you say ANYTHING, no matter how absurd, on television or any other public forum, someone is going to believe it. Doesn't matter if it is true or not. Doesn't matter if it is clearly a joke. Doesn't matter if you explicitly say that it isn't true. Doesn't matter if it is not supported by the evidence, or just clearly logically wrong to anyone with a functioning brain. Some non-zero percentage of the population will absolutely believe it if it is said out loud.
Many people who have to deal with autism are looking for a scapegoat. They want to believe there is a cause other than random chance roll of the genetic dice and that we know what that cause is even when we do not. They are unwilling to accept that the current answer is "we don't know". They want to believe that someone is to blame for their situation. Combine that with the fact that humans are REALLY good at pattern matching, to the point where we often find patterns where there aren't any. As a result they will grasp onto anything that resembles an explanation. They might blame chemicals or vaccines or "immoral" behavior, or comets, or government conspiracies or lack of prayer or violent video games or a minority group conspiracy or any number of other explanations that clearly don't work when examined against the available facts.
There are several logical fallacies at work here. Post hoc ergo propter hoc, confirmation bias, magical thinking, fallacy of the single cause, and probably some others I'm not thinking of.
"A European schedule"?
You are aware that Europe contains a great many countries, right?
And that some countries (e.g. Belgium, Bulgaria) in Europe run faster schedules (vaccinations at 2, 3, and 4 months) than the USA does (which does vaccinations at 2, 4, and 6 months).
Here's a handy summary of Europe's vaccine schedules. Compare it to the USA's schedule.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
I know nothing about the merits (or lack of merits) of a "European schedule" vs any other schedule, but reading your post all I can think is...
People are screaming that flowers attract fairies and fairies are eating children's brains, to which you reply:
"Just plant European bushes outside the schools. European flowers don't attract fairies."
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
The CDC recommended vaccination schedule is easy to find, and contains a "Common Core" of vaccinations (your list, plus a couple more---this is not much, much longer than your list). Of those on the list, the only one that is not obviously part of building herd immunity is the Tetanus vaccine, though given how nasty Tetanus can be to an individual and how effective the vaccine is, it seems like an obvious choice to me.
Rhapsody in Numbers
However, you can't simply appeal to authority. The medical community is often wrong.
Yes they are wrong with surprising frequency. That does not however mean that you cannot appeal to authority unless you have evidence that they authority is reasonably likely to be wrong. My wife is a doctor and has quite literally forgotten more about medicine than I will ever know. I would be an absolute fool to not take her opinions on any medical matter very seriously. Doesn't mean I have to turn my brain off or that she cannot be wrong but the vast majority of the time she understands the issues involved FAR better than I will. We trust doctors because by and large they have a very credible track record of actually getting it right more than anyone else. In the absence of other available data a trusted expert with a credible track record is a good source of information to listen to.
The pharmaceutical industry has sold some utter crap to people. It routinely does bad things in the name profit.
They also have produced miracle treatments that save lives and alleviate suffering. LOTS of them. Odds are very good that the big percentage of the people reading this are alive today because of the drugs produced by the pharmaceutical industry. They also are closely regulated to ensure that opportunities for quackery are minimized. Just because there have been some criminals in the industry doesn't make the entire industry guilty by association. Microsoft has sold a lot of crap software in the name of profit but we don't blame the entire software industry for their actions. Doing so for the pharma industry is an equally illogical application of guilt by association.
Of all Ms. McCarthy's flaws inherent distrust of the medical industry is not one of them in my opinion.
It is when there is a HUGE amount of evidence that vaccines are largely safe, effective, have few side effects and save lives. You don't have to trust the medical industry but if you don't trust the mountains of credible data available supporting the use of vaccines and other demonstrably effective drugs then you are an idiot. The data is available if you care to look into it. Miss McCarthy plainly has never bothered and her actions almost certainly have lead to preventable deaths and illnesses from confused parents who avoided vaccines for no good reason. What she has done is functionally equivalent to shouting fire in a crowded movie theater when there is no fire. I think her actions are borderline criminal.
I have no problem with a healthy skepticism of any claim no matter how well accepted. Test any and all hypothesis you can. That's how science is supposed to work. But (falsely) claiming authoritatively that there is a link between vaccines and autism when literally none of the evidence supports that claim is irresponsible in the extreme.
Uhh.. The point of the article is that her op-ed is disingenuous and doesn't correspond to what she has said over the years. Quoting from that op-ed to argue that the article writer isn't giving her true position... well, that's not really grasping the chain of argument here.
The reality is that she's been virulently anti-vaccine over a long period, has played a real part in convincing others to forego vaccination, and is now trying to sell us on something like "she didn't really mean it that way", and pretending she's always held some more moderate position. I mean, go read stuff she wrote years ago.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
McCarthy has a good point. We can't keep pumping our kids full of these old vaccines without doing regular studies, and using some of the profits to ensure safer versions.
No she does NOT have a good point. There already have been copious studies of these drugs safety and efficacy. There also have been numerous (and ongoing) studies of the many theories of dangers presented by these vaccines, all of which have shown that her theories have no evidence backing them up whatsoever. Every time someone has to go and stomp out another anti-vax lunatic theory creates an opportunity cost. Those people could have spent their time and money and energy working on newer or safer vaccines instead of proving yet-another unsupported safety claim wrong.
Personally I will selectively vaccinate my kids up to a certain age, depending on risk factor, then they can choose themselves. I had both mumps and measles, it was hardly a big deal. If the kids are old enough it's probably even better they get it naturally and get over it than take the vaccine.
You are an idiot and a dangerous idiot at that. Mumps and measles can and do kill people and cause significant and lasting damage in many they do not kill. Furthermore you aren't just endangering your own children. You are allowing them to be potential carriers of the disease to other people who cannot be vaccinated against it whether due to age or medical conditions. Actions like what you propose demonstrably results in people dying when it could have been prevented. What you propose is incredibly irresponsible since every bit of scientific data we have says that the safest and most effective solution for both your children and society at large is to get vaccinated.
I don't understand what you and JM mean by "safer" versions of the vaccines. What data do you have to support the supposed lack of safety of the vaccines?
If you had measles and mumps and it was no big deal, you were lucky. There are many who are not so lucky. You are making the same mistake JM does- equating a single data point- your personal experience- to a generalized experience. Science/public health doesn't work that way.
I suggest you look up the potential problems caused by measles, mumps, and the other diseases we vaccinate against before you make statements about how it is better for people to get the diseases than to be vaccinated. These will get you started:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vp...
http://www.cdc.gov/mumps/about...
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vp...
Ignorance is a choice. Smart people recognize their ignorance and attempt to rectify it. Stupid people choose to remain ignorant. Which are you?
You mean like people who keep pointing out the evidence for evolution when Creationists insist that humans were riding dinosaurs 6,000 years ago?
No, I mean like people who "point out" the evidence for evolution by looking at Creationists and saying things like, "goddamn but you're a moron! How is it that you're allowed to breed? Someone should put you down for the good of society!"
But see, that's because I actually bothered to know the definition of the term "zealot," and I'm intelligent enough to make the distinction between one of them, and someone who is actually trying to educate people out of ignorance, rather than condemn them for it.
Make all the excuses for anti-social behavior that you want, but the fact is if you're being an asshole to someone for being wrong, you're only serving to make the problem worse, not better. Jenny McCarthy isn't stopping you from getting your kids vaccinated, and being a dick to her and her kind for holding a certain viewpoint is only going to make them grasp it even harder. Reason is the only weapon that's useful against irrationality, which is why I'm calmly explaining my viewpoint rather than getting pissed because you disagree with me.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Plait wondered:
Also, botulinum is the single most lethal toxin known to humans. Yet McCarthy has enthusiastically praised injecting this toxin into her face. How can anyone possibly say that and also say vaccines have dangerous levels of toxins in them with a straight face?
Partial facial paralysis. Duh.
There are several problems with the "too many vaccines, too soon" idea.
First, a study in the UK found that using modern criteria, the incidence of autism does not differ by much with age--up to age 70. This agrees with the scientific consensus that the apparent increase in autism is largely, probably entirely, due to increased diagnosis
Second, our immune system has evolved to deal with huge numbers of natural "vaccines" from bacteria and viruses constantly introduced through every scratch, scrape, and inflammation. And the number of antigens introduced from natural bacteria and viruses are far in excess of the simplified antigens that are introduced in vaccines. If you study that antibodies produced from even one infection, you find that the number of antibodies produced are easily in the excess of dozens.
So it simply does not make sense.