Terrance Scanlon, president of Capital Research Center, notes that even in the wake of the Wakefield fraud Jenny McCarthy’s anti-vaccine zealotry is as strong as ever.
The anti-vaccine hysteria that McCarthy has helped to whip up has already claimed the lives of more than 700 children, according to the website JennyMcCarthyBodyCount.com. That website relies on data from the Centers for Disease Control that show that between June 2007 and May 2011 there were 78,981 preventable illnesses and 727 preventable deaths of children who could have been vaccinated but weren’t.
Danielle Romaguera of New Orleans told science writer Michael Fumento of her daughter Gabriella, who died of whooping cough when she was just a month old. That’s too young for a baby to be vaccinated. But because other children did not get their shots, whooping cough, once nearly eradicated, is reappearing in cities like New Orleans.
“People need to know they can infect other parents’ babies,” Romaguera said. “It kills. People think these diseases don’t exist anymore but that’s because children are being vaccinated.” Romaguera added that “our pediatrician says parents tell him all the time they don’t care what the science says. And because of it, babies and kids are dying.”
Scanlon concludes by asking: How high will the body count have to rise before McCarthy and her supporters realize that refusing to vaccinate children does more harm than good?
That’s one question we can be sure Jenny McCarthy and other anti-vaccine adherents will never answer.
Mr. Scanlon’s full piece is well worth a read.
