Jenny McCarthy's new site

[halleyscomet]

The lead cheerleader for the anti-vaccine movement has a new web site about how evil she thinks vaccines are.

www.generationrescue.org/misinformation.html

If vaccines using a mercury based preservative cause Autism and they were in use form the 1930's on, why are Autism rates only rising NOW???

Comments

[quezz]

AAAAHHHHHHH!

Now I see why polio's making a comeback!

[halleyscomet]

Because a hot blond with huge tracts of land says vaccines are bad.

[quezz]

Yeah. What she did to her son was child abuse. She's a moron who doesn't accept her kid.

[hammercock]

Argh. If only their stupidity affected only themselves!

[epilimnion]

I believe the rise in autism rates has to do with both the continuing development of our understanding of the disorder and the resultant fleshing out of the diagnostic parameters, as well as the sociological and educational attitudes toward autism. My brother is severely autistic. Int he early 80s, when he was put into the special education system, Bettleheim's "refrigerator mother" explanation had not been largely abandoned and there were virutally no strategies developed for early intervention or any kind of therapy to mitigate the symptoms of autism. So, autism was pretty much a dead-end diagnosis. Doctors were very reluctant to go for it (and parents were loathe to accept it), and often progressed through a number of other assessments (pervasive developmental disorder being my personal favortie. It essentially means the kid's development is messed up across the board.) My brother went through this whole progression, and was only given the autism diagnosis as he approached adolescence

[browngirl]

*nod* This analysis makes a lot of sense to me.

[tamidon]

I don't have the cite,but i read somewhere a few years ago. Apparently the diagnosis of "mental retardation" has dropped in a nearly equal amount that "autism" has risen. There aren't more autistics,just more proper diagnosis. an interesting idea. I have a cousin a few years younger than me who is mentally retarded,and it makes me think.

[halleyscomet]

The sad thing is, a shift in how "Autism spectrum" disorders are diagnosed has resulted in people with poor math and logic skills spinning it as an epidemic. Once you have an epidemic people become desperate for a cause.

[howlgirl]

Babies are given more vaccines than ever before. Every time they add a new vaccine to the list of required shots the incidents of autism also increase

[halleyscomet]

Oh

My

God

Rabbit stem cells????

I'd not heard of this. How can these quacks sleep at night? Do they believe the garbage they're selling or are they truly that amoral and heartless?

[petardier]

I heard somewhere that older parents are more likely to have autistic children. If the age at which people are having children is rising, that might explain the increase.

[halleyscomet]

The age at which people are having children IS rising. There's also some research indicating that once either parent hits 40, the risk of a genetic disorder rises and continues to rise the older the parent gets.