Glutenous Maximus

Remember a few months back when I managed to piss off every pothead in the continental United States? Well, that was nothing compared to the wrath I'm now drawing from the celiac disease-suffering community.

My silly little rant yesterday about Jennifer Esposito's fight with CBS over what she claims is the network's discrimination against her because of her struggle with celiac must've been posted on a celiac support website somewhere because over the past several hours I've been pummeled with tweets from people with handles like "@GlutenDude" and "@WheatFree" letting me know in no uncertain terms what an asshole I am and how I should do my research before running my mouth off. Mary Beth Williams is also getting an earful from people who seem to think that we both were ignorantly dismissive of what's in reality a very serious condition.

Look, I was a dick -- I admit that. It's what I do around here a good portion of the time. But both Mary Beth's and my point wasn't that celiac isn't a real disease and that it doesn't cause pain and lead to lifestyle issues for a lot of people. Our argument was basically that by conflating celiac with the more frivolous aspects of a recent dietary fad, it's people like Esposito who may be diminishing the disease and making it easier for those not affected by it to believe that it's not a big deal. Put it this way: For a lot of people -- certainly the Gwyneth Paltrows of the world -- going gluten-free is a choice and nothing more, while for celiac sufferers it's often a necessity. But if you're one of those people who actually has celiac and you incessantly preach gluten-free to everybody -- irrespective of whether they need it -- by making the claim that it'll make them feel less bloated and icky, you're essentially making it appear as if your reasons for not eating glutens have little to do with the actual disease. You're carelessly combining a serious subject with one that's not at all serious and risking being eyed with suspicion.

A friend of mine said it best in a text to me a few minutes ago: You don't see Michael J. Fox out there talking about how you can lose 20-pounds with Parkinson's.

As for trends in medical diagnoses, they absolutely happen -- and not simply because the medical community becomes more "aware" of the disease. Sure, it becomes aware -- and so do millions of average people who then begin self-diagnosing and going to doctors who, provided it's not deadly serious, often shrug their shoulders, issue a tepid, "Eh, could very well be," and, bingo, you're being treated for the disease, syndrome, disorder, etc. Granted it really gets out of hand when there's a commercial out there telling you to "ask your doctor if you have" whatever-the-hell because Madison Avenue has invented a clever acronymic name for an often bullshit condition that Big Pharma has already created a pill to cure. But inject any medical issue into the pop culture blood stream by way of Oprah, People Magazine, and so on -- inevitably leading to mass-media ubiquity -- and you'll suddenly have everybody in our scared shitless, hypochondriac nation checking WebMD to see if the symptoms fit how they're feeling.

Awareness of a medical condition is often a double-edged sword. That's just how it is and how things work now in our media culture. As for going gluten-free, I stand by my original statement, with one caveat: If you're one of those pretentious assholes who's militant in his or her rejection of glutens -- and you're not suffering from a disease like celiac -- just shut the fuck up and eat already.

Assistant Quote of the Day

"See, this is an issue. If you’re talking in one breath about a serious, debilitating disease and advocating that anyone who suspects they have it see a doctor, that’s a world apart from suggesting someone self-diagnose a 'problem' because she could 'lose almost 20 pounds.' It doesn’t help alleviate 'the general disregard' for a disease you’re trying to get people to take seriously. There are already a whole lot of people out there jumping on the gluten-free bandwagon as this month’s Atkins diet — and even more, who don’t understand the distinction between a severe food intolerance and a 'Yeaaaaah, cookies make me bloaty.'"

-- Salon's Mary Beth Williams on gluten-free militant Jennifer Esposito's battle with CBS over claims the network didn't take her "celiac disease" seriously

Back when the whole Atkins diet was turning America into a nation of preachy, particular, overbearing assholes, I joked that I was gonna write a book called Shut the Fuck Up and Eat. The premise of the book would be based on common sense: Eat a little of everything in moderation, get some exercise and you'll be healthy and fit -- no big mystery there.

The whole gluten-free thing is the latest ridiculous food trend to put a stranglehold on our cultural imagination and of course the disciples of it proselytizing the loudest are the people who can most afford flights of fancy wherein they frivolously decide to chop an entire food group out of their diets: Hollywood celebrities. People like the insufferably aristocratic Gwyneth Paltrow. People like the comically melodramatic Jennifer Esposito. Must be nice.

Look, no one's saying celiac disease isn't real, only that it's now fashionable. The number of cases of it have indeed increased over the past few years but that's very likely because impressionable Oprah fans -- the kind of people who can't go ten minutes without consulting a self-help book to guide their decision-making -- are going to their overwhelmed and exhausted doctors in droves with a self-diagnosis already in mind. This is often the reason diseases -- as well as the various "disorders" and "syndromes" that now apparently plague our country -- can become medical trends.

Chris Rock said it best: "We got so much food in America we're allergic to food. Allergic to food. Hungry people ain't allergic to shit. You think anyone in Rwanda's got a fucking lactose intolerance?"

I stand by my statement from years ago: Shut the fuck up and eat.

Or at the very least, just shut the fuck up.

No Mother Hubbard

While we're on the subject of celebrity pseudo-science around here today, I feel like it's been a dereliction of duty on my part that I haven't even bothered bringing up the impending divorce of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. It's not like I care much about Hollywood marriages, but ones that involve Scientology are both fascinating and revolting to me -- no way around that.

Since I've written quite a bit about Scientology before -- the truly conspiracy-minded have even suggested that it was my 2008 column in the Huffington Post about Anonymous's war on the "religion" that got me fired from CNN -- I've been paying some attention to all the little Scientology-related details that have emerged in the wake of last week's Tom-and-Katie split announcement. Obviously, there's the rumor that Holmes bailed when Cruise decided that he wanted to enroll their young daughter in either the "Sea Org" or one of L. Ron's other strict indoctrination programs; the spooky black SUVs that have mysteriously appeared outside Holmes's place in New York City and which have seemed to follow her everywhere since the split; the claim that Holmes said being married to Cruise was like being Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby; the list goes on and on.

While I could easily publish another acerbic, long-winded diatribe about the dangerous lunacy that is Scientology, my favorite thing about this particular topic is that I don't have to. Nobody does. Yes, Paul Haggis's extended and revealing takedown of the group, its ridiculous cosmology, and its cult-like tactics, from the inside out, was excellent -- and there's been plenty of other terrific stuff written about the insanity of Scientology. But in the end, nothing tells you everything you need to know about Scientology like ten minutes of Tom Cruise talking about it himself. I've said it before but it bears repeating yet again: I go back and watch this video clip every once in a while simply because it's just that fucking crazy. It's rare to see a movie star -- someone whose every move is generally reduced to inoffensive homogenization by an army of publicists -- allowing himself to go this far off the rails. This image of Cruise, the one we were never meant to see but which millions of us now have, should never at any point be separated from the carefully crafted, entirely bullshit image his Hollywood handlers would have us believe. The next time you see Tom Cruise acting demure and humble and otherwise behaving seemingly normal during a press junket for one of his movies, remember, this is the real him: all bukkaked with crazy via the jet-fuel semen of L. Ron Hubbard; an entire dictionary of silly, official-sounding acronymic lingo blared through an amp cranked to 11.

This is what he's momentarily tamping down for public consumption. This is what he's dying to unleash.

DXM History Repeats: Celebrity Pseudoscience

A quick diversion as we continue our look back through the subjects I've hit on again and again over the last five years here at DXM. From Oprah, to Jenny McCarthy, to Dr. Robert Lanza, to Arianna Huffington -- whom I write for quite a bit -- one thing I can't even pretend to tolerate is the proliferation of bullshit celebrity pseudoscience in our culture. This should be obvious to anyone who's followed DXM even semi-regularly since its inception. The following is a pretty good piece when it comes to addressing this ongoing trend because not only does it lay out my thoughts on the subject pretty clearly, it also links to several of the other columns that have appeared here related to celebrities, their touting of holistic remedies, and their arrogant belief that they know what's better for your health than you and your doctor.

The DXM Fifth Birthday Jubilee

Topic: Celebrity Pseudoscience

Number of Posts: 39

"Medicine Bull" (Originally Published, 3.19.10)

Patton Oswalt does a great bit on his most recent album where he smacks down his "Whole Foods friends" who insist that he and his pregnant wife should give their child a natural home birth. He basically makes the point that back when women had no choice but to have babies at home and without today's conveniences, you know what they dreamed of? "Hospitals! Weird, fantastical, futuristic buildings full of clean white sheets -- and doctors with needles full of magic liquid that make the pain not happen!"

This is what I think of whenever I hear somebody relentlessly proclaim the power of holistic, all-natural folk remedies and tout them as a superior alternative to the modern medicine practiced by doctors with actual degrees. As if the earliest settlers who first came up with the idea of swallowing blackstrap molasses and apple cider vinegar to cure everything from joint pain to full blown cancer knew anything about fucking anything. It's ironic that there's an entire genus of lunatic out there these days that eschews hundreds of years of medical advancements out of inexplicable fear and superstition in favor of taking the advice of people who were fearful of and superstitious about pretty much everything. Sure, they probably would've been afraid of an injection that had been proven to cure polio, but that's only because they would've thought it was witchcraft. We're supposed to know better by now.

I bring this up because, as much as I'm a fan of the Huffington Post -- important given that I write for them regularly -- the heat that the site's Living section continues to take over its advocating of crap science is entirely justified. I already mentioned that the only thing I've ever submitted to HuffPo that's been turned down flat was my admittedly caustic screed against anti-vaccine militant Jenny McCarthy; I also took a minor shot here at a piece that HuffPo ran late last year from a doctor who was pushing a "new theory" that amounted to nothing more than meta-physical nonsense about how death doesn't actually exist.

Well, now Salon's getting in on the action by tearing into an absurdly alarmist article that deals with an old nemesis of the perpetually paranoid and hypochondriacal, one once thought extinct: MSG. It's not so much that MSG might in fact be mildly problematic for those who are extremely sensitive to it (despite the fact that a link between it and serious health issues has been disproved several times over); it's that the title of the damn piece is "MSG: Is This Silent Killer Lurking in Your Kitchen Cabinets?" If that sounds like the kind of histrionic "special investigation" you'd hear your local news station trumpet through your TV speakers right around sweeps time, trust me, it reads like it. The article's claims are dubious at best -- fear-mongering garbage at worst.

And yet there are reputable publications -- HuffPo among them -- that continue to peddle this kind of specious pseudoscience as legitimate wisdom. Why celebrities tend to buy into and wholeheartedly endorse such silliness is one of those things I'll go to my grave not understanding. I guess when you're really wealthy two things happen: a) you become arrogant to the point where you start to believe you can actually cheat your body's breakdown and eventual death, and b) you have a lot of cash and free time to experiment with ways to do just that. It's simply staggering, though, that with all the medical advancements of the last several centuries -- with all we've learned about the human body and how to fix it when something goes wrong -- there are still people out there who feel more comfortable sucking on a piece of licorice root or aligning their Chakras than listening to a doctor or taking medication.

Because believe me, the people who first discovered these ancient remedies would much rather have had a prescription for Keflex to treat a staph infection than a jar of turmeric paste. That's if you could convince them that the magic pills weren't the work of the devil.

Die Hard

Back at the top of that bulwark of metaphysical celebrity pseudoscience known as the HuffPo Living section today: Dr. Bob Lanza.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

The Huffington Post: "Why You Will Always Exist: Time Is 'On Demand'" by Dr. Robert Lanza/2.10.11

You've got to give him credit, he's really committed himself to becoming a virtuoso at this one particular subject -- although it would be kind of nice if he'd get some new material already.

Examples:

DXM: Gone of the Dead/3.24.10

DXM: Headline of the Week: "Does Death Exist? New Theory Says No"/12.10.09

Gone of the Dead

Hey, kids, guess who's back at the top of HuffPo's Living page today?

It's our good friend Doc Bob Lanza, with excellent news if you happen to be a cat trapped in a closed box with a vial of deadly acid.

The Huffington Post: "Do You Only Live One? Experiments Suggest Life Not a One-Time Deal" by Dr. Robert Lanza, MD/3.24.10

Oh, then there's this little bit of irony -- brought to you by Gawker.

Medicine Bull

Patton Oswalt does a great bit on his most recent album where he smacks down his "Whole Foods friends" who insist that he and his pregnant wife should give their child a natural home birth. He basically makes the point that back when women had no choice but to have babies at home and without today's conveniences, you know what they dreamed of? "Hospitals! Weird, fantastical, futuristic buildings full of clean white sheets -- and doctors with needles full of magic liquid that make the pain not happen!"

This is what I think of whenever I hear somebody relentlessly proclaim the power of holistic, all-natural folk remedies and tout them as a superior alternative to the modern medicine practiced by doctors with actual degrees. As if the earliest settlers who first came up with the idea of swallowing blackstrap molasses and apple cider vinegar to cure everything from joint pain to full blown cancer knew anything about fucking anything. It's ironic that there's an entire genus of lunatic out there these days that eschews hundreds of years of medical advancements out of inexplicable fear and superstition in favor of taking the advice of people who were fearful of and superstitious about pretty much everything. Sure, they probably would've been afraid of an injection that had been proven to cure polio, but that's only because they would've thought it was witchcraft. We're supposed to know better by now.

I bring this up because, as much as I'm a fan of the Huffington Post -- important given that I write for them regularly -- the heat that the site's Living section continues to take over its advocating of crap science is entirely justified. I already mentioned that the only thing I've ever submitted to HuffPo that's been turned down flat was my admittedly caustic screed against anti-vaccine militant Jenny McCarthy; I also took a minor shot here at a piece that HuffPo ran late last year from a doctor who was pushing a "new theory" that amounted to nothing more than meta-physical nonsense about how death doesn't actually exist.

Well, now Salon's getting in on the action by tearing into an absurdly alarmist article that deals with an old nemesis of the perpetually paranoid and hypochondriacal, one once thought extinct: MSG. It's not so much that MSG might in fact be mildly problematic for those who are extremely sensitive to it (despite the fact that a link between it and serious health issues has been disproved several times over); it's that the title of the damn piece is "MSG: Is This Silent Killer Lurking in Your Kitchen Cabinets?" If that sounds like the kind of histrionic "special investigation" you'd hear your local news station trumpet through your TV speakers right around sweeps time, trust me, it reads like it. The article's claims are dubious at best -- fear-mongering garbage at worst.

And yet there are reputable publications -- HuffPo among them -- that continue to peddle this kind of specious pseudoscience as legitimate wisdom. Why celebrities tend to buy into and wholeheartedly endorse such silliness is one of those things I'll go to my grave not understanding. I guess when you're really wealthy two things happen: a) you become arrogant to the point where you start to believe you can actually cheat your body's breakdown and eventual death, and b) you have a lot of cash and free time to experiment with ways to do just that. It's simply staggering, though, that with all the medical advancements of the last several centuries -- with all we've learned about the human body and how to fix it when something goes wrong -- there are still people out there who feel more comfortable sucking on a piece of licorice root or aligning their Chakras than listening to a doctor or taking medication.

Because believe me, the people who first discovered these ancient remedies would much rather have had a prescription for Keflex to treat a staph infection than a jar of turmeric paste. That's if you could convince them that the magic pills weren't the work of the devil.

The Mother of All Mothers

Playboy bunny turned Leading Scientific Expert "Dr." Jenny McCarthy is once again in the news, claiming to have "fixed" her son's autism. This is as good an excuse as any to bring back one of my favorite little rants from last year (because I'm kind of busy today). I recycled this piece before and at that time I mentioned a fun fact about it: It's the only thing I've ever submitted to HuffPo that's been turned down flat. I'll let you draw your own conclusions as to why.

"Autism Speaks (and Speaks, and Speaks)" (Originally Published, 5.6.09)

Good news for people who think that posing nude in Playboy and hosting a crappy MTV game show automatically comes with its own PhD in neuroscience: Jenny McCarthy will soon have a daily platform from which to berate the medical community for not taking her advice on treating autism.

Unless you're lucky enough to have mercifully been born deaf, you're probably well aware of Jenny's delightful one-dingbat crusade to find someone or something to blame for her 5-year-old son's autism. For the past couple of years, she's jumped in front of pretty much every television camera and microphone in the continental United States to stir up unnecessary controversy over certain childhood vaccinations by proclaiming her belief that there's a link between them and autism and shouting down anyone who has the gall to doubt her credentials (or, in the case of Denis Leary, to doubt the veracity of the abundance of recent autism diagnoses in this country in the first place). Because, really -- why trust those doctors and their medical degrees when you can listen to Jim Carrey's girlfriend?

There's little as obnoxious in the pop cultural sphere as the celebrity who declares him or herself the all-knowing, unrelenting voice of experience on a particular subject simply because it happened to have touched his or her life in some way. For every one Michael J. Fox, who's fought Parkinson's with staggering humility and a dignified focus that's truly benefited others, there are ten Jenny McCarthys -- who write books on how gross it is that white stuff sometimes comes out of your vagina during pregnancy.

Actually I take it back; there is one thing more obnoxious: someone who enables that person.

In this case, the one foisting Jenny's show on an innocent public -- the one whose personal largess pretty much guarantees that Jenny McCarthy will be the next big thing in daytime television -- is none other than the event horizon of all human experience: Oprah. No one absorbs, assimilates, then repackages under her own mantle the breadth of existence that Oprah does; if something hasn't happened to her -- it just hasn't happened. Who the hell knows, maybe Oprah assumes that being tangentially associated with someone whose child is autistic will qualify her as an expert on yet another subject currently capturing the public's imagination. She had to have some way to stick her greedy little fingers in the autism pie, seeing as how she won't be getting her own kid, autistic or otherwise, at any point short of chloroforming one at her school in South Africa and sneaking him or her through customs in a giant box marked "make-up."

The real problem is that celebrities of the Oprah and Jenny McCarthy stripe are so used to being deferred to on just about every issue by the sycophantic media that they really have come to arrogantly believe that they're qualified to offer an informed opinion on anything they've Googled once or twice or read an article on while sitting in First Class. When we're talking about, say, Oprah's favorite funnel cake recipe or Jenny's thoughts on the feel of silicone versus saline breast implants -- no harm, no foul. But when they begin playing doctor -- when Oprah hypes the latest trendy Hollywood colon cleanse or Jenny recommends that parents not inoculate their children or touts Scientology-esque "cures" for complex diseases -- that's when things get dangerous.

Nothing Jenny McCarthy has suggested about the link between vaccinations and autism has been proven -- far from it. But Jenny isn't letting that stop her campaign of ignorance. She has her convictions as a mother and her moral certitude as a celebrity.

And soon, she'll have a bigger audience than she's ever had before.

Tuesday Is Recycling Day

"Resistance Is Futile" (Originally Published, 6.24.08)

To: Chez Pazienza, AKA "Deus Ex Malcontent"
From: General Malaise, Cmdr. DUNCECOM Allied Forces
Date: June 24th, 2008

Mr. Pazienza,

First, allow me to say that you have fought the good fight and, as such, have been an honorable opponent in the face of overwhelming odds. There is no condescension meant in the demand which I must now make, nor should any shame be taken by you regarding what, I believe, you now have no choice but to do. You've stood valiantly against our assaults for more than two years, weathered the daunting firepower of some of the strongly and most finely-crafted idiocy we could bombard you with: the Don Imus "scandal," Sex and the City mania, Ben Stein's "Intelligent Design" movie, anything Al Sharpton has had to say, Hannah Montana, NBC's "All American Summer" lineup. Once again, to your immense credit, you have withstood it all, and even fought back vigorously.

But you must now, this morning, concede that you have been beaten. It is time to put down your pen, take a step back from your keyboard, unplug your MacBook and surrender, if for no other reason than to prevent any further anguish to either side in this fierce battle.

Surely you understand -- after reading the recent article on CNN.com., originally posted on Oprah.com -- the hopelessness of resistance at this point. We hesitated for some time to commit to the nuclear option against you, but we feel that you left us no alternative but to publish the aforementioned article, entitled "Empathy Deficit Disorder: Do You Suffer From It?" and documenting, mostly through a series of testimonials from the dumbest women we could assemble, a completely new disorder that pop psychologists (in our employ) just pulled out of their asses on a whim. The forces of DUNCECOM were fully aware when we contracted the creation of this so-called "condition" the fact that it sounded a lot cooler and less threatening than sociopathy (think "Sociopathy-Lite, for Housewives") and was essentially the same thing. We also understood that upon reading it, the inside of your brain, Mr. Pazienza, would detonate in a massive explosion that would kill millions of innocent brain cells; despite the awareness of such collateral damage, however, we once again felt that this drastic action had to be taken to force you to finally concede defeat.

Please know that this will only be the first strike in a larger campaign of atom-splitting stupidity against you and the dwindling few intelligent members of the general public, if you do not surrender immediately and unconditionally. We have several more nonsensical media-driven, Oprah-approved cultural and medical breakthroughs -- complete with guest shots on the Today show and best-selling self-help books -- waiting in the wings, all carefully engineered to produce the kind of physically painful chain-reaction of catalepsy in your brain that will render you completely unable to crawl out from under your covers and utterly terrified of the world beyond your home.

It doesn't have to be this way, but make no mistake, we will not hesitate to mentally crush you if we have to.

Just wait until we unleash the new season of VH-1's "Celebreality."

Believe me, you don't want to see Richard Grieco and Peter DeLuise in 43 Jump Street, or Wentz and Simpson: Swinging Celebs.

Please, do the right thing. You have no choice.

We await your reply.

-- General Malaise

To: General Malaise, Cmdr. DUNCECOM Allied Forces
From: Chez Pazienza, AKA "Deus Ex Malcontent"
Date: June 24th, 2008

General Malaise,

Fuck it. Meet me at the Starbucks on 75th and 1st (the one on the southeast corner) and bring the paperwork -- and a bottle of Effexor.

-- Chez

The Missing Link

But hey, moms and dads, why trust this when you can continue to make life-and-death decisions for your child based on the advice of the doctor to the left?

CNN: Medical Journal Retracts Study Linking Autism to Vaccine/2.2.10

Related:

DXM: Autism Speaks (and Speaks, and Speaks)/5.6.09

Bonus Quote of the Day

"(Seasonal Affective Disorder) sufferers are tourists in the misery world. They show up around November, despair, and depart in April. Those of us that are year-round sufferers aren’t given a reprieve when open-toed sandals return."

-- Ariel Leve, showing the entirely made-up "disease" known as SAD the respect it deserves in today's Daily Beast

There's another word for people who feel down during the winter months and claim that it's because they suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder: pussies.

Headline of the Week

The Huffington Post: "Does Death Exist? New Theory Says 'No'" by Robert Lanza, M.D./12.8.09

Dr. Robert Lanza humbly refers to himself as "one of the leading scientists in the world" in his HuffPo bio, and while that amusingly sweeping designation may read like something from a bad 50s sci-fi movie he actually is smarter than all of us put together. That said, the "new theory" that Lanza is trumpeting -- something called "Biocentrism" -- was actually his own creation, something he neglects to directly mention in the piece this headline links to. As it turns out, his theory that death doesn't exist first came to him in the moments after seeing his sister laid out in a morgue, the victim of a car accident. He took one look at her and apparently reached the conclusion that she wasn't actually dead. I don't pretend to be a scientist or even have the IQ required to become one, but that sounds like an incredibly suspect way to come up with a scientific theory negating death that you'd like others to take seriously -- when your judgment is unquestionably compromised by your emotions.

As much as I love the Huffington Post and respect the opinions of its staff and management -- I do write for them after all -- there's no doubt that a lot of what passes for science on the site's "Living" page is basically celebrity-advocated, philosophy-meets-pseudo-science. Arianna buys heavily into this kind of thing and, once again, there's nothing especially wrong with that, as long as you recognize going into it that Deepak Chopra isn't really an expert on anything other than his own self-promotion.

Case in point: Robert Lanza is obviously a brilliant man, but from a common sense perspective you'd be a fool not to at least question the somewhat arrogantly obstinate theory he's offering -- one which seems to be borne more from grief and a lack of acceptance of the inevitable than anything else. Like a lot of holistic pseudo-science, it traffics in what we'd all like to believe -- hormones stave off menopause, properly expressing yourself alleviates thyroid issues, vitamins stop post-partum depression, Jenny McCarthy can cure autism -- but not necessarily what we should believe. Yes, Lanza's theory is just that -- a theory and nothing more -- but it's one I'd imagine you really need to take with a grain of salt and a whole lot of "second opinions."

Doctoring the Retardis

Great little piece in today's Open Salon from Dr. Amy Tuteur. She's an OB-GYN and a former instructor at Harvard Med who, needless to say, is less than pleased with the recent trend of relentlessly dumb C-list actresses casting themselves as experts on women's health issues.

My favorite quote from it:

"Ricki Lake has actually given birth to two children. Jenny McCarthy has a child she believed was afflicted with autism. And, Suzanne Somers actually had cancer. If that’s not enough to make you a medical authority, I don’t know what is.

It’s hardly surprising that celebrity has gone to the heads of these women and made them think they are medical experts (look at Kate Gosselin if you want to see what celebrity can do), but what is the matter with the millions of people who appear to believe the drivel fabricated and spouted by these women? What has happened to us, America?"

And oh the number of people who don't simply put unyielding faith in women like "Chrissy from Three's Company" but vehemently defend them and the celebrity pseudoscience behind their inane beliefs. Just take a look at the comment section following Dr. Tuteur's column if you need proof.

Open Salon: When Did B Movie Starlets Become Medical Experts?/10.21.09

Back in May, I broached the subject of "Jenny McCarthy, M.D." It was a pretty scathing piece and drew quite a bit of good reaction here. A little behind-the-scenes info: It also stands as the only thing I've submitted to the Huffington Post that's been rejected by them. I'm obviously not biting the hand that publicizes me on this one, but a quick scan of HuffPo's all-important stable of celebrity bloggers, which includes McCarthy and boyfriend Jim Carrey, leaves little doubt as to why.

This morning, though, I'm resurrecting that piece here. And for the record, I still think Jenny McCarthy's a narcissistic kook who has no idea what the hell she's talking about.


"Autism Speaks (and Speaks, and Speaks)" (Originally Published, 5.6.09)

Good news for people who think that posing nude in Playboy and hosting a crappy MTV game show automatically comes with its own PhD in neuroscience: Jenny McCarthy will soon have a daily platform from which to berate the medical community for not taking her advice on treating autism.

Unless you're lucky enough to have mercifully been born deaf, you're probably well aware of Jenny's delightful one-dingbat crusade to find someone or something to blame for her 5-year-old son's autism. For the past couple of years, she's jumped in front of pretty much every television camera and microphone in the continental United States to stir up unnecessary controversy over certain childhood vaccinations by proclaiming her belief that there's a link between them and autism and shouting down anyone who has the gall to doubt her credentials (or, in the case of Denis Leary, to doubt the veracity of the abundance of recent autism diagnoses in this country in the first place). Because, really -- why trust those doctors and their medical degrees when you can listen to Jim Carrey's girlfriend?

There's little as obnoxious in the pop cultural sphere as the celebrity who declares him or herself the all-knowing, unrelenting voice of experience on a particular subject simply because it happened to have touched his or her life in some way. For every one Michael J. Fox, who's fought Parkinson's with staggering humility and a dignified focus that's truly benefited others, there are ten Jenny McCarthys -- who write books on how gross it is that white stuff sometimes comes out of your vagina during pregnancy.

Actually I take it back; there is one thing more obnoxious: someone who enables that person.

In this case, the one foisting Jenny's show on an innocent public -- the one whose personal largess pretty much guarantees that Jenny McCarthy will be the next big thing in daytime television -- is none other than the event horizon of all human experience: Oprah. No one absorbs, assimilates, then repackages under her own mantle the breadth of existence that Oprah does; if something hasn't happened to her -- it just hasn't happened. Who the hell knows, maybe Oprah assumes that being tangentially associated with someone whose child is autistic will qualify her as an expert on yet another subject currently capturing the public's imagination. She had to have some way to stick her greedy little fingers in the autism pie, seeing as how she won't be getting her own kid, autistic or otherwise, at any point short of chloroforming one at her school in South Africa and sneaking him or her through customs in a giant box marked "make-up."

The real problem is that celebrities of the Oprah and Jenny McCarthy stripe are so used to being deferred to on just about every issue by a sycophantic media that they really have come to arrogantly believe that they're qualified to offer an informed opinion on anything they've Googled once or twice or read an article on while sitting in First Class. When we're talking about, say, Oprah's favorite funnel cake recipe or Jenny's thoughts on the feel of silicone versus saline breast implants -- no harm, no foul. But when they begin playing doctor -- when Oprah hypes the latest trendy Hollywood colon cleanse or Jenny recommends that parents not inoculate their children or touts Scientology-esque "cures" for complex diseases -- that's when things get dangerous.

Nothing Jenny McCarthy has suggested about the link between vaccinations and autism has been proven -- far from it. But Jenny isn't letting that stop her campaign of ignorance. She has her convictions as a mother and her moral certitude as a celebrity.

And soon, she'll have a bigger audience than she's ever had before.

Related:

DXM: Return of the Attack of the Creeping Surrealism/9.20.06