April 22nd, 2011 → 11:02 am @ Seth Mnookin
On Tuesday, Robert MacNeil was on The Emily Rooney Show, which airs on WGBH in Boston. Rooney asked him about my criticisms of his reporting. This was his response:
Well, he’s entitled to his opinion and to sell his book.
It’s true that I expressed my opinion — but I assume what Rooney was asking him about were facts, like, for instance, the fact that he quoted his daughter saying that she believed her son had gotten autism from vaccines but didn’t quote a single scientist or public health official or epidemiologist or vaccine researcher or spokesperson from the American Medical Association or the American Academy of Pediatrics. (more…)
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April 7th, 2011 → 12:46 pm @ Seth Mnookin
Kim Stagliano is one of the best-known figures within the anti-vaccine autism advocacy community. She can be brash, funny, and blunt. (If the National Vaccine Information Center’s Barbara Loe Fisher is the movement’s TV-ready super-ego, Stagliano is its id.) In November, she published a book titled All I Can Handle: I’m No Mother Theresa, which details her experiences raising three daughters with autism. (Jenny McCarthy wrote the introduction.) (more…)
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January 28th, 2011 → 10:17 pm @ Seth Mnookin
Two days ago, CBS News’s Sharyl Attkisson posted a story on the CBS web site titled, “Child Flu Vaccine Seizures?” It ended thusly:
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December 29th, 2010 → 1:42 pm @ Seth Mnookin
Earlier this morning, Jay Gordon, who is perhaps best known as the pediatrician who supported Jenny McCarthy in her belief that the MMR vaccine had contributed to her son’s autism, posted the following tweet: (more…)
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December 23rd, 2010 → 12:27 pm @ Seth Mnookin
Earlier this morning, Jenny McCarthy’s re-tweeted to her 225,354 followers the following message: “Pertussis vaccine (whooping cough) legal cause of epilepsy/death of boy. This will NOT make news during ‘outbreaks’ http://bit.ly/i20hmR.” That link brings the reader to a post on Age of Autism (one of whose editors was the source of the initial post, which has already been re-tweeted 50 times), which states unequivocally that a young boy named Elias Tembenis “died as a result of a reaction to his DTaP (P = Pertussis/Whooping Cough) vaccination.” Before I get into the multiple problems with such a statement, here’s some background: (more…)
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