Oprah

In The Politics of Autism, I look at the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.  Previous posts on this blog discussed Oprah Winfrey's role in spreading this idea.  Her well-received speech at the Golden Globes has sparked talk of a presidential run, which raises the issue of her antivax connection.

Megan Jula at Mother Jones:

Winfrey’s role in this controversy dates back to 2007, when she brought Jenny McCarthy, the Playboy model and actress, onto her show to talk about autism. McCarthy’s young son, Evan, had suffered a series of seizures at two-and-a-half years old and was later diagnosed with autism. McCarthy was adamant that the MMR vaccination Evan received as a baby caused his autism. On the show, McCarthy told Oprah she had been instinctually uncomfortable with allowing the doctor to give her son the vaccine. “I said to the doctor, I have a very bad feeling about this shot,” McCarthy recounted. “This is the autism shot, isn’t it?”

On the show, McCarthy’s claims went virtually unchallenged. Winfrey praised McCarthy as a “mother warrior” and plugged her book Louder Than Words: A Mother’s Journey in Healing Autism, which inaccurately suggests childhood vaccinations contribute to autism. Winfrey did read a brief statement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which said there was no scientific evidence of a connection and that scientists were continuing to study the causes of autism. “It is important to remember, vaccines protect and save lives. Vaccines protect infants, children and adults from the unnecessary harm and premature death caused by vaccine-preventable diseases,” the CDC statement concluded. But McCarthy had the final word. “My science is named Evan, and he’s at home,” she said. “That’s my science.

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This wasn’t the first time Winfrey’s audience had been presented with the vaccines-autism theory. A few months before McCarthy’s appearance, Katie Wright, whose son has autism, said on the show, “The vaccine connection has not been refuted at all. In fact, we give 37 vaccines to babies under the age of 18 months. Nobody has shown that that’s safe, a wise idea, the multiple vaccines at once.”

“She wanted to say it, and I wanted you to get it out there,” Winfrey replied, as the audience clapped. “Because you are a mother dealing with your child every day.”

Trump, RFK, DeNiro, Autism, and Vaccines

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the discredited idea that vaccines cause autism.  Trump has supported that notion. 

At Buzzfeed, Azeen Ghorayshi reports on Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.:

On Wednesday, Kennedy said that he’s been contacted by the Trump administration three times since their original meeting in January. “They tell me that they’re still going forward with a commission,” Kennedy said, adding that he “can’t tell” whether it will happen. BuzzFeed News has asked the administration for comment on these claims.

But in a panel discussion at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. on Wednesday that included the actor Robert De Niro, Kennedy argued that the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, in cahoots with journalists, have been denying the dangers of vaccines, fueled largely by money pumped in by a powerful pharmaceutical industry. He called the public health agency a “cesspool of corruption” and “a vaccine company,” that hid science from the public. To that end, Kennedy announced the “World Mercury Project Challenge,” offering $100,000 to anyone who could find a scientific study that demonstrated the safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines in children and pregnant women.

As the article points out, a real expert has a different view:

“I’m a vaccine scientist. I’m also the father of an adult daughter with autism,” Peter Hotez, president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, told BuzzFeed News.

“Not only is there an abundance of evidence showing that vaccines are safe, there’s not even any plausibility of an association [with autism].”
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“Press conferences like this become a distraction from the really important and hard work that needs to be done,” Hotez said.

Meredith Wadman reports at Science:

Kennedy was summoned on 10 January to meet with the then–president elect and emerged from Trump Tower in New York City to tell the press that Trump had asked him to head a “vaccine safety and scientific integrity" commission. Within hours a Trump spokesperson qualified Kennedy’s statements, saying the president “is exploring the possibility of forming a commission on Autism … however no decisions have been made.” The spokesperson added that Trump was discussing “all aspects of autism with many groups and individuals.”

Julia Belluz reports at Vox: 

Kennedy has a long history of stoking vaccine doubts, focusing in particular on the claim that the mercury in shots makes kids sick. ...

Kennedy’s article at Salon was retracted, after the online magazine had to run a series of corrections that contradicted many of the piece’s claims.

What’s more, thimerosal, an ethyl mercury-containing antimicrobial, has been removed from most vaccines for children since 2001, with the exception of an inactivated flu vaccine. The public health community did this as a precautionary measure — part of a strategy to reduce mercury exposures from any source. And since then, researchers have found that autism rates among children haven’t gone down. So it’s not clear why Kennedy continues on this mercury and vaccines tirade. What’s more, thimerosal was never used in the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine that some vaccine skeptics claim causes autism.

Julia Brucculieri reports at The Huffington Post:

De Niro seemed to be fully on board with his fellow panelist.

“I’m glad I’m here. I thought what Bobby said was great. It was eloquent. I couldn’t have said it better myself. I agree with him 100 percent. Thank you,” he said.

The actor has been sympathetic to the anti-vaccine movement in the past. Last year, he gave the go-ahead to screen the controversial documentary “Vaxxed” at the Tribeca Film Festival (which he co-founded). The film was directed by discredited physician Andrew Wakefield, and was eventually pulled from the festival lineup after immense backlash from the scientific community. Wakefield published his first study linking vaccines to autism in 1998, but was unable to prove his theory. The study was retracted in 2010 and Wakefield was stripped of his medical license in the U.K. later that year.

RFK Jr. and Thimerosal

Keith Kloor writes at The Washington Post that RFK Jr. is getting the cold shoulder from mainstream political figures, even those on the left.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski listened impassively as Robert Kennedy Jr. made his case. He had to talk over the din in the marbled hallway just outside the Senate chambers, where he was huddled with Mikulski, two of her aides and three allies of his who had come to Washington for this April meeting. 

Kennedy, a longtime environmental activist and an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, had thought Mikulski would be receptive to an issue that has consumed him for a decade, even as friends and associates have told him repeatedly that it’s a lost cause. But she grew visibly impatient the longer he talked.
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The Maryland Democrat turned from Kennedy without a word. “I want to hear what you have to say,” Mikulski said, looking up at the lean man standing next to her. Mark Hyman, a physician and best-selling author, is Kennedy’s chief collaborator on a then-unpublished book titled “Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak,” which is scheduled to come out next week. The book argues that ethylmercury — a component of thimerosal — is harmful to human health. (Not so in trace amounts, scientific authorities have concluded.) 

“The bottom line,” Hyman said to Mikulski: “We shouldn’t be injecting a neurotoxin into pregnant women and children.” Thimerosal should be taken out of the flu vaccine, Hyman and Kennedy argued. 

Mikulski didn’t react, except to suggest they contact Sen. Bernie Sanders, who “cares about brain health” and oversees a related subcommittee.

Kloor reports that Sanders had a similarly cool reaction.

Lowry on the Anti-Vaccine Movement

At National Review, Rich Lowry kicks the anti-vaccine movement to the curb:

A study in the journal Pediatrics found that the 2010 whooping-cough outbreak in California — when the state had the highest number of cases since 1947 — hit hardest in areas with high levels of nonvaccination. In 2013, measles cases tripled nationwide. Outbreaks were centered in religious communities in Brooklyn, N.Y., Texas, and North Carolina that had resisted vaccination. New York City has another small outbreak right now.

In the panic created by the Wakefield article, England saw MMR vaccination rates fall to 80 percent in 2004 and Wales to 78 percent. In 2012, England and Wales had the highest number of measles cases in 18 years.

These are dangerous illnesses, and the victims of an outbreak are often infants too small to have yet received vaccinations. Jenny McCarthy styles herself a “mother warrior.” If so, the kids sickened in the fallout from reduced vaccinations are the victims of friendly fire. Nothing good can come from undoing one of the miracles of medical progress.

Jenny McCarthy, Vaccines, and Twitter

Alexandra Petri writes at The Washington Post:

“What is the most important personality trait you look for in a mate? Reply using #JennyAsks,” McCarthy tweeted 

Tweeters were quick to seize the opportunity that had been handed to them on a large golden platter, garnished with parsley and with an apple stuck in its mouth. The hashtag was instantly hijacked by people promoting vaccination.

(Phil Plait, at Bad Astronomy, has a good selection.)

This is great and encouraging, if you like science. But there is one problem with the backlash. Actually, there’s two: it makes it seem as though this is a debate, however one-sided, and it just preaches to the choir. The choir hears someone saying “Hey, can you believe that in 2014, some crazy person still believes the earth is flat?” But someone else hears, “Some people still believe the earth is flat. Others call them ‘crazy.’ ” Every time the Round Earthers resoundingly win a debate, you perpetuate the notion that it’s a debate, not a set of facts that are simply not up for discussion.

Daryl Hannah's "Silence"

The news media have reported on the "revelation" that actress Daryl Hannah says that she received an autism diagnosis as a child.  The headline on E! reads: "Daryl Hannah Breaks Her Silence on Autism Struggle."

Some silence:  she's been talking about it for decades.

The Sun Herald (Sydney, Australia), September 20, 1987:

Growing up in Chicago, Daryl Hannah seemed rarely in touch with reality. Her parents divorced when she was seven and she has little recollection of the following four years of her life. Diagnosed as semi-autistic by psychiatrists, Daryl withdrew into a magical mystery tour of her own mind.

"I probably lived a little too much inside my imagination. I used to see witches and leprechauns and stuff," she says. "I actually still remember these things as if they actually happened, so I kind of like to leave that time alone and not rip it apart. Anyway, I guess the psychiatrists thought, 'she's too far gone'.

The Toronto Star, March 1, 1992: 

For a time, when young, she became so introverted that school psychiatric counsellors feared she might be suffering from a form of autism. Taking acting classes as a young teenager at the Goodman dramatics school at night, after her regular high school classes, was doubtless good therapy.

The Palm Beach  Post, September 21, 1993:

Daryl's parents divorced when she was 7. Don Hannah, her father, owned a tugboat and barge company. Her mother, Sue Ferris, is descended from the inventor of the Ferris wheel. After the divorce, Hannah retreated into a state that was diagnosed as ``semi-autistic'' by the time she was 10. She said later she would see witches and leprechauns as though they were actually there. Institutionalization was recommended. Her mother, not an alarmist, took her to the Bahamas instead.

The Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia), December 9, 2000:

Hannah admits she lived in a fantasy world when she was a child and, to some extent, still inhabits it. She created a world inside her head to combat the traumas that befell her during her childhood in Chicago. When she was seven, her parents divorced and she cut herself off from everyone, refusing to speak. Her withdrawal was so marked that a child psychologist diagnosed autism and suggested she be medicated and put in an institution.

"I think I suffered from social-anxiety syndrome and still do. I am, and always have been, uncomfortable in certain social situations, but in those days it was interpreted as autism.

"I'd been through a bad time and withdrew into myself. My mother didn't listen to the doctors and took me out of school for a year. If I'd been put on medication and institutionalised it would have been the end of me.

"My mother is an amazing woman. Like me, she looks at the world through different eyes. When I was born the doctors wanted to put me in leg braces because I didn't pass their flexibility tests, but my mother refused, waited until I was three and took me to ballet classes instead." 

Good Morning America, October 7, 2003:

DIANE SAWYER (Off Camera):  In fact, I, I'd never seen this before, but you said that when you were young, you were diagnosed as borderline autistic.
DARYL HANNAH:  Yeah.
DIANE SAWYER: (Off Camera) And you think that in fact that was sort of paralyzing shyness and that the two are related.
DARYL HANNAH: I think that it definitely has some impact on my social ineptitude, yeah. It's, and also just the fact that I tend to, you know, go off in my imagination a lot and I'm uncomfortable around certain situations.

Autism and Miss California

Serious concern about autism shows up in places where you might not expect it.

The Examiner reports:

Miss Culver City Noelle Freeman was crowned Miss California 2011 on Saturday night, according to the Miss America Organization.

Noelle ran on the platform, “A Promising Future for Autism.”

Her biography explains that the Chapman University student started volunteering with autistic kids when she was 8.

Contestants Ryan Osborn of Placentia and Holly Katherine Heiserman of San Francisco also cited autism as their cause. The latter explained that her 20-year-old brother is nonverbal and autistic. The Berkeley graduate said that she wants to become a lawyer and advocate for the disabled.

Chaka Khan Lobbies for CARA

The Washington Post reports on Chaka Khan, lobbying for the Combating Autism Reauthorization Act:

Celebrities — not all of them have had it that easy. An occasional look at the stars bringing hard-earned knowledge to Washington. Tuesday’s guest:Chaka Khan

Venue: Longworth House Office Building.

Concern: The recent uptick in autism diagnoses among African American and Latino boys.

Bona Fides: 10-time Grammy winner, aunt of an autistic boy.

Backup: Her sister/manager Tammy McCrary, actress Tisha Campbell-Martin, D.L. Hughley’s wife LaDonna — all moms of autistic boys, who’ve made a documentary, “Colored My Mind,” about their struggle.

What she wants: For Congress to reauthorize the Combating Autism Act, set to expire this year.

How she looked: Simple black pantsuit, heavy gold bling. When asked for a photo, she struck a pose with a black-and-red fan.

Quote: “It’s a struggle for mankind. This transcends everything, all the little petty groups.”

The Washington Examiner adds some detail:

"I'll bet one of my paychecks that either someone in their family or someone very close to them knows somebody that has autism happening in their immediate realm," the R&B legend told Yeas & Nays on Monday afternoon. Khan's sister and manager, Tammy McCrary, has a son with autism.

"It's just horrific," said Khan. "It seems to be like a thief in the night that comes and takes our children's minds, mental awareness and physical awareness, too. I think something needs to be done and I think we need to get back on the pony again and ride it for all it's worth to get help and awareness out there for every community."