Autism Debate Strains a Family and Its Charity

I have a personal stake in this, my son, Charlie has Aspergers, which is either mild Autism, or a condition on the Autism spectrum with is less severe.

Let me be clear. I do not rule out that there may be environmental factors, but there is no connection it inoculations.

When Thimerisol was dropped, there was no change in the increase of Autism cases, there have been multiple mechanisms, and they have All been debunked.

The doctor who made the original claim has been so dishonest that he has had his ticket pulled at the hospital he was working at.

The connection to vaccinations is bullsh$#. Period, full stop.

Furthermore, by allowing junk science to pollute public health debates, it has created a vast reservoir of the unvaccinated, who serve to undermine herd immunity, leading to epidemics in some areas.

These people are endangering not only their children, but the communities in which they live.

BTW, in Charlie's case, my wife, a trained special ed professional saw signs of something on the Autism spectrum about ONE WEEK after he was born.

Autism Debate Strains a Family and Its Charity
By JANE GROSS and STEPHANIE STROM
Published: June 18, 2007

A year after their grandson Christian received a diagnosis of autism in 2004, Bob Wright, then chairman of NBC/Universal, and his wife, Suzanne, founded Autism Speaks, a mega-charity dedicated to curing the dreaded neurological disorder that affects one of every 150 children in America today.

The Wrights’ venture was also an effort to end the internecine warfare in the world of autism — where some are convinced that the disorder is genetic and best treated with intensive therapy, and others blame preservatives in vaccinations and swear by supplements and diet to cleanse the body of heavy metals.

With its high-powered board, world-class scientific advisers and celebrity fund-raisers like Jerry Seinfeld and Paul Simon, the charity was a powerful voice, especially in Washington. It also made strides toward its goal of unity by merging with three existing autism organizations and raising millions of dollars for research into all potential causes and treatments. The Wrights call it the “big tent” approach.

But now the fissures in the autism community have made their way into the Wright family, where father and daughter are not speaking after a public battle over themes familiar to thousands of families with autistic children.

The Wrights’ daughter, Katie, the mother of Christian, says her parents have not given enough support to the people who believe, as she does, that the environment — specifically a synthetic mercury preservative in vaccines — is to blame. No major scientific studies have linked pediatric vaccination and autism, but many parents and their advocates persist, and a federal “vaccine court” is now reviewing nearly 4,000 such claims.

...

Another Nail in the Anti-Vaxxers Delusions

Researchers have determined that indicatations of autism are present in children in the first 6 months of life:

An early indication of autism can be identified in babies under six months old, a study suggests.

US researchers, writing in Nature, analysed how infants looked at faces from birth to the age of three.

They found children later diagnosed with autism initially developed normally but showed diminished eye contact - a hallmark of autism - between two and six months of age.

A UK expert said the findings raise hope for early interventions.

In the study, researchers led by Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta used eye-tracking technology to measure the way babies looked at and responded to social clues.

They found infants later diagnosed with autism had shown a steady decline in attention to the eyes of other people from the age of two months onwards, when watching videos of natural human interactions.

Lead researcher Dr Warren Jones told BBC News: "It tells us for the first time that it's possible to detect some signs of autism in the first months of life.

"These are the earliest signs of autism that we've ever observed."

I'm not surprised by this study.

My wife pegged Charlie as being on the spectrum in his first week outside of the womb. She knew something was different in the first 5 minutes.

Of course, she is a trained special educator, so it's in her profession.

What this means is that autism is present well before when know-nothings claim that vaccinations "cause" autism.

Can we please stop listening to Jenny McCarthy Now?

Truth Hits the Autism-Vaccine Wacko Community

Well, a couple of days ago, it was revealed that doctor Andrew Wakefield's data on autism and vaccines were completely fraudulent, and now the federal vaccine court, which was largely created on the back of Wakefield's myth, has ruled that there is no credible connections between vaccines and autism.

As to the court case:

The decision by three independent special masters is especially telling because the special court's rules did not require plaintiffs to prove their cases with scientific certainty -- all the parents needed to show was that a preponderance of the evidence, or "50 percent and a hair," supported their claims. The vaccine court effectively said today that the thousands of pending claims represented by the three test cases are on extremely shaky ground.

In his ruling on one case, special master George Hastings said the parents of Michelle Cedillo -- who had charged that a measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine caused their child to develop autism -- had "been misled by physicians who are guilty, in my view, of gross medical misjudgment."

Hastings said that he was deeply moved by the suffering autism imposed on families such as the Cedillos, but that "the evidence advanced by the petitioners has fallen far short of demonstrating . . . a link."

As to the despicable Andrew Wakefield and his 1997 article in the Lancet, this is more than just bad science.

Wakefield, in the employ of vaccine litigation specialists, simply made up data:

The research was published in February 1998 in an article in The Lancet medical journal. It claimed that the families of eight out of 12 children attending a routine clinic at the hospital had blamed MMR for their autism, and said that problems came on within days of the jab. The team also claimed to have discovered a new inflammatory bowel disease underlying the children’s conditions.

However, our investigation, confirmed by evidence presented to the General Medical Council (GMC), reveals that: In most of the 12 cases, the children’s ailments as described in The Lancet were different from their hospital and GP records. Although the research paper claimed that problems came on within days of the jab, in only one case did medical records suggest this was true, and in many of the cases medical concerns had been raised before the children were vaccinated. Hospital pathologists, looking for inflammatory bowel disease, reported in the majority of cases that the gut was normal. This was then reviewed and the Lancet paper showed them as abnormal.

You can see my earlier posts on this here.

Stop Jenny McCarthy

There is a website about Jenny McCarthy, and the lies that she spreads regarding conditions on the Autism spectrum.

I have a child on the Autism Spectrum (Aspergers), and my wife noted signs at birth, and had specific concerns about a condition on the spectrum before he turned 3, but my anecdote is no more valid than McCarthy's where she claims that vaccines cause autism, and that her son "recovered".

Neither happen in Autism. The data is clear: there is no correlation between Autism Spectrum disorders and vaccines.

While correlation does not prove causation, lack of correlation does prove lack of causation, and this has been proved dozens of times.

As to "curing" people on the spectrum, you can't, as is the case with children "recovering" from Autism. They aren't broken, they are different, and so they need to learn how to bridge the gap with the rest of the world.

Another Study Proves that Jenny McCarthy is a Dangerous Loon

We have another study showing that there is no connection between vaccines and autism:

There is no link between receiving a number of vaccines early in life and autism, researchers said on Friday.

In a study slated to appear in The Journal of Pediatrics, researchers said there is no association between receiving "too many vaccines too soon" and autism, despite some fears among parents around the number of vaccines given both on a single day and over the first 2 years of life.

As many as one in 50 U.S. school-age children have been diagnosed with autism, up 72 percent since 2007.

………

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Abt Associates analyzed data from children with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD), according to a statement from the journal.

Researchers examined each child's cumulative exposure to antigens, the substances in vaccines that cause the body's immune system to produce antibodies to fight disease, and the maximum number of antigens each child received in a single day of vaccination, the journal's statement said.

The antigen totals were the same for children with and without ASD, researchers found.

Not surprising.

In the normal course of growing up, a child is exposed to hundreds, possibly thousands, of new antigens a day, the idea that adding a dozen or so to that would be received through a series of vaccinations would "cause" autism is ludicrous.

Of course, the antediluvian thinking of the anti-vax crowd has real consequences: we have seen increases in outbreaks of previously nearly vanished childhood diseases resulting from a loss of herd immunity.

Thimerosal DOES NOT Cause Autism

A study has just been completed on Autism rates following the removal Thimerosal from vaccines in 2001, and the numbers are stark, removing Thimerosol made no change in the incidence of Autism spectrum disorders. (LA Times Link)

Autism cases continued to increase in California after the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal was eliminated from most childhood vaccines, according to a new report.This suggests that exposure to thimerosal is not a primary cause of autism.

Speaking as a parent of a child on the spectrum, Charlie is a very high functioning Aspergers kid, let me state that the people arguing for this are wrong.

Every peer reviewed study has shown no correlation, and while correlation may not prove causation, a lack of correlation does prove a lack of causation.

Inoculations work. Inoculations don't give your kid an Autism Spectrum disorder.

Get your kids vaccinated, for their good, and for the good of their classmates.

Osama, Take Me Now

37% of dog owners in the United States are vaccine hesitant because they are concerned about doggy autism.

I understand the concern.  A lot of dogs are completely non-verbal and engage in stimming behavior like chasing their own tails and pursuing tennis balls.  (Not)

The anti-vaccine rhetoric that dogged COVID-19 responses has now gone to the dogs, literally.

A little more than half of surveyed dog owners—53 percent—questioned the safety, efficacy, and/or necessity of vaccinating their beloved four-legged family members. The study, published recently in the journal Vaccine, involved a nationally representative group of 2,200 American adults, of which 42 percent (924) made up the analyzed subgroup of dog owners. Overall, the findings add to concern that the anti-vaccine sentiments that flared amid the pandemic have fanned out broadly, undermining even routine childhood vaccinations.

That concern was supported by the new study, which found that the dog owners who espoused "canine vaccine hesitancy," or CVH, were more likely to embrace misinformation and falsehoods linked to human vaccines. And those anti-vaccine beliefs were potent. Responses from the CVH dog owners suggested that 56 percent opposed mandatory vaccination against rabies, a 100 percent fatal condition.

In a particularly striking finding, the study found that 37 percent of all dog owners believed vaccines could cause their pets to develop cognitive problems, such as "canine/feline autism."

To be clear, vaccines do not cause autism. This falsehood has been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked for years; the plethora of data on vaccine safety shows absolutely no link between vaccination and autism. Further, "canine autism" (aka "canine dysfunctional behavior" on the Internet) is not a real condition. A veterinarian who was not involved with the new study confirmed to Ars that it is not an established diagnosis, though dogs can suffer behavioral and cognitive disorders unrelated to human autism.

Nevertheless, anti-vaccine bunkum has clearly metastasized to our furry companions. The lead author of the study, Matthew Motta, told Ars over email that he and his co-authors expected some vaccine hesitancy among pet owners but still found the results "pretty surprising."

Not surprising at all, to quote H.L. Mencken, "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people."

Anti-Vaxxers Handed Another Well Deserved Defeat

A 3 judge panel has ruled that there is no scientific basis for claims of a link between thimerosal and autism:

In a further blow to the antivaccine movement, three judges ruled Friday in three separate cases that thimerosal, a preservative containing mercury, does not cause autism.

The three rulings are the second step in the Omnibus Autism Proceeding begun in 2002 in the United States Court of Federal Claims. The proceeding combines the cases of 5,000 families with autistic children seeking compensation from the federal vaccine injury fund, which comes from a 75-cent tax on every dose of vaccine.

Understand that there is a fund, which can, and does pay out for things like allergic reactions, and judges ruled that there is no factual basis for this at all:

In the three cases brought against the government, by the parents of Jordan King, Colin R. Dwyer and William Mead, all three special masters used strong language in dismissing the expert evidence from the families’ lawyers.

The master in the King ruling emphasized that it was “not a close case” and “extremely unlikely” that Jordan’s autism was connected to his vaccines. The master in the Dwyer case wrote that many parents “relied upon practitioners and researchers who peddled hope, not opinions grounded in science and medicine.”

This is judge speak for, "Get out of here, you nut jobs."

Now, if only we could get Jenny McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy, Jr. off of Huff Po before they do any more damage.

Another Day, Another Study Proving Antivaxxers full of It

No link between vaccines and autism, yet again:

Parents worried about getting young children vaccinated against infectious diseases have fresh cause for reassurance, researchers say.

A new review of existing scientific evidence has concluded that childhood vaccines are safe and don't cause serious health problems such as autism or leukemia.

"Our findings support that vaccines are very safe for children, and add to a substantial body of evidence that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the very low risks," said senior author Dr. Courtney Gidengil, an associate physician scientist at RAND Corporation and an instructor at Harvard Medical School. "Hopefully, this will engage hesitant parents in discussions with their health care providers."

The review found strong evidence that the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine is not associated with autism, which is consistent with previous reviews of this rumored link.

Some parents have chosen not to have their children vaccinated because of a now-debunked and retracted study published in 1998 that suggested that the MMR vaccine might cause autism. It was later reported that the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, had altered some of the study's results.

The researchers behind the new study also found no link between childhood leukemia and vaccines for MMR, DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis), tetanus, influenza and hepatitis B.

Overall, vaccines given to children 6 or younger are safe, causing few side effects, the review concluded. The findings are published in the July 1 online edition and the August print issue of the journal Pediatrics.

The fact that Andrew Wakefield is still a free man, when the death toll of his fraud numbers in the thousands, dishonors both the justice system and the scientific community.

Me Bad. Hillary Wanking on Autism Too

You can read it here:

I am committed to make investments to find the causes of autism, including possible environmental causes like vaccines. I have long been a supporter of increased research to determine the links between environmental factors and diseases, and I believe we should increase the NIH’s ability to engage in this type of research. My administration will be committed to improving research to support fact-based solutions, and I will ensure that the NIH has the staff and funding to fully explore all possible causes of autism.

Just to be clear: the vaccine-autism link is a hoax.

The doctor who came up with it was in cahoots with the lawyers, and he had a patent on a junk science alternative.

He is now in the process of having his license to practice medicine stripped.

Let's Be Clear on This: There is No Autism-Vaccine Link, Just Scientists On One Side and Liars On the Other

That's the truth and Washington Post reporter Shankar Vedantam manages to ignore the fact that there is no correlation between vaccines and conditions on the autism spectrum.^*

The author mentions that the new study contradicts a 1998 study by Andrew Wakefield, but ignores the fact that he was accused of, "suppressing and falsifying data", that his co-authors of this study have disavowed his reasearch, and at this time is under investigation for serious professional and financial misconduct.

He faces removal of his medical license as a result.

If there is any justice in the world, he will end up in to jail too.

^*There is some dispute as to whether Aspergers is mild Autism, or a different condition on the Autism spectrum, a distinction which I would generally expect a reporter to miss.

Parents Putting Children, and the Community at Risk

The facts are quite clear, there is no tie between vaccines and Autism*, and this has been conclusively proven.

The doctor who came up with this cockamamie theory had his ticket yanked. The removal of Thimerisol (which was an independent good regardless of the non link to Autism) made no difference in the trajectory of the disease.

Vaccines represent the greatest success in public health in the history of...well..history.

When we see reports like this one the Neanderthal^† anti-vaccination movement, the basic points which need to be made are as follows:

• There is no evidence that vaccines are listed are linked to any disease.
• The idea that there is a link to Autism is false and has been completely disproven.
• This puts the entire community at risk, because unvaccinated children spread the disease.
• It puts holes in herd immunity.

These basic points were not made in this article, though it was hinted at when the writer quoted Sybil "I'm a Moron" Carlson saying that vaccines caused "immunology".

Let's be clear. Vaccines do have risks, I know someone who is in a wheelchair because of a vaccine induced case of polio, and my mother had an allergic reaction to the horse serum used in the tetanus vaccine, but they are less than that of not being vaccinated, and they are acute, not chronic.

The anti-vaccine movement is based on two things, stupidity and ignorance involving the science, and a blithe disregard for for the effects of society.

That's why we are getting outbreaks of measles, mumps, whooping cough. Because these people are creating reservoirs of disease out of their children, and it affects the vaccinated too, because no vaccine is 100%, and some vaccinated children are put at risk.

^*Full disclosure, my son is on the spectrum, diagnosed with Aspergers.
^†In deference to the GEICO cavemen, I wish to apoliogize for any offense to true Neanderthals.

Obama Just Pissed Me Off

I have been an involuntary student of conditions on the Autism spectrum by virtue of my son having Aspergers (see here, here, and here), so I have looked at the evidence (see here and here) and it is clear that there is no link.

I've also lambasted people who are putting their community and children at risk, because they are stupid and unthinking, which would, of course, include McCain's claim that there is an explicit link.

Well, now we have Obama saying that the science is not yet settled on Autism and vaccines. While he does so in the context of promising additional funding for early interventions (BTW, Hillary was first on suggesting funding for this), by promoting this junk science, junk science that has sickenes thousands of children in the US every year, he pisses me off.

There are (very small) risks to vaccines, which is why the US government has a vaccine fund, but Autism is not one of them.

The anti-vaccine folks should be treated with nothing but disdain, much like the nut-job Mullahs in Northern Nigeria who sabotaged the polio eradication project because they thought it a secret plan to sterilize them.

An Interesting Development in Autism Spectrum Conditions

It appears that there is a genetic link between nicotine addiction and autism, in the neurexin-1 gene, which creates an excess of neurexin-1 beta protein, which aids in nerve cells linking up with nicotine like substances to neuro receptors, in people addicted to nicotine.

It turns out that the levels of the protein, and the gene, are deficient in some people on the Autism spectrum.

It raises some interesting questions, though at this point I would be very cautious, and I think that a first step would be to compare smoking and non smoking populations of people on the spectrum.

The fact that quack physician Jeff Bradford has apparently already started putting nicotine patches on his patients should not be viewed as significant by anyone except, perhaps, for malpractice lawyers.

Giving small children nicotine is an invitation to injury or death, because a nicotine overdose can kill someone very quickly.

H/T A Photon In The Darkness.

Headline of the Day

Neither Neurodivergence Nor Mental Illness Made Them Bigots—They're Just Awful People

—The Big Picture (The non financial one) on how people like Elon Musk using their alleged status to excuse bigotry.

It should be noted here that Elon Musk has never released a formal diagnosis from a medical professional, he's just declared himself that he is on the spectrum.

Also, giving Nazi salutes, or as author Amelia Mavis Christnot so pithily observes, people with neurological differences don't have to be racists, and if they are, it's because they are racist.

The differently abled can be as good or as evil as they choose. 

I've been autistic my entire life, but I wasn't diagnosed until I was 40. I've written before about how my autism manifests.

In retrospect, my autism spectrum disorder (ASD) seems obvious, but in the early days of ASD awareness, the disorder was largely considered exclusive to boys.

………

There were a lot of meltdowns and panic attacks—which for me usually manifested as hysterical crying, heart palpitations, and catatonia.

Still, at one point in my early 30s, I volunteered to establish a customer service phone line and email process for the Department of Defense agency I worked for. It took a lot of pharmaceutical intervention—Ativan—and a great therapist to clear that hurdle.

Do you know one thing I never did to cope or in response to my autism?

Repeatedly fire off a Nazi Roman salute.

(emphasis original)

'Nuff said. 

Vaccine Junk Science: the NY Times Almost Gets It Right

When they have the following paragraph in a story on an Autism-Thimerosal law suit:

Every major study and scientific organization to examine the issue has found no link between vaccination and autism, but the parents and their advocates have persisted.

The get close to being right...Except that it's paragraph 3, and it should be in paragraph 1.

A core fact on the vaccine stupidity is that there is no correlation between vaccines or Thimerosal and conditions on the Autism spectrum. Period, full stop, check my earlier posts.

It is a fraud put forward by an unethical doctor.

And in the World of Film

Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent anti-vaxxer documentary has been pulled from Robert DeNiro's Tribecca film festival:

A controversial film about the discredited link between autism and vaccinations has been pulled from Robert De Niro’s Tribeca film festival, after the actor consulted “the scientific community” and found

The father of an autistic child and co-founder of the festival, De Niro at first defended the decision to premiere Vaxxed: from Cover-Up to Catastrophe, despite outcry from doctors and researchers.

Repeated studies involving more than a million children have found there is no evidence to link childhood vaccines to autism. But a small movement of activists persists in the belief that vaccinations might somehow harm children.

On Saturday De Niro released a statement to explain the new decision. “My intent in screening this film was to provide an opportunity for conversation around an issue that is deeply personal to me and my family,” he said.

“But after reviewing it over the past few days with the Tribeca film festival team and others from the scientific community, we do not believe it contributes to or furthers the discussion I had hoped for.

“The Festival doesn’t seek to avoid or shy away from controversy. However, we have concerns with certain things in this film that we feel prevent us from presenting it in the Festival program. We have decided to remove it from our schedule.”

The controversial film was directed by Andrew Wakefield, a disgraced British former doctor who published a study in 1998 that claimed links between a vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) and autism. The paper was quickly found to contain numerous flaws and was deemed by the British Medical Journal “an elaborate fraud”.

You know, 45 seconds on the internet would have revealed that Wakefield is a charlatan and a fraud who should be in jail.

There is a difference between controversial and con man.

And Congress Gets Into Antivax Bullsh%$

What a surprise, the conman Darryl Issa supports this, and rather depressingly Dennis Kucinich jumps in with both feet:

I’m not exaggerating. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing trying to look into the cause and prevention of autism. Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) launched into a several-minute diatribe (beginning at 12:58 in the video above) that starts off in an Orwellian statement: He claims he’s not antivax. Then he launches into a five-minute speech that promotes long-debunked and clearly incorrect antivax claims, targeting mercury for the most part. Burton has long been an advocate for quackery; for at least a decade he has used Congressional situations like this to promote antiscience.

In the latest hearing, Burton sounds like a crackpot conspiracy theorist, to be honest, saying he knows—better than thousands of scientists who have spent their careers investigating these topics—that thimerosal causes neurological disorders (including autism). He goes on for some time about mercury (as does Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) starting at 21:44 in the video), making it clear he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. For example, very few vaccines still use mercury, and the ones that do use it in tiny amounts and in a form that does not accumulate in the body.

Talking about the danger of mercury in vaccines is like talking about the danger of having hydrogen—an explosive element!—in water. It’s nonsense.

I won’t go further into details, because this shameful travesty of truth and medical health goes on for an hour. On Forbes.com, Steven Salzberg wrote a fantastic article about this Congressional farce. I strongly urge you to read it, since Salzberg brings the hammer down on the Congresscritters who think they know more about science than the scientists who actually devote their lives to this topic.

Let's be clear, the anti-vaxers do more than hurt themselves, and their hapless children. They harm those for whom vaccines have limited effectiveness, or who are too young, like Dana McCaffrey, because they destroy herd immunity.

The modern version of this was started Andrew Wakefield by a con man who had an interest in a (surprise, non working) "treatment" alternative ginned up a phony controversy to line his own pockets.

The people who support this crap are being either evil or stupid.

Support Your Local Police

So, a mother calls because her 13 year old, who is on the autism spectrum, is having a meltdown because of separation anxiety.

The cops promptly escort her out of the house, (great way to deal with a separation anxiety freakout) and almost as promptly shoot the boy multiple times.

Clearly, we should expect a statement from the police that this kid was no angel.

Bastards:

A 13-year-old boy with autism was shot several times by police officers who responded to his home in Salt Lake City after his mother called for help.

Linden Cameron was recovering in a Utah hospital, his mother said, after suffering injuries to his shoulder, both ankles, his intestines and his bladder.

Golda Barton told KUTV she called 911 to request a crisis intervention team because her son, who has Asperger’s syndrome, was having an episode caused by “bad separation anxiety” as his mother went to work for the first time in more than a year.

“I said, ‘He’s unarmed, he doesn’t have anything, he just gets mad and he starts yelling and screaming,’” she said. “He’s a kid, he’s trying to get attention, he doesn’t know how to regulate.”

She added: “They’re supposed to come out and be able to de-escalate a situation using the most minimal force possible.”

Instead, she said, two officers went through the front door of the home and in less than five minutes were yelling “get down on the ground” before firing several shots.

“He’s a small child,” she said. “Why didn’t you just tackle him? He’s a baby. He has mental issues.”

In a briefing on Sunday, Sgt Keith Horrocks of Salt Lake City police told reporters officers were responding to reports “a juvenile was having a mental episode” and thought Cameron “had made threats to some folks with a weapon”.

………

Regarding the incident in Salt Lake City, Neurodiverse Utah said in a statement: “Police were called because help was needed but instead more harm was done when officers from the SLPD expected a 13-year-old experiencing a mental health episode to act calmer and [more] collected than adult trained officers.”

Barton launched a fundraiser to cover her son’s medical bills. She described Cameron as a typical young boy who loves “video games, four wheeling and long-boarding”. She also demanded answers about why her son was not subdued.

Let's be clear, this was not just violence, it was extreme cowardice.

These cops are cowards, and they are trained to be cowards, living their lives in bed wetting fear.

That's what all the hyper violent training, including the notorious Killology, is all about maintaining a state of hypervigilance reinforced by a willingness to use hair-trigger violence.

It is not just cowardice, it is a recipe for creating PTSD, and I do not want peace officers to have PTSD.

Good

Jenny McCarthy has been has been dropped from a cancer fundraiser because of her anti-vaccine bullsh%$:

The Ottawa Cancer Foundation has reversed its decision to hire actress and model Jenny McCarthy to headline its one-day fitness fundraiser Bust A Move.

In a statement released late Friday afternoon, the foundation said McCarthy would be replaced by Canadian celebrity fitness instructor and former CFL player Tommy Europe.

The statement said that since the announcement of McCarthy's appearance, "...attention has shifted away from breast cancer awareness and fundraising."

On Tuesday, McCarthy was revealed as Bust A Move's guest fitness instructor, which caused many to question why an organization supporting cancer research would invite someone with a history of promoting erroneous ideas about health and disease.

Despite reams of scientific research to the contrary, McCarthy writes and speaks publicly about the supposed link between child vaccination and autism. The former Playboy Playmate also blames her son's autism on vaccinations.

Word of McCarthy's appearance at a charity cancer event sparked a #dropjenny hashtag on Twitter, which generated many comments about whether the actress was a credible choice. Similar online debate occurred on Bust A Move's Facebook page.

I'm not saying that Jenny McCarthy should not be able to work because of her beliefs, but allowing her to be a spokesperson for anything remotely medical is like having António Egas Moniz (the inventor of the prefrontal lobotomy) as a spokesman for psychological counseling.