Tag Archives: vaccines

Jenny McCarthy: “Playmate,” Co-Host on “The View,” & “Medical Expert”. Well, 2 Out of 3 Ain’t Bad.

Jenny McCarthy, Head and Shoulder

Jenny McCarthy, courtesy Playboy Enterprises

Jenny McCarthy, pictured above, is not a medical expert. After she became convinced that her son’s autism was triggered by vaccines, the actress, model, and “Playmate” associated herself with Generation Rescue, which promotes the unfounded anti-scientific belief that autism is caused by vaccines.  McCarthy has appeared on Larry King Live, in 2008, Youtube here, Oprah and currently co-hosts “The View,” a talk show on daytime television on the ABC network. ABC’s decision to hire her in this role was criticized in NJ.com, PLOS, the LA Times.

The problem is one needs nothing more than notoriety to become a pundit, and “pundits” who speak convincingly while they utter nonsense can cause real harm.

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The Lede on current ricin incident(s)

The New York Times’ blog about news coverage, The Lede, has a good piece by Patrick J. Lyons about the current Las Vegas ricin incident. “Scary Stuff That Won’t Stay in Vegas

” updates the story concisely, and provides some context:

After all, nobody is known to have been hurt so far, though seven people — the room’s occupant, three workers at the motel and three cops — have been sent to hospitals for observation, just in case they might have been exposed to the chemical in question, which was found in a package in the room. Update: The occupant of the room is in critical condition and has been hospitalized for several weeks; it now appears that it was a friend or relative who went to the room on Thursday to retrieve his belongings who found the package and reported it.. The authorities are saying they have no reason to think the episode has anything to do with terrorism.

But this wasn’t just any nasty industrial byproduct, it was ricin — the stuff of mystery novels and cloak-and-dagger schemes. And that makes everybody’s ears prick up.

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