Jenny McCarthy is an idiot—and I don’t mean that in a nice way

I have a certain amount of sympathy for any parent dealing with a sick kid. I also don’t think people should “suffer in silence”. If, for instance, your child is injured in an auto accident caused by a drunk driver, speaking out publicly is a public service.

If, however, you are a fuckwit with no relevant education, and are famous only for being famous, leave the bully pulpit to others. Case in point, Jenny McCarthy. Many of us have been following McCarthy’s descent into woo-filled madness as she has dealt with her son’s growth and development. As a brief primer: Son diagnosed as autistic, McCarthy buys into anti-vaccination movement, re-invents word “indigo”, subjects child to bizarre dietary regimen, proclaims him cured, doesn’t shut up about it.

OK, now that you’re caught up, the “not shutting up” continues, and this time CNN is giving her all the bandwidth she needs to show off her stupidity.

I’m not a journalist, and as such, I don’t really have an obligation to, you know, the truth. Still, I’m a physician, and I have a reputation (of sorts) to maintain, so I do my best. I would think that CNN would have journalistic standards somewhat higher than your humble blogger.

Not so much.

McCarthy seems upset that the rest of the world isn’t knocking down her door to spread the word of her son’s “cure”.

We believe what helped Evan recover was starting a gluten-free, casein-free diet, vitamin supplementation, detox of metals, and anti-fungals for yeast overgrowth that plagued his intestines…

Lot’s of kids believe in Santa with the same level of evidence, but that doesn’t make him real. Where is the evidence?

Evan is now 5 years old and what might surprise a lot of you is that we’ve never been contacted by a single member of the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics, or any other health authority to evaluate and understand how Evan recovered from autism. When Evan meets doctors and neurologists, to this day they tell us he was misdiagnosed — that he never had autism to begin with. It’s as if they are wired to believe that children can’t recover from autism.

So where’s the cavalry? Where are all the doctors beating down our door to take a closer look at Evan?

Grandiosity aside, none of the named agencies is tasked with investigating every nut-job celebrity’s claim of miracles. Neither are individual doctors. If the feds had to jump every time some wacko claimed they had a miracle cure, we’d have to establish some sort of agency to investigate the medical paranormal, and that would be silly.

What? We have one? You mean the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine? Oh.

Well, Jenny, I guess the big conspiracy keeping you from getting the word out is breaking down. I mean, you’re writing on CNN.com, you’ve been on Larry King, what more do you want? To be taken seriously by scientists? Well, then, you’ll have to step away from the Kool Aid and pick up a book. Oops…she’d rather read websites run by quacks and cranks, and regurgitate their pap like a blonde automaton. For example:

We believe autism is an environmental illness. Vaccines are not the only environmental trigger, but we do think they play a major role. If we are going to solve this problem and finally start to reverse the rate of autism, we need to consider changing the vaccine schedule, reducing the number of shots given and removing certain ingredients that could be toxic to some children.

I don’t know who this nebulous “we” is, but it certainly isn’t any respected authority on child development, autism, or vaccination.

You know who I like? Sanjay Gupta. Sure, sometimes he gets things wrong, but he seems to have a little bit of integrity, and he’s certainly not stupid. Most of the time he seems to have read and understood the relevant literature. Well, he is a doctor, and his degree isn’t from Google U. Jenny, you’re out of your league and being played by a bunch of psychopaths. Step away from the camera. Go live and be well with your son.