Jenny McCarthy is still railing against vaccines in her crusade against autism, and the media is still covering both her efforts and the questionable scientist who fueled the debate in the first place. What we Americans are ready to believe is often and interesting study in contrast. Literally thousands of long term studies of historical CO2 levels, temperature records via thermometers, temperature records via proxies (like corals and tree rings), direct observation, and simulation, have concluded that this planet is experiencing damaging anthropogenic climate change. But because the fossil fuel industry refuses to look out of its box, and a handful of fundamentalist Christians think science is an attack on God, this overwhelming argument still struggles for public credibility.
When an ex-Playmate and her comedian domestic partner however, raised the alarm based on one exceptionally flawed research paper, vaccination rates for newer diseases and in some high-risk communities fell. The medical community, fueled by a rigorous ethic of peer-reviewed reporting on long-term clinical studies, has managed to steadily control or destroy major diseases that devastated communities as recently as 60 years ago, . This history, however, slid to the background after Dr. Andrew Caulfield did a study of 12 children whose parents reported behavioral problems after they received vaccines. Jenny McCarthy and the good doctor believed that the parent’s association of behavioral difficulties and the MMR vaccine constitutes proof of a causal relationship between the two. Many parents around the world seem to have agreed with the pair.