STOP JENNY McCARTHY

[Dubious Dick]

Lasies and Gents,

Just seen this thread on JREF:

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=125602

Looks like Mr. Wakefield and his groupies are gaining more media exposure in the good ol' U.S.

There is a website set up to try to help counter the effect Jenny McCarthy (a celeb of some sort?) is getting for the anti-mmr/vaccination brigade

http://www.site.stopjenny.com

Please Google STOP JENNY McCARTHY and click on the website to help with Google rankings, if you agree this of use of course!

Cheers,
DD

[Croydon Bob]

I'm pleased that the actress Amanda Peet has spoken out against McCarthy. Is McCarthy actually famous for anything other than putting her silicon implanted chest on show and talking rubbish about vaccines and autism?

[Gilbs]

Hats of to Amanda Peet, however we are on very dodgy ground when we have celebrities using their "celebrity" to spout science. I think we should leave science to the scientists.

[Matt]

Hats of to Amanda Peet, however we are on very dodgy ground when we have celebrities using their "celebrity" to spout science. I think we should leave science to the scientists.

Yes I agree, we should only pay attention to Peet's ideas on History, the subject in which she graduated from Columbia University. Nobody should speak on the subject of Science unless they've been properly taken vows of obedience as part of holy orders in a recognised ordination into the Popperian Preisthood.

No seriously, science is for everybody. It's the arguments that should sway us not the authority or name recognition of the person making them. I don't think in Peets case we're in the realm of using "celebrity" to spout science.

She acts as a spokewoman for the Every Child By Two campaign. Many Campaigns have celebrity spokes people to make their message more newsworthy but it's the message that's ultimately important.

What's Peet's Argument? "My main message to parents is that they should not be taking medical advice from me or any other celebrity. They should look to their pediatrician, the AAP and other experts." Source

No argument there.

So what about the recent broohaha what did she actually say in context? Or at least what did the Magazine publish?

"As soon as I was pregnant, the neuroses kicked in," says Peet, 36, who is married to screenwriter David Benioff. She began calling her older sister's husband, a Philadelphia pediatrician, "every five minutes" with all kinds of questions, especially about shots. "I asked him, 'Why are all of these necessary? Why are some people staggering them?'?" Eventually her brother-in-law arranged a series of phone calls between Peet and his own mentor, Paul Offit, M.D., who is chief of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, a co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, and a board member of Every Child by Two, a pro-vaccine organization cofounded in 1991 by former first lady Rosalynn Carter.
"Once we had spoken, I was shocked at the amount of misinformation floating around, particularly in Hollywood," says Peet, who quickly boned up on the hot-button controversies surrounding the topic, including the unproven link between certain vaccines and autism; the safety of preservatives like mercury-based thimerosal; and the fear that the relatively high number of shots kids receive today can overwhelm young immune systems. Her conclusion? Well, not only is Frankie up-to-date on her vaccines (with no staggering), but her mom will soon appear in public-service announcements for Every Child by Two. "I buy 99 percent organic food for Frankie, and I don't like to give her medicine or put sunscreen on her," says Peet. "But now that I've done my research, vaccines do not concern me." What does concern her is the growing number of unvaccinated children who are benefiting from the "shield" created by the inoculated—we are protected from viruses only if everyone, or most everyone, is immunized: "Frankly, I feel that parents who don't vaccinate their children are parasites."

Again, forgetting that she's a wealthy, sucessful, famous, milf, if the same argument had been made by a casual visitor to our forum I for one would be applauding it. The only difference that Peets celebrity status makes is that far more people are reading the argument.

[Gilbs]

Matt
I couldn't agree more, allow me to clarify; the Jenny McCarthys of this world seem to me to abuse their celebrity to propagate their own brand of pseudoscience and act like they are an expert on the subject, because of their profile their message gets heard every where.

I am totally in favour of Peets approach having read the article you posted: acting as a spokesperson and advising people to get the best advise from those qualified to give it, however calling people parasites is a little strong.

My children were born at the time of the wakefield scare; and the misinformation flying about made it really tough to know what to do for best particularly if you were not well equipped to deal with it.