Since when did it become appropriate to permit an individual’s personal opinions to impact their ability to obtain a job? Especially when said job is on a talk show aptly named “The View”???
There is a huge backlash going on in case you missed it, because Jenny McCarthy has been hired as a new permanent host on The View.
People have these types of comments:
"I think a network hiring a homicidal maniac, giving her a forum in front of people who have young children and are impressionable, is the most irresponsible thing I've heard of in a long time," New Yorker writer Michael Specter rants to the Los Angeles Times. "She's very dangerous. It's unfortunate that in our society, scientific evidence is now just taken as some other point of view."
"Congrats ABC for hiring vaccine crank Jenny McCarthy for her 'outrageous... fresh POV,' [because] actual medical science is so stale and dull," fumes Time magazine TV critic James Poniewozik, who took issue with Barbara Walters' statement that Jenny "can be serious and outrageous. She has connected with our audience and offers a fresh point of view."
Salon takes a harder line: "Dear ABC: Putting Jenny McCarthy on 'The View' will kill children," blares its headline. "The vaccine conspiracy advocate doesn't just have a quirky point of view, she is spreading lies that hurt people."
Adds a pediatrician to the Boston Globe, "By choosing Jenny McCarthy to be a host on 'The View,' ABC made a decision that could end up costing lives -- even worse, the lives of children."
Now, I have my own “views” on vaccines, which I have shared plenty of times. I think people are being extremely melodramatic about this. To say that she will cost children’s lives is akin to saying that because a talk show host is prochoice, more abortions will occur.
I do not agree with Jenny McCarthy’s simplified philosophy about all of this- aka autism, vaccines, nutrition, etc. She does state that her son Evan is “cured” of his autism. And I have heard stories of other “recovered” children. The bottom line is that her son’s “recovery” was due to dietary changes, infusions of glutathione, B12, and intensive therapy. I know this because I read her book. It all goes back to the idea that children with autism have an impaired ability to rid themselves of toxins, which like or not, vaccinations do introduce. But they also come from many many other sources, and even if, as she claims, the MMR vaccine was his tipping point, it does not mean it “caused” his autism. That is why I am pro spreading out vaccines, not stopping them.
For all we know, ABC has made her sign an agreement that she will not discuss this on the show. Even that would be pretty crappy in light of the fact that we are in the U.S. and plenty of other hosts have certainly voiced controversial opinions on this show.
You know what I think is irresponsible? Parading the current popular medical opinion out to the public as fact. There are far too many changes to these theories on a daily basis for me to buy the idea that the medical community as a whole knows what they are doing. Especially as it pertains to autism. I have been presented with so many ideas/theories/treatments since the boys were diagnosed that it makes my head spin. It made me really mad to read these quotes. Not because they are definitely wrong, but because they assert that the larger medical community is without question, right. And I think that the jury is definitely out on that. I base this on Johns Hopkins’ study of mercury’s effect on the immune system, and the more and more widespread acknowledgement that autism is in part an immune modulated disorder.
Just some food for thought….
If autism is related to immune system dysregulation, is it really such a huge stretch to consider the idea that maybe, just maybe, multiple injections of substances that are meant to activate the immune system of a typical individual (vaccines) could possibly negatively affect that of an individual with a genetically impaired one?
And if one considers this possibility, is it really appropriate to label her as a “homicidal maniac”? I think not.
