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Jim Carrey doesn't like the way that Christian Scientists refuse medical treatment for their kids based on their unusual beliefs. I agree with him about that, but shouldn't he be more concerned with stopping his girlfriend encouraging people to refuse medical treatment for their kids based on her unusual beliefs?

http://bit.ly/aY97kU

That bit of gossip has slipped me by. What's she done/not done?

Carrey lives with Jenny McCarthy (they're not married; my bad), who believes that vaccines cause autism in kids and is keen on promoting this view as much as possible. Her son was diagnosed with autism from which he "recovered", though it seems, by virtue of that fact, that he was in fact suffering from Landau–Kleffner syndrome.

Mr_Grue wrote:Jim Carrey doesn't like the way that Christian Scientists refuse medical treatment for their kids based on their unusual beliefs. I agree with him about that, but shouldn't he be more concerned with stopping his girlfriend encouraging people to refuse medical treatment for their kids based on her unusual beliefs?

http://bit.ly/aY97kU

Maybe the difference between Christian Scientists and Jenny McCarthy for all-round-pain-in-the-arse Jim Carrey is that he's sleeping with Jenny McCarthy.

Hollywood actors are very rarely thinkers of the calibre of 1940s glamour puss Hedy Lamar. No, it's not an example of Wikipedia vandalism.

The other difference is that in some states of America, sickeningly, faith can be used as a defense for those choosing tp withhold their child's medical treatment. This can be overruled, but not easily. I think Carrey's just envious, because antivax is based on plain old denial, and not on religion.

Mr_Grue wrote:The other difference is that in some states of America, sickeningly, faith can be used as a defense for those choosing tp withhold their child's medical treatment. This can be overruled, but not easily. I think Carrey's just envious, because antivax is based on plain old denial, and not on religion.

There's too much emphasis on defending people's right to believe potentially harmful nonsense, but not enough emphasis on teaching them to think rationally - seemingly for that very reason! Paradox, innit.

Until quite recently there was some reason for refusing vacinations. Now it seems that the evidence linking autism and vacination is not there. But the belief was not necessarily irrational.

The Christian beliefs are irrational. That's a big difference.

My Dad never ''believed'' in vaccines so I never got any of mine. It wasnt on religous grounds though, more ignorance. The only jag ive ever had was a tetanus when an alsation bit my @rse

jim

The 'evidence' linking MMR to autism has been so discredited that the original paper has been stricken from the Lancet's records. The authour of the paper was being paid by lawyers acting on behalf of parents who were bringing a lawsuit.

The upshot of this was that many parents didn't get the vaccine, and now there are measles epidemics happening - and people forget that measles is a dangerous desiese.

Ian

TonyB wrote:Until quite recently there was some reason for refusing vacinations.

Unfortunately, though many people believe this to be the case, there never was any evidence. In the recent case, the doctor involved fiddled the data to make it look as though there was a link.

I seem to recall that there was another, earlier, story in which a doctor decided to write to a newspaper about a link between autism and the MMR vaccine without even doing any research (I may be mistaken about this as I can't find any links at the moment).

Another case of people believing what they want to believe because it is simpler than actually trying to ascertain the truth.

Aye. The Lancet paper itself never proved a link. It was a "could be interesting" collection of case studies that has since been discredited. The real naughty happened with the newspapers, who picked up the story and ran with it 'til exhaustion; the same newspapers that have subsequently turned round and blamed Wakefield and Wakefield alone for the hoax. I'd much rather an apology and some proof of lessons learnt, but...

I think I know who that second Doctor was; he kept going on about research he'd done proving a link, but the research itself never seemed to arrive. I think it was after the Lancet paper, but don't quote me.

The reason I think there was an earlier one is that my mum was concerned about me getting the MMR jab, and that was a long time before 1999! Fortunately the doctor told her not to be so silly and only really convinced her by telling her that his kids had had it.

Most of us don't subscribe to the Lancet, so we have to rely on media reports, which are compiled by journalists with no medical or scientific training.
When my first child came due for vacination my GP told me that she had not vacinated her child, and would not until she was sure there was no link between autism and vacination. I, not unreasonably, followed her lead.
That is behaviour based on incomplete information.
Religious nuts refusing blood transfusions for their children is a completely different matter. I turned down vacination for my son because I thought I was acting for his best health interests, not for vague superstitious fear of offending a non-existant god.
A friend of mine has an autistic son, and I know the hardship it puts on a family.

TonyB wrote:Most of us don't subscribe to the Lancet, so we have to rely on media reports, which are compiled by journalists with no medical or scientific training.

Precisely, Tony. I agree entirely with your previous post; it seemed as though there really was some evidence that the combined vaccination had a risk of causing autism.

Also, let's not forget that it is perfectly possible to have individual vaccinations for each disease. That's what I had, and what many of you had. Parents were being railroaded into a combined vaccination that might not be safe (or so they thought), when the previous approach was known to have worked fine. They understood what a burden autism can be, but had perhaps forgotten just how serious some of those childhood diseases can be (on account of generations being vaccinated against it).

Religious nuts refusing blood transfusions for their children is a completely different matter. I turned down vacination for my son because I thought I was acting for his best health interests, not for vague superstitious fear of offending a non-existant god.

Again, I agree entirely, but to these people, this is more of a "fact" than the alleged link between the MMR jab and autism.

..but but but it's JENNY McCARTHY!!! Her brains and opinions are not what we should be talking about here.