Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All (24 page)

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Authors: Paul A. Offit M.D.

BOOK: Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All
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In 2005, McCarthy changed her mind. She abandoned her tarot-card predictions and embraced the notion that her son was autistic and that vaccines were responsible. On September 18, 2007, in front of millions of viewers on
Oprah
, she described the moment that changed her life: “Right before my son got the MMR shot I said to the doctor, ‘I have a very bad feeling about this shot. This is the autism shot, isn’t it?’ And he said, ‘No! That is ridiculous. It is a mother’s desperate attempt to blame something on autism.’ And he swore at me. And then the nurse gave him that shot. And I remember going, ‘Oh, God, no!’ And soon thereafter I noticed a change. The soul was gone from his eyes.” By 2007, researchers had published several studies showing that MMR didn’t cause autism; McCarthy was unconvinced. “My science is Evan, and he’s at home,” she said. “That’s my science.”
Jenny McCarthy with then husband John Asher at a party at the Playboy mansion. McCarthy has become America’s most-recognized anti-vaccine activist. (Courtesy of Kenneth Johansson/Corbis.)
Using the fame of her
Playboy
and movie career, McCarthy soon became America’s most recognized anti-vaccine crusader.
 
In many ways, Jenny McCarthy and Barbara Loe Fisher are similar. Both dramatize their personal stories in vivid, heart-wrenching terms. Where Fisher describes her son’s learning disabilities as brain damage, McCarthy likens certain symptoms of her son’s autism to death. When asked during an interview on CNN whether her campaign against vaccines could result in children dying from preventable infections, McCarthy said, “People are also dying from vaccination. Evan, my Evan, my son died in front of me for two minutes.” McCarthy also shares Fisher’s disdain for public health officials and pharmaceutical companies. “I think they need to wake up and stop hurting our kids,” she said. Finally, both Fisher and McCarthy continually reshape their messages to fit the style of the time. Fisher switched from a campaign against pertussis vaccine to one against all vaccines, claiming they caused chronic diseases. McCarthy, supported by environmental activists like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Don and Deirdre Imus, later decided that her son’s autism wasn’t caused by MMR. It was caused by vaccine toxins—specifically, mercury, aluminum, and anti-freeze. (McCarthy later undercut her stop-injecting-toxins-into-our-bodies message by saying, “I love Botox. I absolutely love it. I get it minimally, so I can still move my face. But I really do think it’s a savior.” Made by the bacterium that causes botulism,
bo
tulinum
tox
in [Botox] is one of the world’s most powerful toxins.)
 
Although Jenny McCarthy and Barbara Loe Fisher are alike in several ways, their differences are striking.
Unlike Fisher, McCarthy often resorts to profanity. On April 1, 2009, Jeffrey Kluger, a veteran scientific correspondent, interviewed McCarthy for
Time
magazine. Kluger, who had recently written a popular book about the polio vaccine, asked, “What about the polio clusters in unvaccinated communities like the Amish in the United States? What about the 2004 outbreak that swept across Africa and Southeast Asia after a single province in northern Nigeria banned vaccines?” McCarthy replied, “I do believe sadly it’s going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe. If the vaccine companies are not listening to us, it’s their fucking fault that the diseases are coming back. They’re making a product that’s shit. If you give us a safe vaccine, we’ll use it. It shouldn’t be polio versus autism.” Kluger also asked McCarthy about the measles vaccine. “And yet in many cases, vaccines have effectively eliminated diseases,” he said. “Measles is among the top five killers in the world of children under five years old, yet it kills virtually no one in the United States thanks to vaccines.” McCarthy replied, “If you ask a parent of an autistic child if they want the measles or the autism, we will stand in line for the fucking measles.”
Unlike Fisher, McCarthy is comfortable dispensing medical advice. In a fifteen-minute video designed for parents, she explains what causes autism and how to treat it: “Autism is a toxic overload. And one of the things I want you to write down and then put on your refrigerator are just five things: food, supplementation, detox, medicines, and positive thinking.” McCarthy starts with food, explaining that children should avoid gluten (wheat, barley, or rye) and casein (dairy products). “When you can’t break it down,” she says, “they get stoned, which accounts for their moods, their spaciness, their addiction for things. The mom says he just has to have his twelve cups of milk a day; he just has to have his mac and cheese. Well, no kidding. You know, I really liked my marijuana in college, too. When they want that milk and they want that wheat, you’re giving them a joint.”
Although both McCarthy and Fisher openly despise pharmaceutical companies, McCarthy promotes their products. On her video describing how to treat autism, McCarthy says, “Some of our kids can’t absorb the nutrients that we give them so they have to be supplemented. Some of the multi-vitamins that I like are Super Nu-Thera® that can be found at Kirkman Laboratories. [McCarthy displays a picture of Super Nu-Thera® followed by Kirkman’s Web site.] Culturelle® you can find at any pharmacy; it’s over-the-counter. ThreeLac® is one of my favorites because it’s a probiotic that also eats yeast and pretty much recovered Evan. Also found at Kirkman. If you’re unsure about dosage, ask your pediatrician; but most of the time they don’t know anything. So I would say ask someone at Kirkman.” At the end of the video, McCarthy promotes another pharmaceutical company with the statement, “For more information about vitamins visit
www.kartnerhealth.com
.” According to McCarthy’s logic, then, those who promote vaccines are evil because they’re fronting for products that gross $17 billion a year; while those who promote supplements are virtuous because they’re fronting for products—almost all of which are of unproved efficacy—that gross $80 billion a year.
Perhaps the most important difference between Jenny McCarthy and Barbara Loe Fisher is their backers. Both are heartily endorsed by personal-injury lawyers with much to gain from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program; but McCarthy, not Fisher, is supported by a wealthy financier. On April 3, 2009, she appeared on
Larry King Live
. At the end of her segment, King asked, “Jenny, you have a Web site. What is it?” Although McCarthy has her own Web site, she didn’t mention it. “
Generationrescue.org
,” she said. “You can go there for more information.”
Generation Rescue was started by a venture capitalist named J. B. Handley, who believes his son’s autism was caused by thimerosal in vaccines. Like McCarthy, Handley has a cure: chelation, a potentially dangerous therapy of unproved efficacy that helps rid the body of heavy metals like mercury and lead. (In 2005, a five-year-old autistic boy died during chelation in suburban Pittsburgh.) To proselytize the miracle of chelation, Handley recruited a group of parents to spread the word, calling them Rescue Angels. Generation Rescue’s mission is, in part, to “gather the information that currently exists about mercury toxicity and publicize the truth so parents can make the best decision to help their children heal.” The key word in Generation Rescue’s mission statement is
publicize
. On June 8, 2005, Handley’s organization took out a full-page ad in the
New York Times
. At the top of the page, in bold, black type, the ad declared, “MERCURY POISONING AND AUTISM: IT ISN’T JUST A COINCIDENCE.” On April 6, 2006, Handley’s organization took out another full-page ad, this time in
USA Today
. Written in letters two inches high, the ad angrily stated, “IF YOU CAUSED A 6,000% INCREASE IN AUTISM WOULDN’T YOU TRY TO COVER IT UP, TOO? IT’S TIME FOR THE CDC TO COME CLEAN WITH THE AMERICAN PUBLIC.” On February 25, 2009, Generation Rescue took out yet another full-page ad in
USA Today
. This time Handley wanted to alert the public about Bailey Banks, a boy whose parents had claimed that vaccines had caused his autism. “A LITTLE BOY SHOULDN’T HAVE TO TAKE ON AN ENTIRE INDUSTRY ALONE. IT’S TIME THE GOVERNMENT TOLD THE TRUTH ABOUT CHILDHOOD VACCINES.” Each of these ads costs as much as $180,000. Generation Rescue is an advertising arm of the anti-vaccine movement.
Apparently McCarthy’s stance against vaccines impressed Handley. So, in 2009, “Generation Rescue” became “Jenny McCarthy’s Autism Organization—Generation Rescue,” complete with pictures of and messages from McCarthy.
Handley brought something to the anti-vaccine movement that hadn’t been seen before: personal intimidation. He didn’t just rail against journalists or professional societies or vaccine advocates; he sued them or sent them hate-filled emails or maintained Web sites to vilify them or screamed at them on national television. On CBS’s daytime program
The Doctors
, Handley, appearing with McCarthy, attacked the show’s host, Dr. Travis Stork. Stork was convinced by studies that had exonerated vaccines as a cause of autism; Handley wasn’t:
STORK:
In my opinion—and this is just me wanting to have an open debate about this—vaccines are really the one thing we
have
looked at as causing autism.
HANDLEY:
That is completely bogus! That is such a bogus statement!
STORK:
No, that’s ...
HANDLEY:
How many vaccines have they looked at in these studies?! How many?! What’s the answer?! I’m so sick of doctors who don’t read the studies, who don’t know the details sitting here telling parents and reassuring them that vaccines don’t cause autism. It’s irresponsible.
 
Stork was angry that Handley had chosen to characterize doctors as uncaring and falsely reassuring.
STORK:
And this is the biggest problem, and the reason that doctors in this country are frustrated.
HANDLEY:
Read the science!
STORK:
All you’re doing is you’re antagonizing a medical community that wants to help these kids. OK?
HANDLEY:
You haven’t done the research.
STORK:
You’re antagonizing me. Why would you do that?
HANDLEY:
Because my son was ...
 
J. B. Handley takes on Dr. Travis Stork on an episode of
The Doctors
, May 6, 2009. (Courtesy of
The Doctors
, Stage 29 Productions, and CBS Television Distributions.)
STORK:
OK! Everyone wants to blame someone, right? What we’re trying to figure out here is how to help kids. But all you do when you yell at me on my stage, all you do is anger me.
HANDLEY:
I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, but you don’t know the details.
STORK:
I asked you to defend your stance, and all you did was attack me as an individual. Why would I want to listen to you when you do that to me?
On an anti-vaccine Web site, Handley boasted about his ability to take on doctors. “I’m not intimidated by any of these jokers,” he wrote. “Their degrees mean zippo to me, because I knew plenty of knuckleheads in college who went on to be doctors, and they’re still knuckleheads.”
Later in
The Doctors
program Stork revealed how, on the strength of McCarthy’s star power, she had rigged the show.
MCCARTHY:
Go call the AAP [American Academy of Pediatrics] and see if they’ll sit down with us and they’ll say, ‘No, tell them to write a letter.’
STORK:
Let me just say this openly to everyone. You know, we wanted to have someone from the AAP here today, but you refused to allow them to come. So if you want to engage them in a debate, they would have been here.

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