A Skeptic’s take on Jenny McCarthy’s claims about vaccines and autism.

[Paradox74]

I’m starting this post to collect our rebuttals of McCarthy’s claims from the following website:
http://www.pr.com/article/1076

I’m starting off with her question about vaccines. My responses are in a bold font and the interviewer and McCarthy are italicized.

Question #1:

PR.com asks: Why are there more vaccines?

McCarthy says: I’m so glad you said that (laughs)! Why are there?! Why do we need a chicken pox vaccine? I had the chickenpox. I got to stay home from school.

My Response: Ask any doctor this question and he will give you a simple response. Diseases aren’t static. Just like any other life form they adapt and change to their environments. As a result, new diseases are formed and so we need new vaccines to combat them. The evolutionary process that animals go through, from fruit flies to mankind, applies to the world of microbiology such as bacteria and viruses. Anyone who has studied basic biology, either in an elementary school or in college, can easily spot McCarthy’s flawed knowledge of the basic nature of diseases. This is completely embarrassing for McCarthy, now onto the claim:
Claim #1:

PR.com: You never hear about it, you never see it. Where are the autistic adults?

Jenny McCarthy: It’s cause there weren’t any. It’s all now.

My response: I’m not too sure about the “It’s all now” statement but this claims sounds like, “Oh, there’s no autistic adults.” Really? Then I would suggrest that McCarthy and her PR.com interviewer would pay a visit to the Community Services for Autistic Adults and Children (CSAAC) and say to their faces, if they so firmly believe it, “There are no autistic adults!”
By the way, if she was really researching her data using google, then she should have typed in autistic adults into the search box. I came up with the following sites that have something to do with autistic adults, including CSAAC:http://www.autistics.org/library/autadult.html
http://www.disability-resource.com/Autism/autism-in-adults.html
http://www.autisticadults.com/
http://www.csaac.org/


Posts and comments are welcome, along with your own rebuttals of McCarthy’s claims in the interview.

 

[Jenkins]

Chicken pox is also not over and done after childhood symptoms regress; it lives dormant in your body and sometimes re-emerges in nastier form as shingles later. A chicken pox vaccine can be used as a safeguard against this.

 

[AaronMic22]

Speaking of vaccines, what do you think of this interview?

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/a...nded-due-to-contamination-with-pig-virus.aspx

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Speaking of vaccines, what do you think of this interview?

It's mercola. He likes to leave out details. The "pig virus" bit of dna is benign, but they'll go and refine the process to get it out. DNA is the building block of life, and bits of it that cause disease are floating around in the air. You pretty much cannot eliminate all dna from anything. I guess it would make news if bits of dna from pollen were found, but it actually doesn't matter-the amount is too small to have an effect, it's not able to replicate itself since it's not the complete bunch that makes up a virus, etc.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20100322/FDA_vaccine_100322/20100322?hub=Health

Of course, antivaxxers will continue to spin this as negatively as possible.

 

[Estellea]

Chicken pox is also not over and done after childhood symptoms regress; it lives dormant in your body and sometimes re-emerges in nastier form as shingles later. A chicken pox vaccine can be used as a safeguard against this.

Unfortunately, the vaccine virus can also go dormant and re-emerge as shingles. The varicella vaccine nor disease is a very good one to use as far as vaccine arguments go. It really pales in comparison, on a multitude of levels to say, measles, rubella, hib and polio.

Este

 

[Dr. Imago]

Chicken pox is also not over and done after childhood symptoms regress; it lives dormant in your body and sometimes re-emerges in nastier form as shingles later. A chicken pox vaccine can be used as a safeguard against this.

Beat me to it...

I took care of a patient, not that long ago, who coincidental to why she was in the ICU also had a recurrent herpes zoster infection in her eye during her stay. It was brutal.

~Dr. Imago

 

[Tiktaalik]

I had chicken pox when I was thirteen. It is some of the sickest I've ever been in my life. I would never, never, purposefully allow kids to suffer that disease. I lived at the time in a cabin with no indoor plumbing, and getting myself out to the outhouse a couple times a day was a terrible, lengthy ordeal involving clutching chair backs and shuffling bent over with frequent rests. My fever was so high I didn't even itch. Now I have a number of scars, including several on my face. Anyone who thinks this is some benign childhood disease is an idiot.

One of my co-workers has repeatedly been out with shingles, and I dread the thought of the whole thing recurring at some point in time...that is why we need new vaccines.

 

[Estellea]

Anyone who thinks this is some benign childhood disease is an idiot.

I trust you don't think that I was inferring that.

One of my co-workers has repeatedly been out with shingles, and I dread the thought of the whole thing recurring at some point in time...that is why we need new vaccines.

Part of the concern with the varicella vaccine is that repeated exposure may increase the risk of shingles and the low duration of the vaccine may push the disease burden onto older cohorts. So all I am really suggesting is that one should just be very careful not to treat all vaccines and diseases as equal when trying to combat antivax sentiments.

Este

 

[Safe-Keeper]

PR.com: You never hear about it, you never see it. Where are the autistic adults?

Jenny McCarthy: It’s cause there weren’t any. It’s all now.

How come this woman has followers? I mean, sure, she preaches a message that's easy to sell, especially to parents of autistic children, but... come on..

 

[Mirrorglass]

Varicella-zoster is an annoying virus, and in a portion of the population, gets real nasty (for example, trigeminus syndrome is nasty in the sense the Moon is high), but as far as I know, the vaccine has enough side effects that it isn't really worth it to vaccinate the population at large.

 

[Chris Haynes]

...but as far as I know, the vaccine has enough side effects that it isn't really worth it to vaccinate the population at large.

What are those side effects, and how do you know about them?

 

[Robo Sapien]

Check out jennymccarthybodycount dotcom, its a real hoot.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Unfortunately, the vaccine virus can also go dormant and re-emerge as shingles. The varicella vaccine nor disease is a very good one to use as far as vaccine arguments go. It really pales in comparison, on a multitude of levels to say, measles, rubella, hib and polio.

Este

Evidence? The shingles vaccine has been shown to reduce the incidence of shingles... or at least lessen it. If anything, the chickenpox vaccine should do the same compared to catching the wild virus.

 

[Estellea]

Evidence? The shingles vaccine has been shown to reduce the incidence of shingles... or at least lessen it. If anything, the chickenpox vaccine should do the same compared to catching the wild virus.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20065330
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12057605
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19536039
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18999945

Yes, ZostaVax reduces shingles incidence or severity in ~50% of recipients although it isn't recommended until 55 years old, I believe. That leaves a substantial proportion of the population at risk without circulating varicella to boost cell-mediated immunity. The data are not consistent throughout the population with regards to shingles incidence but that could be an artefact of inconsistent surveillance. I'm not sure yet.

Varicella vaccination just doesn't have the same duration of immunity as wild-type, which isn't surprising. Furthermore, the recommended age for first vaccination reduces efficacy due maternal antibody interference and host immune response.

Este

 

[Mirrorglass]

What are those side effects, and how do you know about them?

There have been documented cases of zoster associated with the vaccine, and concerns that not having chickenpox will result in a weaker immune system.

After looking into studies on the matter, however, it does seem these are much less common than I thought. Apparently my thoughts reflected conservative attitudes towards new vaccinations more so than any real scientific information.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20065330
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12057605
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19536039
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18999945

Yes, ZostaVax reduces shingles incidence or severity in ~50% of recipients although it isn't recommended until 55 years old, I believe. That leaves a substantial proportion of the population at risk without circulating varicella to boost cell-mediated immunity. The data are not consistent throughout the population with regards to shingles incidence but that could be an artefact of inconsistent surveillance. I'm not sure yet.

Varicella vaccination just doesn't have the same duration of immunity as wild-type, which isn't surprising. Furthermore, the recommended age for first vaccination reduces efficacy due maternal antibody interference and host immune response.

Este

Those studies don't support your assertions. Instead, they prove the vaccine has prevented complications and hospitilizations from chicken pox overall. Other studies also show that vaccinated people will still get subsequent exposure over their lives to the disease from unvaccinated people spreading it around, and that only builds their immunity up to prevent shingles. The only issues are coming up in the unvaccinated, but frac them.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091204092443.htm

Herpes zoster, also known as shingles, is very rare among children who have been vaccinated against chicken pox, according to a Kaiser Permanente study in the December issue of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Journal. ... This is a lower rate compared to what one would expect in the unvaccinated children based on previous experiences.​

"The message to parents and pediatricians is: vaccinating your child against the chicken pox is also a good way to reduce their chances of getting herpes zoster," said the study's lead author, HungFu Tseng, Ph.D, MPH, a research scientist and epidemiologist at the Kaiser Permanente Department of Research and Evaluation in Pasadena, Calif.​

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091204092443.htm


Children who get wild chicken pox are more likely to get shingles as well. Not a surprise.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

There have been documented cases of zoster associated with the vaccine, and concerns that not having chickenpox will result in a weaker immune system.

Vaccinated kids get less symptoms overall, less complications, and no hospitalizations from chicken pox.

 

[Estellea]

Those studies don't support your assertions. Instead, they prove the vaccine has prevented complications and hospitilizations from chicken pox overall.

I have to disagree:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20065330

Another study found an increase in herpes zoster rates between 1999 and 2003; as varicella decreased 66%, the rate of zoster increased from 2.77 per 1,000 person-years to 5.25 per 1,000 person- years. The highest increase was among those 25 to 44 years and over 65 years of age (154). One study reported increases in HZ incidence rates between 1996 and 2001, from 3.18 cases per 1,000 person-years in 1996 to 1997 to 4.11 cases per 1,000 person years in 2000 to 2001 (153).

From your link (full text):

Overall, among children vaccinated between 12 and 18 months, the incidence rate of HZ gradually increased in the first 4 years after vaccination then decreased. The incidence peaked at the fourth year after vaccination (43.17 per 100,000 person-years), the trend in the first 4 years was significant (P <0.001) (Table 3).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19536039

The estimated annual incidence of herpes zoster by age group fluctuated between 2000 and 2006 in the study area (Table 1). Among children <10 years of age, herpes zoster incidence had an overall decreasing trend (P <0.001), and declined by 56%, from 74.8 cases/100,000 children in 2000 to 33.3 cases/100,000 children in 2006 (95% CI: 55.30 –101.2 and 20.9 –52.8, respectively; P < 0.001). Among those 10 to 19 years of age, herpes zoster incidence had an overall increasing trend (P < 0.002), and increased by 63%, from 59.5 cases/100,000 children in 2000 to 96.7 cases/100,000 children in 2006 (95% CI: 42.7– 82.9 and 75.7–123.6, respectively; P <0.002).

Other studies also show that vaccinated people will still get subsequent exposure over their lives to the disease from unvaccinated people spreading it around, and that only builds their immunity up to prevent shingles. The only issues are coming up in the unvaccinated, but frac them.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091204092443.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091204092443.htm

Children who get wild chicken pox are more likely to get shingles as well. Not a surprise.

My point being that it isn't as straight-forward as you think. No, the data are far from conclusive that shingles incidence is increased on a population basis where the vaccine is widely administered, but it is a real concern and shouldn't be dismissed yet. Circulating wild-type virus, albeit it at low levels may be a bit of a double-edged sword in that yes, it boosts our immunity, helping to reduce shingles incidence but wild-type varicella may also be responsible for more severe shingles episodes in the elderly.

You just need to broach this one carefully when dealing with anti-vaxers because the risk/benefits of vaccination aren't as clear-cut as say, measles, polio, Hib and rubella and to some degree, mumps.

Este

 

[RhodyDave]

I sympathize for her about her autistic child, but the reality is that she has no business doing what she's doing in regard to vaccines and autism. If she really wants to use her celebrity to help autistic people, she should first educate herself. What she's doing now is spreading falsehoods, and promoting ignorance of medicine and science. She's actually doing more harm than good.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

I have to disagree:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20065330


From your link (full text):


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19536039



My point being that it isn't as straight-forward as you think. No, the data are far from conclusive that shingles incidence is increased on a population basis where the vaccine is widely administered, but it is a real concern and shouldn't be dismissed yet. Circulating wild-type virus, albeit it at low levels may be a bit of a double-edged sword in that yes, it boosts our immunity, helping to reduce shingles incidence but wild-type varicella may also be responsible for more severe shingles episodes in the elderly.

You just need to broach this one carefully when dealing with anti-vaxers because the risk/benefits of vaccination aren't as clear-cut as say, measles, polio, Hib and rubella and to some degree, mumps.

Este

No, the data is showing shingles is decreased in the vaccinated population. If you don't want shingles, get vaccinated. If you don't get vaccinated, then accept that you will get shingles-I know I will get it if I don't pay a hundred bucks when 60+ and get the vaccine because I know I got wild chicken pox when I was 5. The risk is real, and I will get the shot to avoid it. The data doesn't show increased shingles since vaccination at all, in no way. Instead, clear evidence shows the vaccinated people (also kids who got chicken pox vax) get less shingles. That is actually a good thing.