Let’s check in with the Jenny McCarthy body count

The stats read: Number of preventable illnesses: 95,341. Number of preventable deaths: 888. Number of Autism Diagnoses scientifically linked to vaccinations: 0. 

Jenny McCarthy has a body count attached to her name. This website will publish the total number of vaccine preventable illnesses and vaccine preventable deaths that have happened in the United States since June 2007 when she began publicly speaking out against vaccines.

Is Jenny McCarthy directly responsible for every vaccine preventable illness and every vaccine preventable death listed here? No. However, as the unofficial spokesperson for the United States anti-vaccination movement she may be indirectly responsible for at least some of these illnesses and deaths and even one vaccine preventable illness or vaccine preventable death is too many.

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Awesome: Darryl Cunningham writes/draws science comics

These are must read/sees. This is the first page of Darryl Cunningham’s comic on evolution. Read the rest here.

 

Be sure to read the ones on homeopathy and MMR-autism.

Via Clusterflock

Myers: Autism and the search for simple, direct answers

At Pharyngula, biologist PZ Myers has posted about autism. He says:

[Autism Spectrum Disorder] isn’t simple, it’s not one disease, it doesn’t have one cause, and vaccines are definitely not the cause: if there’s one thing the research has done, it’s to thoroughly rule out the idea that giving kids shots at an early age causes autism. What we’re actually discovering more and more is that ASD can be traced to genetic variation.

Go read the entire post here.

The Anti-Vax Rally in a photo

Today’s effort by anti-vaccination proponents summed up in one photo.

Tired. Worn out. Insipid. Mismatched. Shoeless.

What a deflated honk.