[LChoy]

Junk science has a new cover girl

Last Wednesday it was announced that Oprah signed McCarthy to a deal, starting with a blog on the Oprah Web site. Though neither woman's people will confirm details of the deal, it will presumably lead to a talk show, as it did for Rachael Ray and Dr. Phil, two other Oprah proteges. Perhaps not every episode of a McCarthy show will address vaccines and autism, but some surely will.

There is abundant evidence that vaccines don't cause autism. More than a dozen studies, as well as trend data from California and other states, show that neither the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal nor the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism. In March, a federal court dismissed both of these theories in a most definitive way after hearing weeks of testimony and gathering thousands of pages of evidence.

Jenny McCarthy begs to differ. McCarthy dropped out of nursing school in 1993 to become a Playboy bunny and later starred in an MTV show that focused on her bodily functions. She believes that vaccines made her seven-year-old son autistic--and that she "recovered" him with alternative therapies, as she details in her parenting books. McCarthy has appeared regularly on Larry King Live and Oprah to blast the medical establishment, and last year she led a march on Washington to demand that children get fewer vaccines.


http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=1586402

Great...
Oprah's worldwide influence will really affect this controvesy. It seems like anything Oprah touches becomes popular. This might really decrease vaccination rates. Not a good move