It’s a case of playground politics writ large. Two celebrity moms have been slugging it out in the press over—what else?—vaccinations.
Jenny McCarthy, an outspoken anti-vaccine advocate, recently slammed Amanda Peet over a comment she made in a Cookie magazine article, in which she called people who don’t vaccinate their children “parasites.”
Ouch. Peet later apologized for the remark. But McCarthy, who has a son with autism, wasn’t about to be mollified.
According to Fox News, McCarthy told Spectrum magazine that Peet “has a lot of [nerve] to come forward and be on that side, because there is an angry mob on my side, and I like the fact that I can say she’s completely wrong.”
Now, advocacy group Autism United wants people to boycott Peet’s movies. (Peet was recently in the X-Files movie with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson.)
On the other side of the ring is Peet, the mother of a toddler and the daughter of a woman who contracted polio in the pre-vaccine days. She’s now a spokesperson for Every Child by Two, a group that advocates for the immunization of children by age 2. (Apparently, the American Academy of Pediatrics sought to add a little more glamour to the pro-vaccine camp instead of the white-coated experts they usually trot out).
This war of the words isn’t surprising. It’s the sort of simmering resentment that can boil over anytime you get people who have kids and opinions together. And with autism—a neurological condition whose symptoms include serious language delays, poor social skills, and repetitive movements—the stakes are undeniably high.
I think everyone can sympathize with families who are struggling with an autistic child and can agree that we need to be sure vaccines aren’t causing the neurological condition. But I also understand parents who vaccinate their children to keep them healthy and their resentment toward those who do not.
As I’ve written before, our kids get their shots not only to protect themselves, but also to form a fragile chain of protection (known as herd immunity), which will hopefully extend to kids who can’t be vaccinated.
Those children are usually too sick to be immunized or come from families with strong religious beliefs against it. But if too many kids are unvaccinated, the system breaks down and all children, even those who have received the vaccine, can be at risk during outbreaks.
While most parents accept the well-known risks of vaccination (fever, swelling, redness, or, rarer, Guillain-Barré syndrome and seizures) to protect their children as well as other unvaccinated kids, that largesse breaks down a bit when the other kids are skipping the shots due to unproven claims about vaccine side effects.
And unproven they are. The vaccine–autism link seemed to take on a life of its own sometime in the 1990s. Although the initial 1998 study suggesting a link wasn’t confirmed by subsequent studies (and controversy has swirled around the way the initial study was conducted), the fracas continues.
Don’t get me wrong. I too get annoyed at vaccine manufacturers who seem overeager to push new and pricey shots on to our kids. But the Institute of Medicine, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and other doctors’ groups have all concluded, after analyzing a mountain of research, that there’s no link between vaccines and autism.
Will future studies show one? Maybe. It’s possible that some children (due to genetic or other factors) might indeed be at risk from vaccination—so few that they haven’t been picked up by conventional research.
For example, a court recently ruled that a girl with a rare condition known as mitochondrial disease—which made her more susceptible to manifesting symptoms of autism—was “significantly aggravated” by her multiple vaccinations.
In the meantime, I think this is a bit like the debate over silicone breast implants in the 1990s, which also generated celebrity attention and an angry mob mentality. That debate only faded after research showed the implants did not increase the risk of immune system problems, and the Food and Drug Administration put the implants back on the market.
Of course, the stakes are higher with autism, a serious neurological condition. But the only way we’re going to get moms—celebrity and otherwise—to stop slugging it out is to redouble our efforts to find the true causes of the condition.
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Comments (15)
as the parent of a child who died of cancer, I am very anti-vaccine. My child had osteosarcoma(malignant bone tumor. While doing research to help her I discovered that the government has not been honest about vaccines for a very long time. The polio vaccines that were given(and I received) were contaminated with a monkey virus dubbed SV40. They administered 98 million doses and now they are finding this virus in rare tumors like the one that killed my child. Why isn’t the government taking responsibilty for this? Do I trust the info regarding autism that we are now being told? NO! Parents who still want to believe the myth that the government and medical authorities are honest, are self-deluded.
I think it is really unfair of doctors and governments to expect all parents to adhere to their shot schedule, especially with all of the uncertainty over the safety of the shots. I understand they are willing to sacrifice a certain number of children in order to maintain herd immunity, but of course no parent wants their child to be one of those rare cases who is harmed by the vaccine. Thousands of parents have reported that their perfectly normal children have become autistic immediately after their shots. This cannot just be a coincidence (and they are NOT all wackos). Until there is a diagnostic test that can be performed on every baby to see if they are at risk for harm by the shots, doctors and governments should back off.
As a highfunctioning autistic I’m glad there’s now someone out there who speaks for the large part of the autism community who find Jenny McCarthy and her ilk delusional and insufferable.
Thank you Amanda Peet, for giving us a voice in this mess.
I think vaccines are very important. My son is considered severly autistic and all of his shots were delayed until the age of 3. His autism was VERY apparent from birth. Our family is rare, we know for a fact vaccines did nothing to cause autism in our beautiful son. I can see why most people who followed the rules and got their children vaccinated 6mos. 18 mos. etc…. would be convinced vaccines did something to harm their child. It is tough being the parent of a special needs child.
Autism is apparently from birth. The link between autism and vaccines is correlational by time, which essentially proves NOTHING. Literally NOTHING. Because since most kids are on a time schedule for vaccines, they happen to get those vaccines at about the same time that the developmental issues that make autism most apparent arise. We also see that just about every infant with autism acts differently as an infant, without vaccines. There is NO proof whatsoever that vaccines cause autism and people who believe that are just looking for someone to blame. Meanwhile, we do know that even a few kids skipping a vaccine can put thousands if not millions at risk. I would be pissed if my child died of polio because some other mother didn’t bother to vaccinate her child, because she’d rather blame the government and medical communities for autism than look for the true (as of yet unknown) cause.
As a therapist who specalizes in Autistic Disorder, I get enraged when I see Jenny McCarthy speaking about how she “cured” her son. Autism is frequently misdiagnosed, over-diagnosed and complicated disorder. I read Jenny McCarthy’s book “Belly Laughs” when I was pregnant last year. I had no idea her son was autistic until after I finished it. I liked the book, but it did not make me more inclined to believe her as an authority on autism.
When you are pregnant and a new parent, sometimes you imagine the worse and especially the more educated about something you are the more you can imagine. I have always worried about Autism because the cause is unknown. But the more I worried the more I researched. I had tons of information to pour through, as it was a major thesis of mine in school and as a clinician. I found a couple things: One that a person is more likely to be Schizophrenic than autistic. Schizophrenia happens at a rate of 1 in 100 and Autistic Disorder at a rate of 1 in 133 (at the HIGHEST estimate)and it severly affects boys more than girls, at a rate or between 80-90 % (US vs. UK, data)which is the strongest indicator that it is genetic.
Second, many of the people “diagnosed with Autism” have many different types of Autism, such as Asperger’s D/O in which many with this function just as normally as everyone else, they just are more “engineer-like” where they look at things more logically and less emotionally and are less social. Professionals are VERY quick to diagnose someone with Asperger’s D/O, as soon as a parent says my child isn’t very social. They seem to forget that Social Anxiety D/O exists and that not every person needs to like being around tons of people.
The third thing I found was the research that started this all. It was two studies that both looked at gastinolintestinal (can’t spell) problems. They found that some people start to have more problems with this after vaccinations (I personally find this to be somewhat flawed because of the age of the subjects) and then they looked at children with intestinal problems and how many have autism. That’s it, that’s the link. So, I believe it was three researchers who published this “link” and two have retracted their support and admitted it was bad science. The other is being prosecuted criminally, in the UK, for his irresponsible claims and how this has led to the decrease of vaccinations and the increase in “irraticated” diseases, which KILL.
So that is my two-cents. Many mommy’s and daddy’s out there don’t have the time to do the research and many people want to believe that the government is leading them astray, it’s not hard to since there is so much corruption and we as a news-watching people are bombarded by it EVERYDAY! But the truth is that scientists/researchers have to answer not to the government, but to other educated researchers, who want to prove them wrong. If the majority of others “who want to prove them wrong” agree then it is in our best interests to believe something. I know as a mom it is easier to believe the hype. It gives us something to blame, but look at Jenny McCarthy’s claim. If it was really as easy as changing a diet, do you REALLY believe that professionals wouldn’t be supporting this to every single on of our clients? With so little help we can offer to autistic clients, believe me we would be all over this, but it just isn’t the case. It doesn’t matter about money because we could find a way to financially support a change in diet for the health of a child.
I know autism is scary, I know that it breaks your heart to see you child hurting, but to join an “angry mob” isn’t going to do anything other than delay the true research out there.
Amanda B, your comments are circular. Why should I put my child at risk to protect yours? Can we trust the Government and Pharma to give us the straight story on vaccines? These are the same folks that gave us the green light on thalidamide, Vioxx, etc. Need I go on? Some vacines still contain mercury. Yeah, that’s right, the toxic substance we’re all taught to avoid. Does it cause autism, who knows. Can it intensify the symptoms in a kid predisposed to autism? No doubt.
Another thought for the vaccine crowd. My autistic son had his immunizations on schedule. After his symptoms developed we stopped. That said, we have him titered every year and his immunity is in tact. Do you suppose the establishment encourages over vaccination? If not, then why is his immunity in tact 8 years later when he only had 1/2 of the prescribed protocol?
Feel free to blindly trust the government. Feel free to blindly trust big pharma, or any other organization that has profit as a priority over public safety. I’m certainly not looking for anybody to blame for my son’s autism, however, I do have a new lense through which I view the world and my judgement is just as sound as yours.
“But if too many kids are unvaccinated, the system breaks down and all children, even those who have received the vaccine, can be at risk during outbreaks.”
As a Dad of a severly handicapped daughter who was perfectly normal until her shots, I look at the above and question the sanity of combining the shots and giving them at such a young age. I believe that the pharmceutical companies who make the money have everything to gain and our children have everything to lose.
Although it may be difficult to comprehend this article (http://www.healing-arts.org/children/vaccines/vaccines-mercury.htm), I still recommend you give it a read through – it is rather enlightening, and if nothing else will give you helpful information – ask your doctor whether the vaccinations they are prescribing for your infant contain thimerosal (mercury). It is important to ask this question, because it is possible to get vaccinations without thimerosal.
I also strongly recommend that you take the time to read the list of ingredients found in each and every vaccination, because you may decide that it is inappropriate to allow someone to inject these materials into your own blood stream, much less the bloodstream of a infant, toddler or developing child.
Remember, the world belongs to our children. Good parents do not place the responsibility of their childrens’ health on someone else’s shoulders, even if they are medical professionals. Good parents get the facts for themselves. As they used to say in the medical field – get a second opinion. And what better opinion than your own?
People who are basing the apparent eradication of polio on vaccinations are sorely mistaken. About the same time that the polio vaccine came out, people decided that having latrines too close to streams and aquifers was not such a good idea. Like many of the diseases that plagued that time, polio is a poo born disease.
While I think that it is noble and good that the WHO went into India and vaccinated all of the children that they could get to and whose parents allowed it, they are wasting their time by not also cleaning up the open sewers. It will come back, and very possibly with a vengeance.
Save your anger and blame the things that are far more likely to cause epidemic out breaks, like disposing of dirty diapers in landfills, ruining our water supply with herbicides and pesticides that are fat soluble… that means they don’t break down in the body. They’re there for good. And if you eat animal products then you’re getting even more. Sodium Fluoride in the water? Known toxin. Calcium Fluoride actually protects teeth. MSG- central nervous system toxin.
yep you should be faaar more angry at the person with the Roundup bottle in their hand.
My son has asperger’s syndrome. My dad had polio. I know the painof both. But the bottom line for me is that fifty-plus years of research and experience show that vaccines prevent diseases and that herd immunity is a real factor. And fifteen-some years of rumors and fears have yet to show any reliable evidence that autism is caused by vaccines. Further, as someone in academia, i KNOW there is too much decentralization to keep information truly hidden in the research community. Yes, money and power can direct the flow somewhat, but the idea that thousands of researchers, doctors, and others have been deliberately hiding this is just paranoid- you do realize they all get their OWN kids vaccinated, right? And some of their kids do have autism, too. Unless we can get more reliable evidence of a link, i will thank God there is no more smallpox in the world and that my child will not get -or cause anyone else to get- polio, whooping cough, measles, mumps, rubella, or dyphtheria. I have lived in rural areas of India and Africa- I have no regrets about getting him vaccinated at all.
“I would be pissed if my child died of polio because some other mother didn’t bother to vaccinate her child” This is based on the poorly studied and false concept of herd immunity which was based on virus behavior in the wild, not in the artificial delivery method of vaccines. And…if parents vaccinate their kids, why are they worried about unvaccinated kids giving their kids a virus? That must mean vaccinations don’t work!
all of you come over to my house and watch my boy have 80 seizure’s a day that started 2 weeks after his dpt vaccine.Then you tell me that you would vaccinate your child come on bring it i have a doctor to back me up.Good day
eh… love it.
Dr. Mark Hyman just wrote a great article about the underlying causes of autism — here’s the link,
http://www.healthiertalk.com/why-current-thinking-about-autism-completely-wrong-0916
Hope it helps!