Have you written your letter to Oprah yet?

[Guest guest]

http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2009/05/have_you_written_your_letter_t.php

Have you written your letter to Oprah yet?

Category: Anti-Vax Denialism

Posted on: May 13, 2009 9:00 AM, by MarkH

If you have been keeping up with Pal or Orac in my absence, you already know the

bad news. Oprah has decided to up her woo quotient from promotion of the Secret

and relatively harmless nonsense to actively promoting anti-vaccine conspiracy

theories in the form of a McCarthy TV show. Gawker suggests a good title,

" Finding Someone to Blame When Bad Things Happen " .

McCarthy is an insipid, dangerous idiot. And a Wacko. Oprah's move isn't

just some harmless addition to the drivel that occupies our screens known as

" daytime TV " . This is actively dangerous. This is, as Pal says, infectious

disease promotion. I don't want the proof that we're right about vaccines (other

than thousands of scientific papers and the last 100 years of human history) to

be a bunch of dead kids or more kids born with birth defects due to a

reemergence of congenital rubella. I don't think Oprah is a bad person, she

certainly doesn't have malicious intent. I'm sure McCarthy even has good

intentions behind her lies and misinformation. But that doesn't mean such

dangerous idiots should be tolerated, given airtime, and their own TV shows. If

Oprah does not work to actively reverse this deal, and undo the harm that

McCarthy does as an infectious disease advocate, the resulting illness and

deaths will be her responsibility.

Young Australian Skeptics have written their letter to Oprah. Go here and write

your own. Mine is below the fold.

To Oprah and the producers of the Oprah Winfrey Show:

I am writing in regards to the recent decision to offer McCarthy a

multi-platform deal and why I believe this is a terrible error. McCarthy

is a leading conspiracy theorist in the promotion of propaganda against

vaccines, medicine and public health. Giving her a platform to spread

misinformation is tantamount to infectious disease promotion. The result of your

advancing her anti-vaccine campaign will be the deaths of children and adults,

the return of vaccine-preventable disease, and unspeakable harm to the public

health of this country and others around the world.

There is absolutely no validity to the claim vaccines cause autism. There is no

validity to McCarthy's claims that the current vaccine schedule is harmful.

There is also no scientific basis for any of her health misinformation she has

already started posting at her blog. Rather than informing the public and

improving our lives you have opted to promote the spread of misinformation and

lies about health. This is unethical, immoral and I believe will ultimately

create a backlash against you and your show, especially if vaccine-preventable

diseases again become endemic as they have in other countries where these

denialist beliefs have taken hold.

I believe Oprah, and even McCarthy, have nothing but the best of

intentions. However, their beliefs are unscientific and contradict everything we

know about medicine and public health. Oprah has the ability as an excellent

communicator to do great things for the public good. Rather than promoting

infectious diseases, she should be voicing support for childhood vaccination,

science-based medicine, and public health practices consistent with the

recommendations of scientific experts.

Regards,

Mark Hoofnagle, MD/PhD

[Guest guest]

" You might drop hints to the folks you know about trying something similar with

NASCAR. Whatever their financial shape, they are still the main sponsor of an

upcoming race this year. I believe they also still sponsor at least one driver. "

NASCAR wants money, and even if all of us collectivized, we could not beat

Autism Speaks or like-minded organizations as sponsors. It's too late for that

now.

You see, if people would have gotten on board in the early days when I was

encouraging people to trounce Autism Speaks, this would not be an issue. But no

one listened, and so now Autism Speaks dominates the sponsorship of NASCAR.

This goes back to the argument I made weeks ago that most people on the spectrum

are apathetic and lazy.

Raven, Cub and I toured the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on our last trip BTW,

taking a bus around the track, standing on the track, touring the Pagoda and

press and operations rooms.

Administrator

[Guest guest]

That has been a complaint about the new management at NASCAR. For a few years now prices at the different venues, merchandise prices, etc., have gone up very sharply. The Execs also seem much less concerned about the fans and just want the maximum amount of money. Or so I have been hearing since I've never been to a race and don't buy merchandise, I just read the news stories about these things.

I think the reason they have such a foothold is that at least one driver has an autistic child. If they cut Autism Speaks Sponsorship, I'm sure there would be some retribution using those children to demonstrate NASCAR's callousness toward its own drivers and their autistic children.

But there is some amusement about it all. The start/finish line usually has the Autism Speaks logo on it, so it is funny to watch it get run over again and again.

In a message dated 5/13/2009 3:47:55 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, no_reply writes:

NASCAR wants money, and even if all of us collectivized, we could not beat Autism Speaks or like-minded organizations as sponsors. It's too late for that now. Dell Mini Netbooks: Great deals starting at $299 after instant savings!