Heroin and ad hominem attacks

April 22nd, 2011 → 11:02 am @

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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An Age of Autism editor confronts child abuse on a school bus

April 7th, 2011 → 12:46 pm @

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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A disappearance in a CBS News flu vaccine story…and the persistence of disinformation

January 28th, 2011 → 10:17 pm @

Two days ago, CBS News’s Sharyl Attkisson posted a story on the CBS web site titled, “Child Flu Vaccine Seizures?” It ended thusly:

(more…)

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Q: What do Paul Offit and infant formula have in common? A: Jay Gordon's Twitter feed

December 29th, 2010 → 1:42 pm @

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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Jenny McCarthy: An enemy of rational discussion

December 23rd, 2010 → 12:27 pm @

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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