Jenny McCarthy and free speech.

[sevenofnine]

How far do you think free speech should go.

I mean this is a message board, and I have been told I need help should get help been ranted on, called an asshole.
And this is just well a no nothing do nothing message board,
I am just a walmart greeter with an opinion.

Jenny is a celeb, of dubius quality I grant you.
Her only real claim to fame is getting nude for playboy. Which a lot of people seem to forget or chose to ignore.

But she all of a sudden has an audiance of millions and going on about vaccninations.

There is a lot of science and research behind this, it is not just an opinion on well are there ufo's or gay marriage.

On the news this morning it said there was one article on the risk of vaccination, one scientific article.
And it was proven that the guy lied. fudged his data.
There is no other scientific support for linking vaccinations to anything.

Just curious how far do you think free speech goes.

 

[bcneil]

A couple of thoughts:

1) There is a lot of blood on Jenny McCarthy's hands for the parents who listened to her (and her "scientific facts" that were fudged) and their child died for not getting vaccinated.

2) This is another reason why we should stop believing that science is neutral. There is clearly a lot of evidence to suggest that children who are perfectly fine until they get vaccinated and then "as if a light switch goes off" they are autistic. Yet, with the exception of a fudged scientific study, there is no evidence to prove this? There are literally 100's of videos and thousands of testimonies of parents making this claim. The fact no studies have been published to prove the current contrarian notion that vaccines do not cause autism is very fishy, unethical and most certainly not neutral.

3) But yeah, it's scary that people who in some cases do not even have their highschool degree have thousands of people listening to them because they took off their clothes for money or are just really good at pretending to be a super hero.

Statisticians have done studies comparing autism rates of vaccinated and unvaccinated people, including comparing all sorts of other variables....like race, geographic location, and so forth. There is no evidence vaccination plays a role. Especially not a 50 fold increase, as BJ posted.

From my understanding most of the increase is due to doctors simple understanding it better, and hence finding it more.
In a way thats a good thing. Its better to understand autism and deal with it. Than 60 years back, having a doctor that doesn't even know what it is.

 

[deathreborn]

be prepared to hear more of jenny's opinions as she is taking over as co-host on the view in the fall.

 

[Mellow]

Someone I know once said something to the effect that: "Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children is simply natural selection at work."

He was right. Vaccines are literally modern medicine's greatest invention and have saved more lives than probably all other interventions combined, including antibiotics. It is true that there can be side effects but contrary to rintin6's opinion, there is actually plenty of scientific literature that was NOT supported by big pharma companies that vaccines don't cause autism. It is true that there is often this apparent 'switch' but that is purely linked to the fact that certain vaccinations are given to children right around the time that autism often develops. In other words, a true coincidence and the kind of coincidence that can only be revealed as such by controlled experiments across a very wide population, not simply anecdotal reports from parents. We, as a society, need to do all we can to help autistic children but trying to limit childhood vaccines is absolutely the worst way to go about that.

 

[HankQuinlan]

I suspect part of the reason is that more and more children are diagnosed with specific conditions than ever before. Children that were different were simply strange, or outright "retarded." That was the reality just a few decades ago.

I was diagnosed as "odd" by my peers. The more I have learned about the various degrees of Asperger syndrome, I suspect I would have placed somewhere on the spectrum (and possibly still do).

As far as "free speech" goes -- I think there is a great danger unless the limits on free speech are set very high. Prosecuting someone like Jenny McCarthy for her unsubstantiated and unscientific opinions would be way over the line, even if there is a risk of harm to those who listen to her.

 

[HankQuinlan]

There is clearly a lot of evidence to suggest that children who are perfectly fine until they get vaccinated and then "as if a light switch goes off" they are autistic. Yet, with the exception of a fudged scientific study, there is no evidence to prove this? There are literally 100's of videos and thousands of testimonies of parents making this claim. The fact no studies have been published to prove the current contrarian notion that vaccines do not cause autism is very fishy, unethical and most certainly not neutral.

That's the problem with "testimonies" -- thousands of people swear they were anally probed on a UFO, were healed by a Filipino faith healer or by seeing a vision of the Virgin Mary. This doctor at a clinic in Mexico cured my cancer with scorpion juice....whatever. That is how scam artists work, and that is how desperate people search for answers. Jesus saved my dying baby....If there was any evidence that prayer was effective, then the adherents of some particular religion would be trumpeting the evidence that more of their children survived childhood diseases.

I can understand how people want answers for something like childhood autism -- and they may well be out there yet -- but it is not because Big Pharma is suppressing the results of studies on vaccinations (although they have other sins to answer for).

 

[rick hunter]

Vaccines work, that's a fact. People used to get Polio, Scurvy, TB, Smallpox and other terrible diseases. Those diseases just didn't magically disappear. People have very selective memory and are misinformed. There is a vaccine for HPV but some people won't take that.

 

[Tugela]

Autism used to affect 1 in 5000 children. Now it affects 1 in 110. Gee don't you think there's a problem there? No one really knows the causes either is it innoculations to blame? Is it the environment around us pestices and pollution. Is it in the foods we eat.

What causes this neurological sprectrum disorder?? Once you start looking the answers become conveluted.

Jenny and I have something in common we both have kids that have autism spectrum. So does curt schilling, doug Flutie and Olaf Kolzig.

It affects children born to everyone in some way. no matter wealth status, geographical location, white, black, asian. Autism speaks and many great organizations like that have stepped to the forefront. Eventually there will be a reason/ trigger found so coming generations can grow up healthy. There will be no cure for the children already affected with this we have all resigned ourselves to this. It's a lost generation. Most important thing is giving those affected love support and training to cope with a cruel world.

I have Aspergers, when I was growing up there was no such diagnosis. So, when someone decided that Aspergers existed, the number of people with Autism increased by 1000% overnight. As time goes on they are getting better at identifying people on the spectrum and broadening the definition.

That is why the numbers are increasing. Those people have allways been there however, but before they would have been described as "odd" or "shy".

There is no epidemic, all that is happening is that they are including more people under the autism umbrella. McCarthy doesn't have a clue what she is talking about.

 

[blazejowski]

The fact that the "doctor" that she supported was basically shredded by basically every other real doctor out there gets lost on some people. I feel bad for any kid who gets sick with a curable disease, just because their dumbass parents decided that they should listen to a blonde bimbo for their medical advice...

 

[badbadboy]

This discussion has been back and forth since 1999 or so with both sides saying the other side if full of shit. It's tough to disseminate what the true science is vs the "I wanna believe in this Science".

From the latest CDC report in April of this year:

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Concerns/Autism/antigens.html

Thimerolsal in vaccine timelines:

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Concerns/thimerosal/thimerosal_timeline.html

Thimerolsal and it's relationship to autism

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/autism/

 

[blazejowski]

So I suppose you have a child with a disability?? hmmm NO eh wow.. so how do you even have an inkling of what it's like. I've lived this for the past 16 years basically. You can't beat yourself up because there is no point. It's not your fault, Still like to know what the trigger was though. Only thing I can do for him now is make certain he gets the proper training, courses and testing to make him a productive member of society.

Actually, I do... not that it's any of your damned business...

 

[rick hunter]

Good for you for speaking up Badger. The one thing people can't dismiss is your own personal life experience. It happened to you, and that's all your family needs for proof. I have been anti-vaccination for most of my life, but I don't have the energy to argue about it.

And the reason you haven't gotten polio/smallpox etc. is because 99% of people have been vaccinated and not because your body has some super immunity. Science of course isn't perfect, we used to use DDT, lead in gas, asbestos in homes etc but research is the only thing we have to combat misinformation. Are vaccines 100% safe? No but they have done a lot more good than harm.

 

[Tugela]

LOL you do realize that some peoples gene's and chromosomes are more responsive to change and alteration than others. What works for 1, 100 people, 1,000 people, might make someone else sick. In the US you have neurological disorders and death that are being caused by the HPV vaccine given to some young ladies within 24 hours.

Vaccinations aren't completely perfect lets say in 1,000 people 950 may be completely fine, but in that group of 50 people there may be side effects from minor to debilitating, life changing.

In speaking for my oldest son he went from a vocabulary of 30-40 words at 18 months pretty standard actually nothing wrong no sicknesses etc to screaming uncontrollably, pointing and gesturing for things that a couple of days before he would point and say Mum Milk now screaming and crying no intelligible words, his words turned to grunts and cries. From that point on until he was 4.5 years old he was unable to speak. We had speech pathologists working with him, Sunnyhill hospital visits etc. At first it was a delay.. then it was Autism (mild) at 4.5 5 he started talking again. He has developmental delays even to this day.

This all started within 2 weeks after his 18 Month inoculations according to the doctors charts. So you tell me, with nothing else changing in his life. What was the trigger?? what shut down his ability to communicate if not something wrong with the inoculations? Maybe he was just more sensitive than another child at the same age with different genes. Who knows. He doesn't have fragile X a common chromosome deficiency in autistic children. They have no idea what caused his autism, as like most children who have autism. trigger is NOT KNOWN beyond chromosome irregularities. A child with Fragile X will have Autism automatically. What about these children that are "Environmental Autistic's" No fragile X Where did they develop the disorder from? They still don't know, so genius YOU DON'T KNOW.

Can you imagine the mega billion dollar lawsuit placed against Drug companies that make vaccines if it was to be found out that their product(s) were in fact the cause of this. They'd shut down tomorrow, if not instantly. They treat the many against disease, if a few are lost along the way they can sleep at night because they feel that they have done something right.


But ya jenny Mccarthy is such an idiot isn't she. So easy to sit on an anonymous board and point at the "blonde" and call her names isn't it. She doesn't have the answers? Eventually with enough research answers will come out.

So I suppose you have a child with a disability?? hmmm NO eh wow.. so how do you even have an inkling of what it's like. I've lived this for the past 16 years basically. You can't beat yourself up because there is no point. It's not your fault, Still like to know what the trigger was though. Only thing I can do for him now is make certain he gets the proper training, courses and testing to make him a productive member of society.

You try to do everything you can to protect that child and any other children you have.

Good things is with all the attention mercury content in vaccines has dropped to record levels. Only a few are out there and those generally aren't the ones being used in infant inoculations.

But here's the next question. If they took mercury based products out of these vaccines as a preservative. WHAT ARE THEY USING NOW!

There are many genes involved in brain development. Autism is associated with defects in one of those, or in the control structures in the surrounding DNA. Your child's autism was caused by one of those defects handed down by you or your wife, and the combination of the two sets of DNA operating during development. Tracking down specifically what that combination is would be difficult however, and probably will remain that way until genetic profiling is more advanced and prevalent than it is now. We will get there eventually IMO, but for now it is pretty much luck of the draw.

As far as mercury is concerned, toxic effects come from chronic exposure, not one time slight exposure from a vaccination. That argument is sort of absurd if you think about it. You are probably ingesting far more mercury from the food you eat that a vaccination.

Btw, you are claiming mercury was the cause of your son's condition. Now a lesson in logic: the fact that mercury is used as a preservative does not mean that preservatives act like mercury. Preservatives are used in pretty much all packaged food, so, if your argument was true the world would be entirely populated by the autistic.

 

[Tugela]

Good for you for speaking up Badger. The one thing people can't dismiss is your own personal life experience. It happened to you, and that's all your family needs for proof. I have been anti-vaccination for most of my life, but I don't have the energy to argue about it.

I can speak from life experience too, since I actually have Aspergers. So did my father, and I can see the behaviour in a fair number of my relatives. It is in our blood. It is not vaccines.

I think what a lot of people lose sight of is that autism is a developmental "disorder", meaning that some people develop differently from the those at the top of the bell curve. An analogous comparison would be height. Most people are a certain height and that is "normal". But not everyone is that height, some are shorter, some are very short and others are so short we call them dwarfs. There is no real dividing line between "normal" and "short" (and in fact, those two things have changed over time). The thing is, if you are shorter than normal, there are some things in life that become more difficult to do, and if you are very short, they become very difficult, to the point where you are labeled as having a disability. And the same thing applies as people get taller.

In fact, there is no such thing as a "proper" height, there is just an average, but you get all sizes. Some are just a bit further from the average than others.

Autism is like that, there is no clear dividing line, and there is a continuation all the way through the bell curve. If you go past the top of the bell curve and go down the other side, you start getting into schizophrenia. Just as with autism, there are lots of people with schizophrenic behaviour, sometimes so little you don't notice it, but other times to the extent that it is debilitating. There is a little bit of autism or schizophrenia in everyone, you just don't notice it. For an autistic kid, they live in a world full of schizophrenics, while schizophrenics live in a world populated by the autistic. Your perception of other people is all relative to where you sit on that scale of behaviour.

When people talk about an epidemic in autism, what is actually happening is that medical profession is becoming more aware of this progression in behaviour, and more adept at recognizing the symptoms. With that recognition comes an expansion of "autistic behaviour" into what used to be regarded as "normal". So, a whole lot more people are being labeled as such whereas before it would not have been recognized or even regarded as an issue.