Today on Oprah I watched Jenny McCarthy give an exposé about how to be the happiest people we can. It was shortly after that I began to think, what isn’t Jenny McCarthy an expert on these days? Dabbling in every facet of the media, including TV, radio, books, and interactive weight loss video games, McCarthy has made quite a name for herself. In response, McCarthy has done the honorable thing of utilizing her fame for the betterment of mankind. The notion was nice, but unfortunately for our children she has selected the wrong area to claim to be an expert in.
McCarthy is in strong support of a link between Autism Spectrum Disorder and infant vaccinations. In response to her own child’s diagnosis of autism following his vaccinations, McCarthy has spent a great deal of time and money trying to find a connection between the two things. It is important to note that McCarthy was not the first person to suspect such a correlation. In 1998, a group of researchers published an article implying that the “environmental trigger” of vaccinations may be responsible for some of the witnessed developmental delays found in their participants (Wakefield et al., 1998). As one can assume, the results created a sense of panic among parents worldwide. Who would risk giving their child autism!? However, in the years since the publication some curious information has been discovered. Many of the authors have retracted their names, presumably because the study may have been a little fudged. Newer research has found no connection between the MMR vaccine and developing autism.
So if vaccines don’t cause autism, why are we still mad at Jenny McCarthy?
Despite a lack of evidence, McCarthy continues to raise awareness of the dangers of vaccinating children. On her website, which you can see here, McCarthy makes several claims which include: vaccinations have dangerous ingredients, there are too many, and we give them to children too early. Let’s do one at a time, shall we.
McCarthy is particularly interested in “cleaning up” vaccinations. She states very clearly on her website that you should never allow your child to receive a vaccine that contains the preservative Thimerosal. If this is your only reason for avoiding vaccinations, then fear not! As of 2001, nearly all vaccines created for use in children are Thimerosal free (Miller & Reynold, 2009). In addition, following much concern of the etiology of autism, recent studies have found no evidence that Thimerosal may be to blame
McCarthy also worries that there are currently too many vaccinations and we use them too early. This seems particularly silly to me, as too many vaccinations seems like a fair trade off for too many life threatening diseases. Vaccinations are not mindless injections we give to our children for fun. Vaccinations are, in my opinion, one of the greatest advancements of all time. At an early age, our children are vaccinated against about fourteen different diseases that include everything from polio to measles (Miller & Reynold, 2009). Since the fear of autism has been on the rise, we have experienced a decline in the number of children receiving vaccines. What’s the affect? Not a decrease in autism, but an increase in preventable diseases.
Finally, McCarthy proposes that perhaps vaccinations are not all bad, but we need to spread out the time frame for receiving them. This seems particularly harmless until you consider the onset of many of the diseases we’re vaccinating against. In order for vaccinations to be effective at preventing diseases, they need to be applied before exposure can happen (Miller & Reynold, 2009). The earlier one gets vaccinated, the better chance they have at avoiding the disease.
What worries me is not Jenny McCarthy’s persistent search for an answer. She obviously has positive intentions and wants nothing more than to spread hope to the millions of people impacted by autism. I fear however, that she is doing more harm than good with her incessant ranting about vaccinations. With very little known about the actual cause(s) of autism, many people are clinging to her claims in a desperate attempt to make sense of their situation. As a result, we are risking the lives of every child who does not receive vaccinations in addition to wasting a lot of money and energy that could be focused on finding the real cause of autism.
