Wow, ABC, which, like Babble, is owned by Disney, has big news for fans of measles, mumps, rubella, and pertussis! Jenny McCarthy, one of America's most prominent vaccine skeptics, will join The View as a co-host.
[Disclosure: I used to work for Disney way back in the day. I was on some Disney Parenting blog council that didn't really do anything. I wrote a few columns for Babble when it launched. The publisher of some autism-related book for which McCarthy wrote the foreword once advertised it on Daddy Types.
Also, ABC/Disney providing a national platform for a proponent of anti-vaccine faux-science will cause avoidable illness among the most vulnerable members of society, including children, the elderly, and immuno-compromised, resulting in extended suffering and possibly death, seriously, people, have you ever actually seen a kid with pertussis?
Also, I just remembered, way back in the day, being asked to try out for some very early He Said/She Said parentblogging column for Oxygen, and the sample topic was whether to vaccinate, and I was like, "What? Is this a real topic? And if so, why in the world do you think the differences here would be gender-related?" And of course that didn't go well with them, but HOLY CRAP, ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE AND SCIENCE BOTH PROVE IT: TELEVISION PEOPLE ARE ALL CRAZY.]
UPDATE: The New Yorker agrees.
the benefits [of vaccination] for society so powerfully outweigh the risks that suggesting otherwise is irresponsible at best. It spreads fear and incites the type of ignorance that makes people sick. That is exactly what McCarthy has been doing. By preaching her message of scientific illiteracy from one end of this country to the other, she has helped make it possible for people to turn away from rational thought. And that is deadly.
I watch the View moderately often. I think I will not do that much anymore.
Greg your last line made me lol. Sorry. It is a shame that so many people are being misled. There was an outbreak of something, I think it was small pox, at a grade school near me. At least my kids will be safe.