A badge of honor

JM's publicist probably instituted a ban for anyone remotely connected to "the dark site" to prevent her to say something stupid because she felt provoked.

Censorship is the refuge of the idiot.

La, la, la - I'm not listening.

Heh,

Not only has Jenny blocked me, but Fromage Of Autism has as well (twitter account for the blog AgeofAutism). So has Kim Stagliano (she got a bit huffy about it too!). JB Handley also doesn't seem to like to hear anything that contradicts him either.

I added my own opinion on this in The Honesty of Jenny Killer McCarthy. I am shocked that your post is much shorter than mine.

Since I don't have Twitter, I will never be blocked by Honest Jenny Killer McCarthy ;-)

That is supposed to be a wink on the end. Think of it as a Salvador Dali wink.

You may want to submit one of your blogposts to this competition:

http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/05/3-quarks-daily-announc…

so modest of a goal! I have a picture of her on my desk and every morning I vow to it to get her to hate me. Getting to block me on Twitter would be a good start though....

As lisanavi said:

... your posts that include her handle will show up under her @replies unless she blocks you, which is probably why she did so.

So Jenny is preventing anyone who views her profile from seeing pro-vax messages mentioning her.

so modest of a goal! I have a picture of her on my desk and every morning I vow to it to get her to hate me.

Indeed. I really wish I could get her to read these posts of mine:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/11/postholiday_the_stupid_it_bur…

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/05/jenny_mccarthy_shows_off_her_…

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/06/green_our_vaccines_celebrity_…

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/09/jenny_mccarthy_and_oprah_winf…

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/10/jenny_mccarthy_on_cnn_the_stu…

Among others. :-)

So wait, if I twitter a pro vac message @jenny, all of her followers will see the link? This sounds like a fun game!

@Whitecoat Tales

So wait, if I twitter a pro vac message @jenny, all of her followers will see the link? This sounds like a fun game!

Fun, indeed!! The game is on.......... ;-)

So wait, if I twitter a pro vac message @jenny, all of her followers will see the link? This sounds like a fun game!

Sorry, no. Only if she responds to you.

That's the funny part. Jenny McCarthy could have just ignored ImmunizeCoKids (like Jenny ignores basically 99.99% of her followers).

http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio…

Um, RJ, did you check Orac's blog post before this one?

AoA has banned me at my home, office, three libraries, and the railroad station.

Now it's a game. I suggest the hashtag #JennyMcWoo

Heck, I might even sign up for Twitter if prizes like this are on offer! :-)

She probably doesn't want to listen to autistic people. According to her they're all broken changeling shadows who need to be tortured---I mean, chelated back to normalcy.

Orac...please contact a major media outlet (?CNN). I (we) nominate you to set up a "debate"!

I know this lends unearned credibility to the anti-vax crowd; but taking the high road and refusing to pander to the talking heads is no longer effective. They truly have the floor. This stumble by Jenny's publicist, (to ban an open discussion), will raise some eyebrows if the message gets out to the reasonable but dispassionate. Fan the fire...enough is enough.

I can think of no one better qualified. I'm not kidding. The internet is too small for your position. The general public needs you! We can't rely on Dr. Gupta...

It might even get you banned from Jenny's twitter.

I can feel an Upper Class Twitter of the Year Competition coming...

Bah.

I take exception to Dawn's stuff about "This is an opportunity for dialogue."

There's no "dialogue" that needs to be had. This is settled stuff, and not even close.

Jenny McCarthy doesn't need a "dialogue." She needs to be slapped. And don't debate her (Paul Offitt is right on that one). It only gives the impression that she deserves to be on the same platform as an expert.

I prefer the following format: Tell her you are doing a show on autism, and you are going to give her 15 minutes to present her case. Let her know that you are also going to have a guest who is pro-vax, but let her know that this guest will not be on at the same time as her, and she will be allowed to say whatever she wants. Do that, and then spend the next 45 minutes with a guest who breaks her every claim and shows how it is bs. Rip her claims to shreds, and leave her with no credibility.

In fact, don't even do the taping at the same time. Give the guest plenty of time to analyze her statement to come up with a detailed rebuttal. Something like,

"Our next guest today is Paul Offitt, author. Dr. Offitt, you just heard Jenny McCarthy's statement, and I want to talk about some of the things she said. At the beginning, she stated X. Can you comment on that?"

"Sure thing, Orac. That comment is completely unsupported, and here's why. V, C, and D."

"OK, but after that, she says G. What is she talking about in that?"

"It's not quite clear, since it is well known that G is false, and here's why."

A live debate doesn't provide the time to fully address all the silliness, and just allows for a "Gish Gallop" - where she can throw out a dozen nonsense claims and the opponent only has time to address one, leaving 11 non-disputed lies.

The thing that has to happen is to destroy her credibility, and you can't do that by giving her equal status in a debate.

@ Pablo...

As I'm sure most of us would agree, the internet at this point is useless, only people who are interested in vaccine or autism information tune in. Unfortunately they are frequently transported via air-Google to the shiny anti-vax land of make-believe. There, up is down, left is right, vaccines are bad and disease is good.

The non-interested silent majority of people are resonable but in a state of blissful ignorance to the dangers of the anti-vaccine movement. They get their vaccine information filtered through some friend, who heard about someone's cousin's schoolmate that "caught autism from a vaccine", or they read the title of some "scientific article" posted at their local gym purporting "vaccine injury equivalent to mercury poisoning". Hmmm... they think, there really is something to this, there it is, "all sciency and everything"; and they tell someone... and so on... and so on....

The time is NOW, there needs to be a prime time slapdown of this misinformation.

Any format for the "debate" would be great. But I agree, no face to face.

Real time face to face plays to the anti-vax "strength" of baffleing with bullshit, moving goalposts, interuptions, shout-overs, swearing, pseudoscience magical thinkng talking points, "I'm a Mom", etc.... the list is endless. This forum also allows the appearance of being qualified.

Some reputable souce (NOVA, NBC dateline etc.)must be interested in clearly documenting what is going on here. The format suggested by Pablo sounds like a possible outline.

There must be some producer, somewhere who can see that compliance with public health policies is being influenced/hijacked by fanatics with no consistent stance, basis of thought or real accountability. Their reason: there is a grand conspiracy theory hatched by pharma and government for money over children. How do they know?Well...they just do. Enough with this nonsense.

On prime time, on numbers grabbing major network television, someone who knows the topic, (my vote is at least for Orac), needs to shine a powerful light on this belief based, science be damned, anti-vax movement that threatens not only our public health, but ultimately our economy.

First amendment rights do not allow you to shout "Fire!" indiscriminately. Isn't the antivax movement essentially doing the same thing - causing unfounded panic?

Let's get on with improved public awareness and then get on with putting measures in place to hold these people accoutable for what, when viewed in it's extreme, really amounts to domestic terrorism.

Where is the anti-vaccine court anyway?

I have argued that the TV show "The Doctors" are the ones who have the opportunity to make a difference, if they want to. They were the ones who let McCarthy and Handley go off pretty much unfettered. As I've described before, the hosts of that show didn't stand a chance; they thought they would be fine because they had truth on their side - unfortunately, that only works in an honest discussion; they were completely unprepared to handle the distortions that were presented.

However, if they are serious, they have the chance to redeem themselves. Bring on folks like Paul Offit and the president of the AAP and do an analysis of JM and PJH, like I talked about (Offit is a great one to do it, because he wrote a book, too!). Here they have a chance to straighten the record, and do it for the same audience that they disserved in the first place.

That is if they have any integrity.

I've noticed that the Jenny McCarthy Body Count has moved up to 168 preventable deaths after a long pause at 163. The preventable illness count is also up, to over 44,000. And that doesn't count people I know who don't get vaccinated, but don't go to the doctor when they get flu-like illnesses. They don't want to know it's their own stupid fault for skipping their inoculations.

Orac's post easily fits on one screen? I think it needs a reboot⦠something is clearly malfunctioning!

WOW! Thanks for everyone's support! We do want to foster a communication to protect children from disease. I just hope this keeps kids healthy!