Quote of the Day

"The doctors are not gonna tell you both sides of the issue... they're told by the pharmaceutical industry, which makes billions of dollars, that it's completely safe. The efficacy of these shots have not been proven. And the toxicity of these things -- we're having more and more side effects. We're having more and more autism."

-- Rob Schneider on the supposed link between vaccinations and autism

So there you have it: every reputable doctor and researcher in the civilized world or -- the woman on the new cover of Playboy and Deuce Bigalow.

I realized I've been recycling a lot lately, but we've had an influx of new readers around here recently and, what with the holiday and all, I'm all about cheap and easy content.

So there's this:

"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.

Quote of the Day

From an article in Salon today called "The Week in Crazy: Jenny McCarthy" by, wonder of wonders, Mary Elizabeth Williams:

"By offering the vague caveat that 'there is no cure' while peddling her Generation Rescue's slogan "autism is reversible" and telling parents that 'for a moderately autistic kid the best prognosis is full recovery,' McCarthy makes a promise that no one on the planet has the authority to make. It's one that puts the onus of failure on parents whose kids can't or simply don't make that 'full recovery' and opens up those who take her advice to "try everything" to a buffet of expensive to downright dangerous quackery.

The correlation between the MMR vaccine and autism may still be unproven, but the correlation between the MMR vaccine and preventing death and disease is pretty clear-cut; considering that, McCarthy is fueling an alarming resurgence in illnesses all but eradicated a decade ago. Her response to a potential rise in life-destroying diseases like polio? Last year she told Time, '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 f___ing fault that the diseases are coming back.'

To recap: If not vaccinating your kids means bringing back polio, so be it. And if your offspring is diagnosed as autistic, do 'everything' to fix him. Insist on accountability from the CDC but advocate a whole raft of unproven therapies. And all the while, smugly describe yourself as "the voice" for a noble cause. Those maternal instincts are in the right place, but too often, the voice of autism recovery seems to be coming out of Jenny McCarthy's ass."

Don't ever let it be said that I don't give credit where it's due.

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.

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

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

Bulk Smash!

You know, if Jenny McCarthy happens to be around when Kirstie gets hungry, and then Oprah happens to stumble upon the scene with an elephant gun, this could really turn out well.

The Examiner: Kirstie Alley Angry Oprah Gave Talk Show to Jenny McCarthy Instead of Her/5.23.09

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

Medical Fool

Oprah isn't a doctor but she pretty much plays one on TV -- and that's the problem.

Salon picks up where I left off in last week's piece about Oprah, Jenny McCarthy and the dangers of listening to either one of them when it comes to the health of you and your family.

Salon: Oprah's Bad Medicine/5.15.09

(Like the picture? I stumbled across it and realized that, why yes, there is in fact a way for Oprah to become even more painfully insipid. I didn't realize that cultural vampires hunted in packs.)

Autism Speaks (and Speaks, and Speaks)

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.

Insolent Jest

Related to the above piece, this is something that was originally published in October of last year. It deals with the contrived outrage over Denis Leary's most recent book, specifically from Jenny McCarthy who, as mentioned previously, attacked him for implying that autism is now overdiagnosed in this country to the point of almost becoming "trendy."

A couple of months ago, I was lucky enough to be invited to the legendary Friars Club here in New York City as a guest for its roast of ex-Star Trek star and current professional kitschy homosexual, George Takei.

If you've seen a Friars Club roast on television -- or any roast for that matter -- you probably think you have a pretty good idea of what it's like to attend one of these things. Suffice it to say, though, that whatever you can imagine, it's not even close to the actual experience of being surrounded by some of the funniest people around minus any sacred cows, sense of decorum, good taste, or general concern for the feelings of others.

My wife and I figured it would be funny.

We had no idea that we'd spend two-and-a-half hours laughing so hard that we wouldn't be able to breathe.

They made fun of tragedies. ("That joke was deader than Shatner's wife at a pool party.") They turned seemingly inviolable topics into punchlines. ("He's the most effeminate Jew in the closet since Anne Frank.") And of course, they mercilessly mocked George Takei's sexuality. (Gilbert Gottfried stepped up to the podium and did, no bullshit, ten minutes worth of "faggot" jokes.)

Was it offensive?

Oh, I have no doubt that most decent folk would've fled in horror.

Was it funny?

Absolutely.

Nothing was off limits, and that's what made the whole thing such a scream.

By now, regular readers of this site have probably figured out that I'm not very easy to offend. Sure, ignorance and stupidity piss me off to no end, but generally the kind of thing that will cause one group of people or another to demand blood, or at the very least an immediate public apology, will barely get a reaction out of me (and if it does, that reaction will usually be to laugh my ass off not only at the offending behavior itself but at those overly sensitive enough to take it so goddamned seriously). Don't get me wrong: Despite what you read here, I don't wander through my day wondering whose buttons I can push next. I may say some pretty obnoxious things from time to time, but rarely is any of it offered with malice or the intention of riling someone up just for the fun of it. That said, I'm a very firm believer that almost anything can be a legitimate target for a little ribbing -- myself included. What makes mocking or satirizing ostensibly untouchable cultural institutions like God, the church, political figures, and even, yes, Oprah so much fun is that they are held as sacrosanct by so many -- and that makes them, in a word, oppressive. There's a visceral thrill to be had going against the grain once in a while and defying the tyranny of political correctness. But more than that, it's necessary. Unassailable ideals and social mores are dangerous, and while holding something above criticism or ridicule, no matter the context or intent, may seem like the ultimate form of respect -- in fact, it's nothing more than the product of fear and idolatry. Just ask the editors of a Danish newspaper that dared to publish comic images of the Prophet Muhammed a couple of years back.

Which brings us to Denis Leary.

The acerbic comedian-turned-actor-turned-author has been buried under an avalanche of criticism lately in response to some of the comments made in his new book, Why We Suck: A Feel-Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid. First, Leary was pounced on by autism activists -- including shrill, militant mom Jenny McCarthy -- for supposedly implying that autism isn't a real disease.

He writes:

"There is a huge boom in autism right now because inattentive mothers and competitive dads want an explanation for why their dumb-ass kids can't compete academically, so they throw money into the happy laps of shrinks . . . to get back diagnoses that help explain away the deficiencies of their junior morons. I don't give a fuck what these crackerjack whack jobs tell you -- yer kid is NOT autistic. He's just stupid. Or lazy. Or both."

Although this is an unsurprisingly simplistic view of the problem of autism -- a statement I qualify because, needless to say, Leary's a comedian and not a doctor -- it's worth noting two points: First, that the above quote has provoked the ire of people who, for the most part, haven't read the rest of the book and therefore can't appreciate the larger point Leary's trying to get across; second, nowhere does Leary say or even insinuate that autism isn't a real and serious condition -- only that it's likely being overdiagnosed. And guess what? About this, he's absolutely right. Our media-saturated, scared-to-death culture ensures that diseases, like anything else, can become trendy -- that if you ram the idea of an "epidemic" down the throat of the American public long enough, certainly one involving a condition as mysterious as autism, it will almost surely become a self-fulfilling prophecy. While I've done several stories on autism during my journalistic career and don't doubt the possibility that outside factors have contributed to a rise in the number of legitimate autism cases, any idiot can see that autism has become the new ADHD: Edgy parents looking for an explanation as to why their kid can't function "properly" approach doctors with an idea already in mind that their child might be autistic. And who put that idea there? A media machine which understands that your fear translates into its revenue.

But if you think the whole autism thing was trouble for Denis Leary, you obviously haven't heard how some in the gay community are responding to a chapter in his book entitled "Matt Damon is a Giant Fag."

In an interview with the gay magazine The Advocate, Leary defends his right to call gay men "fags," insisting that despite whatever authority we've given the word, it's still just that: a word.

"I don't believe in the power of words. My parents came from Ireland, where 'cunt' is literally a word your mother and father would use to describe the weather or the car: 'That cunting car won't start!' And I come from a Catholic background where the nuns were always telling you, 'Don”t do this, dont say this.' So any time anyone tells me I shouldn't say something, my reaction is, 'Why not?'"

Leary points to the fact that there's another chapter in Why We Suck called "We'd Hate You Even if You Weren't Black" (which I suppose doesn't justify the former insult so much as prove that at least Leary's an equal opporunity offender).

Whether or not Denis Leary hates homosexuals I can't say for sure. I do know, however, that simply using the word "fag" doesn't automatically make someone a homophobe any more than simply using the word "nigger," irrespective of context, automatically makes someone a racist. I get that it's sometimes tough to tell a person's intent simply by his or her language -- and that the knee-jerk inclination might be to make broadstroke declarations banning anything that anyone may find offensive -- but that's when it's best to consider the source. Denis Leary, once again, is a comedian. He's made an entire career out of being an asshole; he even recorded a song in the early 90s proclaiming as much. Only a moron -- or, more likely, someone looking for something to be pissed about -- would pick up a book written by Leary and expect not to have his or her magnanimity challenged. Leary's stuff isn't designed to be everyone's cup of tea and neither is it supposed to change the world. If you really think a book called Why We Suck should be filed under the self-help section at the bookstore, you need to have your head examined. It's meant to be funny. It's a fucking joke.

And if it's one you don't particularly appreciate, then by all means don't buy the book.

I certainly understand that the difference between a Friars Club roast and a mass-marketed book is just that: One is reaching a mass market, while the other is a private function in which everyone on hand realizes and accepts what they're getting themselves into.

But is a book, or a radio show, or a TV show aimed at a specific audience really all that different?

If you don't go looking to be offended, chances are you won't be.

Related:

DXM: The Nth Degree/11.21.06

DXM: Why So Serious?/4.25.08