JENNY McCARTHY, AMANDA PEET ARE CENTRAL FOCUS IN PRO-VACCINE CAMPAIGN “I am a parasite,” says Jenny McCarthy responding to a recent interview in Cookie Magazine where fellow actress Amanda 
Peet calls parents who chose not to vaccinate their children, ‘parasites.’ “I am so proud to be a parasite.”
While there isn’t exactly a war of words between the two Tinsel Town veterans yet, it certainly has made for good fodder in the gossip pages. Since her comments, Peet has apologized. “I believe in my heart that my use of the word ‘parasites’ was mean and divisive; I completely understand why it offended some parents, and in particular, parents of children with autism who feel that vaccines caused their illness. For this I am truly sorry.”
In August, Peet joined former First Lady Roslynn Carter, co-founder of Every Child By Two (ECBT), Renee Jenkins, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and Dr. Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at Philadelphia Children’s Hospital and a long time member of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) at the Peninsula Hotel in midtown Manhattan to launch their latest strike against McCarthy and her campaign to remove toxins from vaccines and fight for fewer childhood vaccinations before the age of two.
In February, the AAP put out a casting call for a spokesperson to combat McCarthy’s successful campaigns. By June McCarthy led thousands through the streets of Washington, D.C. and onto the lawn at Capitol Hill with a message of “too many too soon.” While McCarthy has kept the pressure on, the AAP has been putting together a plan they say will bring about more awareness.
“We’re here to dispel the myths,” Carter said. “I am so distressed with what is happening, and now our mission has become more difficult. As a result of all this there is an outbreak of measles and whooping cough.”
Dr. Offit, whose new book, Autism’s False Prophets, is out now, echoes the former first lady’s sentiments. “There is a measles outbreak, and it’s affected over 30,000 people,” he said. “One of the reasons why this fear of vaccines exists is because of the power of anecdote. We’re up against personal and compelling stories. We have to find a way to make the real science more compelling.” Offit added that there shouldn’t be a fear of vaccines and that a child can sustain 26 vaccines before the age of 2 and as many as five in a single visit. When asked to clarify if more than five vaccines in one doctor’s visit could potentially be dangerous, Offit concluded that a child could take on more.
Both Jenkins and Offit insist that the multiple vaccinations in one day and mixing different vaccines are safe. They also say that there are studies that have been conducted whenever they introduce a new vaccine to the schedule. “Those studies are available to everyone,” Jenkins says. According to documents on the AAP Web site there are two ways that vaccines are tested for safety. The first is through Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). All doctors must report serious side effects of vaccines to VAERS so they can be studied. Parents can also file reports with VAERS. The second is by “studying information about side effects collected from eight large insurance companies.”
After the birth of her daughter, Peet was wary about what to do about vaccinations. She says she consulted her brother-in-law, a former pupil of Offit’s, and received all the answers she needed.
“I’m here because there does seem to be a rift between parents and the medical community,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense to say that there is a massive cover up.” In what seemed like a direct shot to McCarthy, Peet continued saying, “Don’t listen to actors about this. Don’t listen to celebrities about this. Listen to the doctors and scientists who know what they
are doing.”
McCarthy agrees, “She’s absolutely right. We shouldn’t be listening to actors. We should be listening to moms who have gone through the experience of having a vaccine injured child.”
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written by Anonymous, October 01, 2008
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written by Jeffrey Cohen, October 01, 2008
Peet: "“Don’t listen to actors about this. Don’t listen to celebrities about this. Listen to the doctors and scientists who know what they are doing.”
Although I have problems with the AMA being in bed with Big Pharma and the FDA, so far the only study has been debunked. And Jenny has no PROOF that vaccines have injured children.
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written by Melissa Sherrell, October 14, 2008
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