Autism and Jenny McCarthy

Vaccines do not cause Autism.

There have been a host of scientific studies demonstrating this.  A summary of thirty-three of them (I hope that's enough to convince you) can be found at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Not vaccinating your kids is a great way to do some real harm, on the other hand. The diseases we're vaccinating against can, in fact, be fatal.

Jenny McCarthy is perhaps the most outspoken/well-known advocate of the vaccination-autism theory.  I like Mrs. McCarthy.  She's well-spoken, she's funny, she's undeniably hot.  I find it very, very unfortunate that she's being so unreasonable on this subject. (She's not alone, of course.) I want Jenny McCarthy on my side.  ; )

My son has been diagnosed with Asperger's, which is "on the spectrum": a very, very mild form of autism. As such, I've had to give pause to ask why he's the way he is.  It seems that such diagnosis are on the rise: my son is in a special program at school for it, and he has six classmates with the same problems.  Does this suggest environmental causation?  I suspect as much, personally, though there is no compelling evidence that vaccination is the cause (and there's evidence that it's present long before vaccination, anyway).  I would personally suspect some kind of chemical interaction during gestation: something we haven't identified yet.  But not vaccines.  That theory just doesn't hold up to rational scrutiny.

Vaccinate your kids. Tell others to vaccinate theirs. Kids will die if we're not aggressive about this. ...And there is no scientific reason to fear it.

...Just thought I would take a moment to say as much.

1 comment:

Croaky said...

Nicely put, particularly given your son's diagnosis.