Jenny McCarthy and Amanda Peet in Autism Clash

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

Jenny McCarthy, son Evan and beau Jim Carrey rallied for safer vaccines this summer in Washington

McCarthy won’t accept Peet’s apology for ‘parasite’ comment

By Matthew B. Zeidman

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 10/1/08 – Jenny McCarthy isn’t buying what Amanda Peet is selling. The former Playboy bunny has refused to accept actress Amanda Peet’s recent apology for calling parents of unvaccinated children “parasites,” blasting the “Saving Silverman” star’s continued urging of moms and dads not to keep their kids from the doctor’s needle.

“She 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,” McCarthy stated in this month’s issue of Spectrum magazine.

“…I still believe that the decision not to vaccinate our children bodes for a dangerous future,” Peet told Cookie magazine this summer, after apologizing for her “mean and divisive” comments made in a previous interview with the publication. “…It’s irresponsible to suggest that virtually the entire medical community and the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) are behind a massive cover-up about vaccine safety.”

The clash between the two mothers was caused by the recent controversy surrounding the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine given to toddlers, as well as other childhood inoculations that also contain a mercury-based preservative, thiomersal.

McCarthy believes exposure to thiomersal, as well as too many vaccines at once, causes autism to emerge in some children, including her son, Evan—a viewpoint that was popularized following a 1998 study published in a British medical journal. Critics of the theory, including the AAP, have called the link between vaccines and autism tenuous and blamed the anti-vaccination trend for a resurgence of measles and other diseases.

Autism, a neurological affliction that can range from general social awkwardness to a complete inability to communicate and interact with others, currently affects approximately one in every 150 children, according to a 14-state survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2000 and 2002. While that number was an increase from past governmental statistics, it was unclear if the rise was due to a greater prevalence of the disorder or improved diagnostic methods.

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36 Responses to “Jenny McCarthy and Amanda Peet in Autism Clash”

Kev Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 1:01 am
As the parent of an autistic child I’d like to tell Jenny McCarthy to shut up. She’s doing the autism community no good whatsoever. The fact is that regarding vaccines and autism *she* is completely wrong and her continual attack on vaccines is simply distracting attention, money and research away from what our kids need.

We’re not all super-rich parents Jenny and we’re not your play thing to use as a reason to sell more books. Shut up.
jen Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 2:59 am
It is a very bad day for children when people will take medical advice from Jenny McCarthy. There IS a reason that doctors go to medical school.

It’s unfortunate that you don’t mention in your article that the American Academy of Pediatrics says that there is NO link (http://www.aap.org/advocacy/releases/autismparentfacts.htm), not a tenuous link.

I’ve got 3 autistic children, and I hope that Jenny McCarthy will go away and find a new reality show or something soon. The autism world doesn’t need “an angry mob”- we need help and support to assist our children and autistic friends in living fulfilling lives.
Jetta Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 6:03 am
Here, here!

“As the parent of an autistic child I’d like to tell Jenny McCarthy to shut up. She’s doing the autism community no good whatsoever. The fact is that regarding vaccines and autism *she* is completely wrong and her continual attack on vaccines is simply distracting attention, money and research away from what our kids need.

We’re not all super-rich parents Jenny and we’re not your play thing to use as a reason to sell more books. Shut up.”
Mary Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 6:32 am
I’m the parent of an autistic child, and I say Yay! to Jenny for drawing attention to the issues. Greening our vaccines just makes common sense for all children. There is no reason to poison our children. Doctors/researchers need to think about the welfare of people and not the wallets of the Drug companies. Amanda Peet should live one day with an autistic child so that she can learn some compassion and understanding.
Lise Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 7:04 am
Kev and Jetta,

Back at you, shut up yourself, she is probably doing much more than you to help finding a cure and give hope to parents. What have you done ??????
I doubt you have a child with autism, because you would know for a fact 100% that vaccines CAUSE AUTISM….EDUCATE YOURSELF…

You have been deceived.

There is a cover up, the day they stop making money from vaccines is the day I will forgive them for son.

Vaccines is a money making SCAM, in a BIG FREAKING WAY…
selena Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 8:29 am
I am on Jenny’s side 100%!!! It is so obivious that this is what is making our kids sick, 30 years ago we were taking 8-10 shots as vaccines and now they want us to have 32 shot in our children by the age of 2!!! Come on there has not be that many disease’s discovered in 30 years… I refuse to believe that there is no other way… There are so many children with autism now I am sure everyone knows someone with one autism, 30 years ago it was almost unheard of.
Neen Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 8:34 am
Well…to be honest, when I first heard about Jenny - I rolled my eyes and thought “gawd..another one”. I to am the parent of a child with autism, and I DO believe that his body was unable to process the assault of compounds and preservatives attributed to our vaccines. Not oomplicated to understand, and if you take a minute or two and think about it. MORE than plausible. CDC admitted to manipulating data about disproving an association between immunization and vaccine damage - that’s pretty darned compelling, dontcha think?
Read the paradox for yourself Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 9:26 am
Read vaccine injury reports to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS).
http://vaers.hhs.gov/

Federal Omnibus Autism Proceedings — a trial for 5,000 children whose medical records show vaccine injuries such as mercury poisoning and vaccine-strain measles in their GI tracts.
http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/omnibus-autism-proceeding

Also read the book Evidence of Harm by investigative journalist David Kirby.
http://www.EvidenceofHarm.com

Listen to Dr. Bernadine Healy - medical editor at U.S. News & World Report; former director of NIH, former head of American Red Cross, advisor to George W. Bush. When interviewed by CBS investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, Dr. Healy said:
“I think the government or certain public health officials within the government have been too quick to dismiss the concerns of these families without studying the population that got sick.”
“I think public health officials have been too quick to dismiss the hypothesis (vaccines can trigger autism) as irrational without sufficient studies of causation.”
http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/09/olmsted-of-auti.html

Guilty CDC bureaucrats and product marketers want you to “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” No child should be written off as collateral damage in the war on disease.
Ernst Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 9:29 am
Being the parent of an autistic child does not give you secret knowledge of its underlying cause.

Depth of feeling doesn’t make your conclusion more valid. The only way to figure this out is with real evidence.

Medicine doesn’t understand the mechanism that causes autism, and neither does Jenny McCarthy. The problem is that she doesn’t know that.
weekend Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 10:10 am
Lise,

Your statements reflect your ignorance to the vaccine issue. You should stop spouting your lack of knowledge since it has no basis. Oh, and why is autism on the rise world wide, even in places where vaccines are not available or of the same mix as the US. Better diagnosis procedures maybe?

More research should be done, but there has been no link between the two thus far.

Neen,

Where is this CDC admission to manipulation? They admitted errors in the study. Very different.
AK Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 10:33 am
People that do no vaccinate their children are misinformed and endangering innocent children. THERE IS NO CORRELATION BETWEEN AUTISM AND VACCINES! The study in England that made the claims between MMR and austism has been discredited many times over. The thought of kid getting measles from a live virus is horrible. These diseases cause possible brain damage because noone can guage the potency of wild type viruses rampant in communities.
Todd Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 11:05 am
I am a single father of an autistic child and agree that Jenny Mcarthy is doing more harm than good. Why do we put more credibility in an actress / playboy bunny than doctors and other more credible sources. I appreciate her raising the alarm on the health crisis but she is sending parents off to sleazy snake oil salesman only to get there life savings diluted for therapies that don’t work. Parents are better off organizing to get insurance coverage for proven servces such as speech, occupational, and ABA services. Perhaps there should be a study to determine the impact of environmental factors but this does nothing to help my son or the families with limited financial resources care for their children with autism.
Terra Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 2:32 pm
The simple question I would like answered is if vaccines work & your kid is vaccinated, why does it matter if mine is not? What can you possibly catch IF your vaccinated & they work? How can an epidemic start if only a few kids are not vaccinated & how can they pass diseases to kids that ARE VACCINATED against those particular diseases? Nobody’s ever been able to explain that one. My child is also autistic & I’m on TEAM JENNY!!
Autism Mom Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Can I just say…all you MEAN people SUCK. Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes already.
Kev Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Terra - vaccines do not work 100% of the time. No medical process does. Thats why we need herd immunity. Without it we’ll have more instances of the two measles caused deaths we have had in the last two years in my country - the UK.

Neen - what preservatives and compounds do you mean? Thiomersal? Now only exists in flu shots aside from trace amounts.

Aluminium? You get more Aluminium in between 50 days and 1 year of breastfeeding than you do in the entire pediatric vaccine schedule.

Formaldehyde? There’s more Formaldehyde in one slice of a single banana than in the entire pediatric vaccine schedule.

The truth is that there is no study linking any vaccine, any vaccine component or any vaccine schedule to autism.

Please, stop listening to this vainglorious airhead and start vaccinating your children. Do it for your own kids and the kids of your society. Vaccines do not cause autism.

Oh, and to the silly conspiracy monger who said I didn’t have an autistic child. Yeah, I do. I mentioned it in the first sentence of my first comment.
Joseph Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 5:14 pm
“she is probably doing much more than you to help finding a cure and give hope to parents”

Not only is there no convincing evidence she’s doing anything helpful, but what she’s doing is clearly worse than useless. It’s a diversion, as Kev noted, and on top of that, it’s a threat to the public health of everyone.
Joseph Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 5:17 pm
“CDC admitted to manipulating data about disproving an association between immunization and vaccine damage - that’s pretty darned compelling, dontcha think?”

That is completely false, BTW.
Sullivan Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 5:42 pm
“How can an epidemic start if only a few kids are not vaccinated & how can they pass diseases to kids that ARE VACCINATED against those particular diseases? Nobody’s ever been able to explain that one. My child is also autistic & I’m on TEAM JENNY!!”

Some people can not be vaccinated for very good reasons.

Some people have weakened immune systems. For example, cancer patients.

Some people are too young to be vaccinated. For example, many of the kids sickened by this year’s measles outbreak.

For some people vaccines do not work. They don’t build a response to the vaccines.

Do you know of a way that the next measles outbreak will only affect those who refused vaccines? Do you know of a way that a six month old can be protected from an outbreak? After all, that child shouldn’t catch measles, he/she didn’t “chose” to avoid the vaccine, he/she was too young to be given the vaccine.

Do you know of a way for people who reject vaccines to take responsibility for the disease, harm, even deaths that can result from the diseases they spread? Will “team Jenny” compensate the children who were too young to be vaccinated against measles, but were exposed in their doctor’s offices?

If they develop SSPE (a very severe complication) years from now, will Team Jenny be there to comfort the families and compensate them for their losses?
Ms. Clark Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 6:02 pm
What Kev said. In case you missed it.
“As the parent of an autistic child I’d like to tell Jenny McCarthy to shut up. She’s doing the autism community no good whatsoever. The fact is that regarding vaccines and autism *she* is completely wrong and her continual attack on vaccines is simply distracting attention, money and research away from what our kids need.

We’re not all super-rich parents Jenny and we’re not your play thing to use as a reason to sell more books. Shut up.”

I’ll add this.

Jenny, stop exploiting your son. What you are doing is disgusting and immoral. Even more disgusting than eating vomit on camera or sitting in a pool of your own menstrual blood.
Ms. Clark Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 6:08 pm
I agree, Jenny is a “mean people” and she “sucks” big time. She’s hateful to autistic people and hateful to those who will die because of preventable outbreaks of disease. In her recent appearances on TV to promote epidemics and disease you can see she is Jenny Freakin’Stupid McCarthy.
cheryl Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 6:14 pm
I commend Jenny for standing up for her son, but she needs to keep an open mind about what causes Autism. Thiomersal has been out of vaccines for about 5 years and the number of children being diagnosed with Autism has continued to climb. With all her money she should fund her own research into the issue; then she cannot say the government is covering up the results. There have been other vaccines that after they came out The CDC and FDA found a raise in some kind of ailment and they pulled the vaccine off the shelf.
PS Another reason to not get a vaccine would be because they are allergic to dairy. (Dairy is in live vaccines)
rich Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 9:37 pm
autism in the new retard of the 70’s and 80’s. many parents are looking for an out for there mentaly handicapped child, and not looking at themselves for why the children are handicapped. thermisol has not been in vaccines in the usa for over a decade yet the hollywood type go after the big money to see who they can sue. I work with autistic kids and some do have problems but the majority of them are there parents making them this neurotic !!!!!!!!!
Nancy Says:
October 2nd, 2008 at 1:39 pm
I’m not on Jenny or Amanda’s side - Being a parent of an autistic child I believe vaccinations don’t help the situation but certainly isn’t the cause! Especially when the body of a young child/infant is growing. One day, we will find out that it is in the family genes AND it’s something in the environment. Jenny is too strong focused on “vaccinations” and I do agree that the medical society needs to reexamine the vaccations given to our children in such a short period of time in their lives.

As for Amanda’s comments - they are not even worth addressing.
CMFM Says:
October 2nd, 2008 at 2:57 pm
How dare J. McCarthy presume to speak for the autism community or for parents of autistic children. Everytime I see her on tv, I hold my nose and turn the channel. Her ‘credits’ include playboy model, potty mouthed host of MTV shows and videos, so-so actress who has found a market for herself in promoting her agenda and selling books about “curing” her son of autism. You will not find a degree in medicine, epidemiology, research science or special education on her resume. Why in gods name would anyone consider her a source for scientific information? She and her followers are doing so much more harm than they know and tv shows such as Oprah and Larry King are complicit in this antivaccine campaign.
R Says:
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:35 am
I’ve always been a fan of Jenny but I feel she’s mislead. I feel what she learned for herself she chose to believe. I’m not sure how much she educated herself on other possible causes but the vaccination theory probably made more sense to her. I’m not a big believer in the vaccine theory myself. However, I do give her A LOT of credit for being a voice on the issue. Because she spoke out with agressive force, I feel she has brought so much attention to Autism, which is what the autism community needs. Ever since she’s voiced her opinions, I’ve had more people ask me about my autistic daughter with extreme curiosity. Whether she’s right or wrong, at least some good is coming out of this.
R Says:
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:42 am
Dear rich Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 9:37 pm,

I’m so glad my child doesn’t have a therapist/teacher like you who freely throws around the word “retard”. Futhermore, to blame parents for their autistic children’s neurotic behavior is asinine. You should be fired and banned from ever talking about the autism community again.
Susan Says:
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:20 am
Vaccinations are a necessity in our world. No connection has been established to say autism is caused by anything, let alone shots that aid in keeping potentially life-threatening diseases at bay. I would hope that those involved in the anti-vaccination campaign realize the risk they put my children at because of their refusal to vaccinate.
Mare Says:
October 13th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
I’m not “team anyone”. I think Jenny like most loving parents educate themselves have the right to their opinion and conclusions based on their experience. I
don’t have to agree with them but respect their insight and efforts for trying to help their children. I’m not against vaccinations but agree that giving children who’s immunse system is barely developed 30+ shots compared to what we had is perhaps a factor in addition to other things maybe. It can be important to find the cause/causes for it’s affect mercury posioning in itself causes mental/physical symptoms like autism in a grown adult subject to the toxin. How much is related don’t know but many links and this article from Robert Kennedy does make interesting points. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/7395411/deadly_immunity/ Also why isn’t there a genetic link like they can find with most rare conditions? Is this solely a genetic exposion meaning suddenly the last 10-15 years 1 in 150 kids come up with this prior to that it was nearly unheard of? Common sense tells me personally that doesn’t make sense, something/s are going on here..
M.
maurren quijada Says:
October 25th, 2008 at 12:30 am
I think alot of parents talk trash about jenny is because her son has recover.We all want our children to recover, but putting down another parent isn’t the right way. Reading all these blogs some of you have so much anger and so little faith .We should never look to Jenny for answers she’s only a woman . When I need answers I look to god to guide me. I wish everyone would stop bashing eachother and get back helping one another .As parents we need to work together .I relly don’t think Jenny has the missing piece my son needs but I do thank her for speading AUTISM into this world. And vaccine or not I feel that as a parent I have the right to make if I want to vaccinate because I am the one provideing for my child feeding them clothing . We all have different views on vaccines.Everyone has something wrong with them we got autism let’s move on and start talking about things that are important helping our children. MJ
Cameron Scott Says:
November 5th, 2008 at 11:33 am
First off, let me begin by informing that I am a diagnosed Asperger Syndrome and it was induced by a DPT vaccine that I received in January of 1984. Ever since that day (and the severe, violent reactions that my mother bore witness to), I’ve suffered great neurological and developmental impairments, despite being able to compensate well, and consequently deceiving those around me. Personally speaking, those who are in support of the government in vaccine safety are greatly deluded, and need to do their own research (i.e. concerning the government’s financial interests with Big Pharma) and stop listening to those who put up a front with their M.D.’s and high-government positions, claiming that they “know it all.” Know and think for yourself, and no other whatsoever.
linda Says:
December 15th, 2008 at 6:09 am
OK OK, Autism is on the rise. Some people are blaming Vaccines….But, folks have a point when the say, it seems like Autism is on the rise because we have better diagnosis
standards, we can diagnose and recognize it better. Because, Autism is on the rise all over the world.
JENNY IS RIGHT, about greening are vaccines. Take the crap out of vaccines!! Righto! Why not? But…Not every child that is vaccinated, gets Autism, but it’s strange to me that some parents, have 2 to 4 Autistic children in one family. That seems Odd. Even if it is genetic. Many, many parents are claiming their child was fine, and I have seen before and after pictures, before a vaccination, or vaccinations. The evidence is compelling to me. Parents know their child better than anybody. They say SIDS maybe linked to vaccines. I have read stories about people getting their newborns vaccinated and within hours of that vaccination, fall very ill and die.
WHY the extreme vaccine schedule before the age of 2. Is it really necessary, and doesn’t it seem like a lot for a child’s body to process? I’m with Jenny nore than I am against her. I feel people should not interpret her actions as an insult or offence to the Autistic community. At least she is trying to get answers and send the message about healing your child.
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