Jenny McCarthy’s new war on science: Vaccines, autism and the media’s shame

[Douglas Carpenter]

The vaccine/autism conversation has been abetted by a media determined to pose everything as a conflict

by Elena Conis for salon.com


Jenny McCarthy on "The View" (Credit: ABC)

Autism reporting and mother warriors

The IOM committee took on the feared link between MMR vaccine and autism as its first order of business, convening a meeting in March 2001 and releasing its conclusions a month later. Looking closely at the existing research, the scientists on the panel didn’t find much to implicate the MMR vaccine, but they did find much to exonerate it. To begin with, the MMR vaccine was licensed long before prevalence of autism spectrum disorders began to climb. Eight different epidemiological studies showed no association between MMR vaccination and autism. These studies didn’t definitively disprove a causal relationship, but at the same time, the single study suggesting a link between vaccines and autism—Wakefield’s study—failed to prove a causal relationship. Epidemiological evidence aside, there was also no good biological model to explain how MMR vaccines could contribute to autism, in either lab animals or humans. The likelihood of a causal relationship, the committee concluded, seemed remote.

In 2004 the IOM committee revisited the connection between vaccines and autism, in order to take into account the most recent research. This time, they reported that they had found no support for a causal relationship between the two. Media reports had adopted a reassuring tone when the IOM released its 2001 report: “Parents worried about the potential links between one of the most common [vaccines] and autism can rest easier tonight,” said network news anchor Tom Brokaw. But the tone of media reports on the occasion of the IOM’s 2004 findings reflected a noteworthy shift. Some reports were defensive. On ”60 Minutes,” CDC immunization adviser and pediatric infectious disease specialist Paul Offit not only disputed the vaccine-autism link; he emphasized that vaccines were “without question, the safest, best-tested thing we put into our bodies. . . . [T]hey have a better safety record than vitamins, a better safety record than cough-and-cold preparations, a better safety record than antibiotics.” Still other reports suggested that scientific assurances were now beside the point. While scientists say it’s “clear” that vaccines don’t cause autism, said NBC news reporter Robert Bazell, “for some parents, the doubts will always linger.” Scientific conclusions, reassuring in 2001, were now no salve for parental fears. The vaccine-autism story, clearly, would not be put to rest. In fact, it only became more prevalent as the decade progressed. U.S. newspapers mentioned the link four hundred times in 2001 and more than three thousand times in 2009. And there were five times the number of evening news stories on the link in 2010 than there had been in 2001.

http://www.salon.com/2014/11/08/jenny_mccarthys_new_war_on_science_vaccines_autism_and_the_medias_shame/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

[Chemisse]

1. Interesting article.

[pnwmom]

2. Didn't Jenny McCarthy drop this a few years ago?

[msanthrope]

3. She won't ever be allowed to drop it. And that's a good thing. nt

[Odin2005]

4. I hate this woman with every fiber of my being.

[spanone]

5. stupid gets equal billing with science is americaland