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Plaatsvervangende schaamte

2 Jul

<blockquote>McCarthy gave a popular voice to a viewpoint that had largely been rejected by mainstream institutions – that the sharp increase in autism in recent years has an environmental cause, such as toxins in childhood vaccines.</blockquote>

<blockquote>”Jenny McCarthy is the biggest thing to happen since the word autism was coined,” says Dan Olmsted, editor of the blog Age of Autism, which attracts thousands of readers a day</blockquote>

<blockquote>Because Ackerman got McCarthy involved, Olmsted says, that view is “not out on the loony fringes any longer.”</blockquote>

Source

“Plaatsvervangende schaamte” is a Dutch phrase. In his 2003 novel ‘Helloland’, Nick Walker defines it as:

<blockquote>This means a shame in humanity. A shame in being human. You see someone acting  foolishly or stupidly and you do not laugh at him, you do not feel Schadenfreude, instead you feel a sense of humiliation  that this is how your species can behave.</blockquote>

There’s nothing else I can really add to this post, sorry.

USD Summer Autism Institute: Autism Hub panel discussion

28 Jun

Five of the hub bloggers, myself, Dad of Cameron (Autism Street), Bev (Asperger Square 8), Estee (Joy of Autism), and Steve D (One Dad’s Opinion) spoke at the University of San Diego “Summer Autism Institute”. We had been granted an hour and half to fill. We divided that time up into several small sections (Steve was officially in charge, but it was a group effort) and we each took a piece or two of the time and developed presentations to fill (or overfill, as the case may be) our time slots.
I spoke about “Bias, Stigma and Stereotyping and their Effects on Autistic People.” I also presented Kevin Leitch’s “Dear Dr. Kartzinel” video. In my next post I’ll try to explain what it was I said in presentations in more detail. For now I just wanted to share with you two photos of the 5 hub bloggers as we appeared in the afternoon. In the photos, Bev is speaking and if you look carefully you can see that her powerpoint slide displays her wallet card for understanding mysterious autistics.
When this photo was taken, I believe Bev was listening to someone in the audience ask a question. From left to right in the photo are: Estee, Steve D, Do’C, myself and then Bev, standing.

The two versions of the photo were taken by a mom from the Los Angeles area who was attending the conference. She said that the second photo was taken with a special lens she had purchased at a “Always Talk About Celebrating Krystals Now” (ATACKNow) fundraiser.

It would appear that Bev has a more deluxe and expansive crystal aura than I do. I’m jealous, but I guess that goes without saying, people carrying lots of quantum energy of the jealous type just don’t have big crystal auras. I am working on it.

I hadn’t realized that Steve D, DoC, Estee were indigos. And what about D’oC? His aura is about to go supernova or something.

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The Art of Green Our Vaccines

9 Jun

Before the “Green our Vaccines” rally (already much discussed–such as here, here, here, here, here), I spent a lot of time thinking about what sort of questions I would ask Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey if I had the chance.

I don’t know how much time Arthur Allen put into thinking about the problem, but I do know he nailed it with two succinct questions.

As part of his story on the rally, he recounts his brief opportunity to pose questions to the couple. Ms. McCarthy and Mr. Carrey passed near him at the same time that they were allowing an opportunity for “sound bites”. Art saw an opportunity and got a few quick questions in, as he recounts:

At which point I saw my opportunity and after checking for rally monitors, asked, “How many vaccines, exactly, is too many?”

“Too Many, Too Soon” is the slogan. It’s on the back of about 500 T-Shirts (with one each on Jenny and Jim). Given that, you’d think they’d have a damned good answer. At the very least, a reasonable, on-topic “sound bite”. Instead they answered (again as recounted by Art):

“In 1983,” McCarthy said, “our kids only got 10 vaccines. Now it’s 36” (actually, it’s 28, max, by age 2). I asked, “So should they only be getting 10? Which ones shouldn’t they get?” I saw McCarthy turning and asking someone, “Who is this guy?” Carrey responded, gamely. “Kids aren’t a bottomless pit you can pour toxins into, there has to be a limit,” he said.

Was that a sound bite or were they just caught flat-footed? Thankfully, Art had a great followup question which shows us the answer:

“So what’s a vaccine they shouldn’t get?” I asked. “A lot of parents of autistic children would have opted not to get the tetanus shot,” he said.

Huh?!? Tetanus? Wow, did I miss the Andy Wakefield study on Tetanus in the guts of autistic kids? Or, was it the Mady Hornig rats with Tetanus study? No, wait, isn’t the Generation Rescue motto, “It’s the tetanus, stupid”?

The answers are “no” to all of the above.

Generation Rescue (who have Jenny as their board-member/spokesperson) doesn’t mention “tetanus” at all on their vaccine page. As in, no “tetanus vaccines cause autism” statements. However, in the link to their “favorite” vaccine schedule (which is a recipe for disaster in this person’s eye), they include tetanus. Yep, they “recommend” kids get tetanus shots. In their number II recommended schedule, they include tetanus 5 times, starting at 2 months (is that “too soon”? as in “too many too soon”?). Their number III (and final) schedule has tetanus 3 times.

Is it possble the Generation Rescue spokespeople don’t know about their own recommended vaccine schedules? Is it possible that in months of planning, Jim and Jenny never prepared for what is one of the most obvious questions?

Jenny. McCarthy has awarded herself an honorary doctorate from Google U in vaccines and autism. From the above exchange with Arthur Allen, it looks like she and Mr. Carrey just failed their “Google SAT” in the “alt-med” view of autism and vaccines. (Let’s not even go down the path of how badly they would fail the entrance exam to Google kindergarden on the actual science of autism and vaccines.)

Don’t look for them to get caught like this by a journalist again. First, don’t expect real journalists to get access often. If they do, all future questions will likely be met with “Generation Rescue has some alternate schedules on their website”. (without noting that “alternate schedule” means “measles outbreaks are Jim-Dandy”).

This time, however, there was a real journalist and he caught them unprepared. Now we know that Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey have basically no depth to their understanding of even the alt-med version of vaccines and autism. Anyone surprised?

But, hey, the day wasn’t a complete waste for Jenny. Access Hollywood named Jim and her the “Green Couple of the Week”. Can someone find this Grand Award on the Access Hollywood website? I admit I didn’t try hard (I’m not trying for a Google Ph.D. in “Access Hollywood”), but is this a…dare we say it….fake award? Sorta like Dr. Corbier and the “Rock Award”? (OK, that one is kinda obscure–tossed in for those who followed the Omnibus too closely.)

Which leads me to the last thought–Jenny has a Google Ph.D. and a fake award…heck, if she could just use the library and go to a couple parties at UCSF, she could be an expert witness for the Autism Omnibus. (Think Vera Byers).

Art, should you read this, I (without consultation with anyone) award you the “LeftBrainRightBrain” Award for Excellence in Journalism. For those who will accuse me of making it up right now–ha!, I made it up a few weeks ago and secretly gave it to AutismNewsBeat.

Green our vaccines?

21 Apr

Jenny McCarthy:

I am surely not going to tell anyone to vaccinate. But if I had another child, there’s no way in hell…….for my next kid — which I’m never going to have — there’s no way.

Thus speaks the woman who claims she is not anti-vaccine and not intending to spread an anti-vaccine agenda.

In June this year she will be spearheading a rally to carry the message of ‘green our vaccines’. Said message is apparently all about making vaccines ‘cleaner’ (???) reducing the number of them and spacing them out. No scientific reason for this of course.

When asked, the ‘green our vaccines’ leadership claim that they are not _anti_ vaccine – just pro _safe_ vaccine. Uh-huh. And which vaccines are ‘safe’ according to the ‘green our vaccines’ committee? Well, it seems that Jenny McCarthy thinks that answer to that is ‘none’. She will never vaccinate again. No way in hell.

Some people think that the ‘green our vaccines’ message is a trojan horse.

I’m against vaccines, but I feel that “greening our vaccines” is a step in the right direction. Because I realized that more people will be open to hearing the message “green our vaccines” rather than “no more vaccines”. In the beginning I couldn’t imagine scrapping vaccines altogether, but in time I transformed. I think the public
needs to digest this one bite at a time.

Greening of the vaccines is only half of the issue, people need to wake up and see that there is no such thing as a safe vaccine…

I agree with you that there will never likely be a “safe” vaccine, but the only good thing I see about talking about “safer” vaccines, is that this makes it more “palatable” for some and more likely that this news gets out into the mainstream. People are more comfortable dealing with “too much, too soon”, rather than with “none at all”. It gets the vaccine issue a foot in the door, so to speak, into the mainstream media

………..

Hopefully, the “Green Our Vaccines” campaign will get the ball rolling and get this info to more people, to get them thinking and talking about vaccine safety issues. Whether there is such a thing as “safe vaccines” will need to follow after that initial discussion.

….parents do need to come to the conclusion that vaccines are useless and harmful, on their own, through their own thinking and research

I agree that “Green the vacines” is more palatable to the general populace and that is the ‘message’ Jenny and TACA have chosen. I think the approach is ingenious and fits right into the times of global warming and greening everything.

……………

I think green the vaccines ultimately leads to NO vaccines but agreed it must be done in steps.

…………..

We could hopefully all agree that the goal is to STOP damaging children whether that will take greening or incinerating vaccines, that is still the ultimate goal.

These messages are from an active discussion on the EoH Yahoo Group. And after all, why wouldn’t this be the message? Jenny McCarthy quite obviously does _not_ believe in vaccination.

In my opinion the whole ‘green our vaccines’ campaign is very much a trojan horse. We all know how groups associated with this campaign really feel about vaccines. We know how Jenny McCarthy feels about vaccines and we can see what the ‘rank and file’ really think about both vaccines and what the ‘green our vaccines’ campaign is really all about.

Thankfully, the opinion of McCarthy as a less than stellar representative for science is a widely held mainstream one. On Gawker for example, her recent embarrassing performance on Larry King was described as:

Larry King had noted medical expert/softcore video star Jenny McCarthy on the program last night to talk about AUTISM. Specifically, how it’s caused by VACCINATING YOUR CHILDREN. This is patent conspiratorial nonsense, but it’s very popular conspiratorial nonsense. Of course, in a battle between concerned, credulous parents and medical experts, the media will generally frame it as, say, Debate Rages Anew on Vaccine-Autism Link. Faced with a panel of three trained pediatricians, Ms. McCarthy shouted “BULLSHIT” twice.

and Jossip said:

Jenny McCarthy believes common medical vaccinations cause autism in children. And you know what she thinks of your opinions if you disagree? Bullshit! At least that’s what she yelled last night while berating three doctors trying to reason with her on Larry King Live.

Ouch.

Now, whilst it might be mildly amusing to see how real people in the real world (those unconnected with either the vaccine, autism or vaccine/autism debates) consider the opinions of McCarthy it shouldn’t be forgotten or swept aside that its not just about the mercury. Its not even just about the autism. Its about the vaccines. When Jenny McCarthy tells you she wants to ‘green our vaccines’ then ask her exactly what that means and why she won’t ever vaccinate another child of hers.

Jenny McCarthy Again

2 Oct

McCarthy was at the latest TACA bunfight recently and took to the stage to give the crowd some of her patented Sale Increasing Controversial Big Fat Mouth. Her victim was a long time favourite of American news, Barbara Walters (whos now deceased sister was born ‘developmentally disabled).

About 3:15 today at the picnic on main stage jenny mccarthy in the most lisa ackerman style of feisty adorable commented that barabara walters said our kids CANT EVER GET BETTER and called her a bitch and said something about naysayers can stick her microphone up their BUTTS!
PRICELESS. This is perfect way to get sensationalistic 6:00 news attention to get this aired NOW!!!!!!!

Isn’t that lovely? I hope all those who were puzzled by the series of posts on here decrying Mccarthy’s self-appointed role as autism advocate can begin to appreciate why I – and plenty of others – feel as we do. That McCarthy is doing no favours to the autism community with this sort of behaviour. of course, some people, even within TACA realize this probably isn’t the best course of action:

What Jenny said at the picnic was for the benefit for TACA families, not for the 6 o’clock news or Entertainment Tonight. Jenny is doing a beautiful job of being our spokesperson, so let’s let her publicist and TACA’s publicist handle the media for right now. I know it was exciting stuff but let’s let this issue rest for now.

Well, no, actually. I don’t want to let the issue rest. This person has appointed herself spokesperson not just for TACA but apparently for autism itself. She needs to back off, grow up and start thinking about her actions for those of us without a celebrity income. Calling someone ‘a bitch’ at en event that you _know_ will be covered by the media is a stupid thing to do and gives the general public the idea that we’re all as childish as Jenny McCarthy. I would like once again to distance myself from this person publicly.

In the meantime, please enjoy this blog entry I found today. I don’t know who it is but I liked it.

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