On February 17, 2012 I wrote an article — When Doctors Fire Patients — that dealt with, among other things, the anti-vaccination efforts of some people — led by debunked semi-celebrity Jenny McCarthy — who believe childhood immunizations cause Autism even though there is, and has never been, any empirical medical proof for that claim. When pressed for scientific evidence, the anti-vaccine believers simply talk about “mother’s intuition” and other nonsense that not only puts their non-immunized children at risk for disease, but the rest of society at risk as well as these unprotected children become certain carriers of diseases that should have been eradicated from the face of the earth.
When I wrote my original article, there was a website dedicated to the evil efforts of Jenny McCarthy and her ilk called JennyMcCarthyBodyCount.com — that has now morphed into AntiVaccineBodyCount.com — and here is their latest count of Autism-inducing infant vaccinations: Zero.
Here’s the original body count when the site was dedicated to Jenny McCarthy.
Also, of course — Zero! — cases.
All this sort of Jenny McCarthy anti-vaccine nonsense got very reporting this week in the UK with a record 3,200 measles outbreak this year and last caused by parents who refused to vaccinate their infants:
This year, the U.K. has had more than 1,200 cases of measles, after a record number of nearly 2,000 cases last year. The country once recorded only several dozen cases every year. It now ranks second in Europe, behind only Romania.
The majority of those getting sick in the U.K. — including a significant number of older children and teens — had never been vaccinated. […]
Across the U.K., about 90 percent of children under 5 are vaccinated against measles and have received the necessary two doses of the vaccine. But among children now aged 10 to 16, the vaccination rate is slightly below 50 percent in some regions.
To stop measles outbreaks, more than 95 percent of children need to be fully immunized. In some parts of the U.K., the rate is still below 80 percent.
I’m not sure how we battle celebrity charlatans who think they are medical doctors when they are not and they abuse their fame and status to not only spread lies, but deadly lies at that. If not for their celebrity, these people would never be heard in the din of a public forum, but because of their ubiquitousness, they have a certain power that influences numb minds with untruths that put all of society in danger. How can we undo damage by a dedicated dagger?
When these celebrities are forever proven wrong — will they recant their lies and take back their previous damaging campaigns — or will they just continue to enjoy their faux popularity with the masses pretending that they never said anything of the sort and that even the most evil mistakes will one day be forgiven in the glow of a beautiful face that is never apologetic, but always apoplectic?