Jenny McCarthy's New Talk Show May Cause Harm to Families
The news yesterday
that Jenny McCarthy signed a contract with Harpo Studio to host her own
talk show caused a lot of eye rolls and head scratching, especially in
parenting and medical circles. After all, Jenny's own ideas on
parenting and the pediatric world are not exactly main stream and
uncontroversial. Do we really want to support her being a more powerful
voice for any cause?
Jenny is first and foremost and
entertainer. If she sticks to that role for her new show, our worries
may all be for naught. In fact, the very public platform and link to
Oprah may be what keeps Jenny and her views in check on air. I can only
speculate for the moment as no details of the show have been released
but I would imagine she will go to great lengths to not harm the Harpo
and Oprah image. To accomplish that, Jenny will have to learn to temper
her own views for the sake of balanced, fair and reasonable journalism.
In other words, her show won't be able to be a soap box for her
misguided views on parenting, autism or vaccinations.
If, on the
other hand, Jenny uses her show to air her misguided views, a Pandora's
box will open that will cause harm to many, many vulnerable families.
As the hype for the show mounts, people should keep in mind that Jenny
is a celebrity and entertainer, not a parenting or medical expert.
Concerned parents should never listen to celebrities for advice about
their kids but turn to their pediatricians - that's what 24/7 on call
systems are for either by phone or email. Believe me, pediatricians and
their staff of amazing nurses want to answer your questions and address
your concerns so call or email instead of googling what you hear on TV,
the Internet or read in a magazine in a celebrity interview.
Time
will tell which way the pendulum will swing for Jenny's new show. As
long as people keep in perspective and recognize that her show is just
another form of entertainment we may dodge a bullet and little harm
will be done. If Jenny airs her opinions and people take her advice,
however, the amount of harm that could be done could be epidemic.
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I was so glad to see this article. I have these exact concerns. While I am glad that Jenny's son is reportedly doing well, I cringe every time she speaks about his so-called recovery. If you really listen to her, she makes comments that make it sound as if she does not fully understand how autism is diagnosed (I could go on for hours here, but I won't). It seems as though she really believes what she says, which makes her more convincing ..and dangerous. She actually went as far as to say that she is "tired of people saying autism is a mystery, it is NOT a mystery, we figured it out." (on a video for generation rescue) What?! There are tons of educated people out there trying to unravel this. The fact that her son is doing well (and hopefully continues to do so), does not mean that she has found a way to fix our kids. Every time she speaks, it seems that she says something about autism. Unfortunately, she is misinforming many, many people. The thought of her having a larger platform to continue doing this is frightening.
Hopefully she will act as a talk show host and not a pretend pediatrician. If that is the case, I'd be fine with her having the show - not that I would watch it.
People have stories claiming their child got autism from a vaccine shot.
Others have many family members from several generations with autism.
If things were equal these personal stories would cancel each other out.
In my family various degrees of autism date back to 1920, well before widespread use of vaccines .
The latest medical studies have been leading towards a genetic link.
Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey are funny entertainers that keep us in stitches but that doesn't make them doctors.
So I should only listen to the professional community? The same professional community that told my wife and I that we should take the “wait and see approach” when my daughter was stimming nonstop at the age of two? I can’t tell you how many stories like this I have heard from other parents whose Pediatricians had no clue on how to detect the signs of a child on the spectrum. No early intervention is parental suicide for your child. I don’t have all the answers but I do know not all children will react the same to the rounds of shots now given and it is proven.
In the early 1950s, there were four vaccines : diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and smallpox. Because three of these vaccines were combined into a single shot (DTP), children received five shots by the time they were 2 years old and not more than one shot at a single visit.
By the mid-1980s, there were seven vaccines: diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella and polio. Because six of these vaccines were combined into two shots (DTP and MMR), and one, the polio vaccine, was given by mouth, children still received five shots by the time they were 2 years old and not more than one shot at a single visit.
Since the mid-1980s, many vaccines have been added to the schedule. Hib vaccine was added in the late-1980s. In the 1990s, hepatitis B and varicella vaccines were added and the polio vaccine shot (IPV) replaced the oral polio vaccine (OPV). In the year 2000, the pneumococcal vaccine was added and since 2004 the influenza, hepatitis A and rotavirus vaccines were added. Now, children could receive as many as 24 shots by 2 years of age and five shots in a single visit! Why is it we understand that adults often will react differently to single medications but yet children are just looked upon as a large voiceless demographic while injecting them with countless shot cocktails.
The result is that the vaccine schedule has become much more complicated than it once was, and children are receiving far more shots than they ever did and yet the AAP still is in denial. I don’t agree with a 100% of
what JM always has to say, but let me ask the Doctor if he has ever had to spend 10-15 hours a month on the phone fighting with insurance companies, schools, pharmacies, doctors and other special needs related services that
are not covered if your child has been diagnosed on the spectrum? What JM has brought to the table is national attention, and I can assure you the medical community had no intention of doing so. Amen for JM.
Sadly, the cult of personality and a tragic personal story are all that qualifies Ms. McCarthy as an expert on health . Her experience with her son Evan and subsequent emotional and desperate response to his condition are indeed heartbreaking. What is more heartbreaking is the fact that as a desperate parent she has been pulled into a theater of false hope, fraud and gross negligence in the realm of scientific analysis.
Ms. Winfrey's association with Jenny is the result of a long standing friendship and a genuine empathy towards her causes (not to mention a brutally savvy sense of marketing and media business).
Ms. McCarthy will do harm as she diverts parents from viable treatments and therapy for ASD diagnosed children . She has continually swithced her views to meet the current, pseudoscientific "causes" and "cures" for ASD related conditions . I was saddened to see her appear on CBS's laughable med-talk show, The Doctors, in which no one challenged her positions - unsupported by science or trial - in regards to ASD treatments.
Spoken like a person with no clue what is to have a child on the spectrum nor understand the frustration when trying to seek out the best medical help and attention for your child. And I do believe JM had 2 medical doctors doing their best to attempt to speak on medical statistics and medical studies by her side and in the audience. It was the moron ER doctor who could not once respond to the question of how many studies have there actually been done on all 36 vaccinations.
To the contrary, I have a young son with ASD aspects and several friends with full ASD (Asperger's mostly) children . None of whom were vaccinated prior to 2001, thus erasing the thimerasol fallacy.
The "moron" ER doc is not typically conversant in the latest research, in fact most practicing MDs are barely able to describe what a RCT is at all. Jenny's two hired guns from the dangerous advocacy group DAN! Were prepped for their PR moment, unlike the "face docs" on the CBS show, none of whom would like to lose their cushy gig.
No evidence exists supporting vaccine - autism causation, nothing support McCarthy's claims about diet and even the diagnosis of her son may be in question. Nevertheless, it is her son to raise and care for, let's hope she recognizes the limits of her own vision. She certainly did when pursuing the ridiculous Indigo Child theory.
I would suspect that Oprah is far from being a tool for the "anti-vaccine" movement, a label often attached to Jenny McCarthy's name. I'm sure she recognizes Jenny's passion and courage to attack controversial issues, such as autism and it's cause.
Jenny McCarthy is a hero to many of us with children diagnosed with autism and we certainly don't expect someone or group that profits off of sick and injured children to support, or even understand this woman.
Jenny will be tackling real issues, along with the regular celeb chat sort of like Oprah does. She is a pro and will be a success.
You said,
"Concerned parents should never listen to celebrities for advice about their kids but turn to their pediatricians - that's what 24/7 on call systems are for either by phone or email. Believe me, pediatricians and their staff of amazing nurses want to answer your questions and address your concerns so call or email instead of googling what you hear on TV, the Internet or read in a magazine in a celebrity interview."
When I phoned my doctor regarding the rash, fever and changes my wife and I witnessed following my son's 12 month vaccine, we were told not to worry. When I called to tell them of my son's seizures I was told not to worry they were related to his high fever. When I called to tell them of my son's temperature rising to over 106, I didn't get a call back. From the emergency room I called back, talked to the answering call service and told the woman that if I didn't hear from my doctor in 10 minutes I was going to find out where he lived and pay him an angry visit. I got a call back and was told not to worry.
My experience tells me that phone calls to doctors regarding worries of serious complications following the administration of 7 vaccines is no more important that the middle of the night calls calls regarding a child's chronic ear ache. And the more I talk about this the more I hear similar stories from parents who have experienced the same thing.
Walk a mile, hell walk ten feet in my shoes, then tell me about Jenny's "misguided" views.
I believe Jenny will remain professional as she always does in any appearance I've seen outside the funny hollywood productions she has been on. The main reason is that she has to pay so many bills for her recovering son, and having a show that stays on the air will do just that. Hopefully she doesn't dilute the show too much to lose the important message of making the vaccines safer so that people like us can restart vaccinating our children who are siblings of ASD's.
Thank god for a voice of reason Jenny and her friends are bringing to this debate, and keep up the good work. We listen to the Paediatricians, and always get a second opinion from a more trustworthy doctor. Without fail, the second opinion is better than the first on at least 75% of the occasions. I do hope the day comes when the children's doctors are bought and paid for, and actually do follow the Hipocrates oath.
Again, way to go Jenny, hopefully you have a lot of fun in the process and good luck with the new show.
Haim Strasbourger
Fellow ASD parent affected by the Autism shot, in Washington State