Kevin Still Hates Jenny McCarthyism

In 2008, I started a blog and podcast called Kevin Hates Everything. On May 3 of that year, I posted about one dipshit's quest to rid the world of life saving vaccines. Today, at the start of 2015, I am in the middle of this battle with my daughter's mom. See, one of us believes in vaccines, and the other is a paranoid delusional that chooses to follow the "research" of a discredited doctor name Wakefield and a mediocre actress that got famous by showing us all her tits. As much as I like tits, I can't claim to be the latter person in this scenario. My daughter is now six, and still not properly vaccinated. According to our custody agreement, her mother and I have 50/50 decision-making ability when it comes to medical issues. That would be great if we both had vaginas. Sorry, but that's the most important piece of evidence in any custody hearing. "Which one of you has the vagina? You? Well, then. Not only do you get to spend 92% of the time with the child, but you get a free paycheck and all of the power to boot." Sorry, ladies, but that's how it is. Sadly, it's just as bad or worse in Canada and Europe. That, however, is a topic for a different day. This is about the vaccine my daughter doesn't have to prevent her from being affected by the current outbreak of measles that is spreading throughout the southwest, including Maricopa County in Arizona, which is where we live.

Do you know what the latest argument is? If vaccines are so important for health, why aren't they free? Free? Like chemotherapy, open heart surgery, the nephrostomy I had in 1998 to get rid of a giant kidney stone, insulin, band-aids, peroxide and all of the other necessary health items that are put to use to save our lives? Oh, wait. Also not free, at least not in America.

Franklin D. Roosevelt said something very important that needs to be repeated. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Well, maybe fear and bullets. Sorry, too soon, or something. Whatever. What follows is my post from May 3, 2008. Almost six years later, I still think I'm pretty much spot on. I will say that I was probably wrong about ADD. Maybe that's because I was diagnosed with it a few years ago, and I understand it a lot more than I did. Other than that, I'm still brilliant.

"When I look for medical information, I generally go to a doctor. I figure that eight plus years of school and training plus however many years of actual practice might make a person qualified to give an educated medical opinion. In this day and age, some people think that doctors are all quacks, and Jenny McCarthy knows all.

I’m not sure why it happened, but after autism made its big debut into pop culture via Dustin Hoffman parents decided to start diagnosing their own kids. They thought, “Hey, my kid’s not an idiot, he just has that autism thing.” Well, guess what? The same thing happened with ADD. Every time a kid did poorly in school, it had to be ADD’s fault. There’s no possible way anybody could ever have a disruptive kid who just doesn’t like to do homework. Someone else had to be to blame. That someone was psychology.

I remember getting put into the gifted program in school when I was in kindergarten. I had to take some sort of aptitude test that still makes no sense to me. I was considered smarter than some. Now, I wasn’t diagnosed with geniusism or something to that effect. As time went on, my grades slipped. I was barely making it through school. I had a few honors classes in my freshman year of high school, and by the time that year was over, I was dropped from the honors program. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it, I just didn’t. In fact, I barely made it through high school. Did I have ADD? No. I was just an ASS. The fact is this; some kids are smart, some kids are dumb, some kids are average and some kids just don’t give a shit. There’s no diagnosis for this. Maybe we can call it fuckupitis and prescribe a swift kick in the ass every six hours for as long as it takes to cure this horrible disease.

This is where we come back to Jenny McCarthy and her organization, Generation Rescue. As we have seen in politics, the best way to get people to see your side is to terrify them with unfounded “research” that doesn’t even exist. Look up autism on the Internet. Go ahead. Google it. You will find close to nineteen million results on the subject. The thing that seems to be most common is that there are many ideas on the cause of autism. Popular among McCarthy’s camp is that vaccines cause autism. They say that vaccines cause autism because of an agent in the vaccines called thimerosal. Of course they don’t tell you that once this ingredient was no longer used in vaccines since 1999, autism cases have not dropped. You would think that makes a difference, but no. Instead, the followers of the new McCarthyism choose to believe that vaccines cause brain swelling, and that is the reason for autism. Maybe they should read some actual studies, like one done by respected Universities like UCLA, in which genetic defects were found in the patients used. Vaccines did not cause the defects. The autistic test subjects were born with them. The Autism Society of America even seems to lean toward genetic connections over vaccines. Does this mean nothing to anyone?

Look, I feel for those who struggle with this dysfunction. It must be horrible. All I am saying is that when it comes down to who to trust for my medical advice, I like to look at who is giving the advice. Should I trust someone who graduated college and medical school, had a four year internship and practiced medicine for many years, or someone who became famous for showing her tits and farting on television? Hmm. That’s a really tough choice. Are we kidding ourselves here as a nation? Trusting Jenny McCarthy on this is like letting the crew from Jackass perform open heart surgery. That’s just what we need; Steve-O with a rib spreader.

Let’s not forget that she now has Jim Carrey recruited in all of this. He’s so involved that he’s writing articles on the subject and sharing his input all over the internet. Hey, Jim, I don’t care how good the pussy is, it doesn’t mean you should stop using common sense. It’s funny, but even though there’s no real evidence connecting vaccines to autism, there seems to be a connection between Carrey’s relationship with McCarthy and his no longer being funny. Okay, that was unnecessary, but the truth is that the only funny bone in Jenny’s body belonged to Jim, and that was before she sucked the life out of him. Or, maybe he actually buys into the extensive research Generation Rescue put in.  Do you want to know what that was? Was it scientific? Were doctors or scientists involved? The answer is no to both questions. In fact, according to their own website, “Generation Rescue commissioned an independent opinion research firm, SurveyUSA of Verona NJ, to conduct a telephone survey in nine counties in California and Oregon.” First off, let’s focus on the word opinion. That is significant. Not fact, but opinion. Next, it was a telephone survey, which is in no way near the effectiveness of actually scientifically studying patients. Last, it was conducted in nine counties throughout two states. Last time I checked, there were fifty states that encompass three thousand one hundred and forty-one counties.  I don’t think that makes up a significant percentage. Also, we need to note that the counties and people called were chosen by Generation Rescue, who would never use their agenda in making that list, would they?

There are celebrities on the other side of the issue. First off, we have Amanda Peet. For those of you who don’t know who that is, I can attribute that to the fact that nobody goes to see her movies. She is death to any film she touches. Instead of casting her, producers should just get the Grim Reaper to touch their scripts and be done with it. Maybe we can do better on this side of things. Denis Leary recently talked about autism in his book, and when an out of context quote was spread all over television, he quickly apologized. This disappointed me. Though I really don’t know where he stands on vaccines, I don’t know why he bent over in the fray. Have you seen Rescue Me? He writes a show where two brothers fuck each other’s ex-wives, misogyny is rampant and in one episode he checks out his own sister’s ass. Does he really care that much about what the mothers of Middle America think? What he should have said was a royal “fuck off” to Jenny McCarthy. First off, she didn’t even read the book before shooting her mouth off. Second, Leary has done tons of charity work for many organizations, including the Cam Neely Foundation, which serves families dealing with childhood cancer. He shouldn’t have to answer to anyone when it comes to having an opinion.

My biggest problem comes in when McCarthy states that she has cured autism. How did she do it? She removed wheat gluten from her son’s diet. This might make sense if there was some connection between wheat gluten and vaccines, but there isn’t. What the fuck is this crazy bitch talking about? She’s all over the road. You would think she’d say, “Wait, it’s not vaccines. It’s gluten,” but no. She’s still on vaccines.  If we needed any more proof that she has no idea what she’s talking about, this was it. And now the worst part is that she’s giving people false hope.

I’d like to say that I’m sorry to anyone who reads or listens to this and is offended because they believe in the vaccines=autism connection, but I’m not. I think you are acting irresponsibly if you let your child do without. McCarthy wonders why we have thirty-six vaccines now and we only had ten in 1983. It’s because they didn’t exist yet. We didn’t have iPods either, but she doesn’t question why everyone needs one of those. When I was a kid back in 1983, kids were still getting the measles and mumps. It doesn’t happen very often anymore. Polio is making a comeback. Should we let Jonas Salk’s work be for nothing? I say no. In the age of bird flu, monkey pox and now swine flu, we shouldn’t take our health or our children’s health for granted.

I think that only an idiot would take the unfounded word of the Internet and a two-bit actress over that of an educated professional. I have had this argument with my daughter’s mother, and so have doctors. She wants to spread the vaccines out over five years or more, leaving my daughter exposed to diseases in her most delicate years. It shocks me that she’s so concerned about our daughter’s development now, but while she was pregnant she found no issue in taking a large amount of Oxycodone or arguing with her doctor that she should be able to drink alcohol during pregnancy.

I’m sorry that your child has a genetic defect, Jenny. I really am. Guess what? You made an imperfect kid. I’m saddened by the fact that you need to attack and blame the medical community instead of dealing with it and putting your efforts to better use. But, hey, who am I to throw my two cents in, right? I’m just a guy with a bad case of self-diagnosed fuckupitis. Then again, I do have that geniusism, so maybe I am worth listening to after all."