The cure for woo.

While I have written about the issue of vaccines here and here, I don't know if I've ever specifically made clear my contempt for the pseudo-scientific ramblings and dangerous tracts of Jenny McCarthy and her boyfriend Jim Carrey about the whole vaccine issue.

Jenny McCarthy believes that her son, Evan's autism was caused by receiving childhood vaccines. There is no science to back this up.

In June 2007, McCarthy began promoting anti-vaccination rhetoric. She has appeared on several television shows and has published multiple books advising parents not to vaccinate their children. This has led to a dramatic increase in the number of vaccine preventable illnesses as well as an increase in the number of vaccine preventable deaths.

Now mainstream media has picked up on this movement of unscientific claims by people utterly unqualified to utter them.

The HUFFINGTON POST
Recently, the Huffington Post published an article by Jim Carrey on how children should not be vaccinated and then last week Arianna published an article by woo-meister herself, Marianne Williamson on how we should pray away swine flu and how all of our "bad thoughts" about Mexico's drug cartels caused the swine flu to occur.

The head. It wishes to explode.

OPRAH
Oprah, that monster of the media, in addition to promoting the Secret, in which you shouldn't look at fat people as it will make you fat and in which disease is caused by thinking bad thoughts (mmm, I always thought it was viruses, bacteria, fungi, etc.) has now taken Jenny under her wing, inking a deal with HARPO productions and giving her a substantially wider audience to spread her misinformation.

I am furious with the spread of woo. Fine. Sell your product and make a mint off of people who are willing to believe that the universe will bring them a Mercedes. It's been done for millenia. But when you are blaming people for having diseases by not being cheerful enough, which causes them to smile and think good thoughts while avoiding any personal responsibility, not to mention shame for getting sick, not getting said Mercedes and encouraging people to ignore science and not get their children vaccinated, while putting other preschoolers at risk, I want to take some action.

Not one to rest too much on any laurels, I have started a new website. It's called "Is it Science?". I look forward to getting questions and when questions aren't coming in, I plan to have a few notes about things like the panic over the pandemic that wasn't and other problems with relying on mainstream media and "this guy I know" for news. ENJOY!

Also, if you want to do something about the Jenny/Oprah marriage made in hell, here's a suggestion from Skepchick, one of my favorite skeptical websites.

Since sending mail to Oprah herself has been futile in the past, at least in my experience, sending a letter to her target audience might be more effective so the following is their sample letter to your mom. Happy Mother's Day!!!

Dear Mom,

I know how much you enjoy Oprah, and I also know how much you enjoy children not dying. That’s why I’m sending you a quick heads-up that Oprah is about to make a big mistake by giving a lot of money and publicity to a terrible person: Jenny McCarthy, who is trying to convince people not to vaccinate their children because she mistakenly thinks vaccines are harmful. Her actions have directly led to injuries, deaths, and the spread of diseases like measles that were previously considered to be eradicated in the United States thanks to the vaccination program.

You may want to avoid McCarthy’s new ventures and maybe even let Oprah know how you feel about this.

Love,
Your loving daughter

I'll also be sending a letter to Oprah herself. Mostly because I'm a glutton for punishment. Or just a glutton.

Anyway, if you feel encouraged to do so, here's her address:

Oprah Winfrey
Harpo Productions
PO Box 909715
Chicago, IL 60690
USA

Vaccines do not Cause Autism humor

Love this -

From Overcompensating:

Secrets, lies and more inanity

“EVERYTHING in your life you have attracted—accept that fact—it's true.” The Secret

Truth is a funny thing. First off, there is still quite the disagreement among philosophers as to what truth actually is. Just because something may seem logical does not necessarily make it true and vice versa. Truth can change throughout time based on new technology or new ways of understanding.

Erich Fromm wrote that the dichotomy between 'absolute = perfect' and 'relative = imperfect' has been superseded in all fields of scientific thought, where:

"it is generally recognized that there is no absolute truth but nevertheless that there are objectively valid laws and principles....Scientific knowledge is not absolute but optimal; it contains the optimum of truth attainable in a given historical period."

So to say that it is true - that we have attracted everything into our lives - is such arrogance, I can barely breathe.

Regarding this truth - that we have attracted EVERYTHING in our life - I would like to direct the various authors of the secret to talk to a Holocaust survivor, an 8 year old molested by her father and a woman in India living with AIDS with no access to clean water much less medication. I would like for each of them to explain how they attracted EVERYTHING into their lives. I would like to ask them to visit Walter Reed to visit a soldier home from Iraq missing something he left with and a mass grave in Darfur. I would like them to talk to the Princes of Wales, to sex slaves in Estonia and to each woman in every domestic violence shelter in the nation. I would like them to explain how they brought all of this on themselves.

The entire premise of The Secret is an anti-intellectual screed designed to make billions off of superstition and promises of silver bullets with no need, in fact no right to even ask, for corroboration. If you do, you clearly are not believing and you are bringing negativity into your life. Rhonda Byrne can just wish you away into the cornfield.

Rhonda Byrne offers that, "When I discovered 'The Secret' I made a decision that I would not watch the news or read newspapers anymore, because it did not make me feel good." Ooh ooh! I want to be a blithering idiot!! Mee toooo!

No seriously, she thinks that if you throw your weight behind trying to stop war or poverty you bring more negative energy to it...seriously.

"Imperfect thoughts are the cause of all humanity's ills, including disease, poverty, and unhappiness."

Imperfect thoughts. I would say so. But not in the way The Secret moralizes. According to The Secret, a person who is killed by a drunk driver brought it on by their own thought patterns. It couldn't have had anything to do with the "imperfect thoughts" of the drunk driver - could it?

The disease of dis-ease is not new. I personally remember the big Hay rides of the 80's and 90's where Louise Hay spouted the same absurdity about AIDS. Rhonda and her cohorts suggest that not only should you not think about getting cancer, you should "not observe" those with cancer because the energy from their "imperfect thoughts" that brought them cancer might come and infect you.

Rhonda told ABC that she wouldn't even get a flu shot because "if you're feeling good, how can you attract any illness to you?" Hmmm. I don't know Rhonda? I think with all of your positive energy and perfect thoughts you should travel to a third world slum, don't observe any of the suffering people and see if you can avoid malaria or schistosomiasis.

"Disease cannot live in a body that's in a healthy emotional state," Bob Proctor says in the film. I want to see Dr. Proctor's medical license. Stat.

And then Rhonda clarifies, "How does it work? Nobody knows. Just like nobody knows how electricity works. I don't, do you?"

Over 5 million people are reading this drivel. While some people are taking the good (positive thinking) and tossing the idiotic, I have to assume that some of them are reading it like gospel.

Some references from Salon.com accessed 6-19-07.

The sound you hear is the bullshit bell ringing in your ear...

It's the craze that is sweeping the nation! The Secret is the repackaged, lipsticked for 2007 version of every positive thinking program that has ever existed from Eckhart Tolle to Norman Vincent Peale.

Personally, I have no beef with the power of positive thinking. I think positively now that the Prozac is flowing steadily through each and every little capillary of my brain. I know that when I was thinking that the world was shit, indeed, the world was big stanky piles of shit. Not a wonder I spent a good 85% of my time under the covers.

Here is where my personal bullshit bell starts ringing. Rhonda (the contriver of said Secret) starts talking about your body and positive thinking, which would be just ducky if she talked about loving your body for what it gives you right now, etc. and she does give this motif a cursory once over but her solution for losing weight is the following:

Let go of all those limiting thoughts. Food cannot cause you to put on weight, unless you think it can.

The definition of the perfect weight is the weight that feels good for you. No one else’s opinion counts. It is the weight that feels good for you.

You most likely know of someone who is thin and eats like a horse, and they proudly declare, “I can eat whatever I want and I am always the perfect weight.” And so the Genie of the Universe says, “Your wish is my command!”

Hmmm. This has worked for how many people in what clinical trial? Also, in my opinion, the definition of the perfect weight for me is about 10 lbs. under my lowest healthy weight. Am I magically going to become 115 lbs if I imagine it? Rhonda? Anyone?

I realize that what she is trying to articulate is that focusing on your goal is a good way to get to the body that is healthy for you. But that's not what she says.

And then folks, it gets bad. Really, really bad. And stupid. And irresponsible and all kinds of other words that I can barely type.

Make it your intention to look for, admire, and inwardly praise people with your idea of perfect-weight bodies. Seek them out and as you admire them and feel the feelings of that-you are summoning it to you. If you see people who are overweight, do not observe them, but immediately switch your mind to the picture of you in your perfect body and feel it.

I'm sorry. Inwardly praise people with your idea of perfect weight bodies and do not observe overweight people? Are you fucking kidding me? Is this the tripe that millions of people have been spending their earned money on? Oprah has been feasting on?

I am calling bullshit. Here and now.