Write to Oprah and Jenny McCarthy!

Hello, guys and gals!

If ya didn't know, Oprah has signed Jenny McCarthy for her own talk show! Fearing that there won't be much for Jenny to talk about, Oprah has opened it up to the world to write in with our own ideas. Here, not surprisingly, is mine:

Hello, Oprah!

Great idea! I've got a story I think would be perfect for her show.

I think it was about ten years ago that a group of scientists in England wrote a journal article that shook the developed world. In it, they presented research describing an unexpected intestinal lesion in 12 children. Here's the interesting bit! At a press conference one of the researchers mentioned that many of these children, who also had the MMR vaccine, also developed autism. He suggested that while their data didn't prove it, there may be a link.

Now the paper clearly states, "We did not prove an association between measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described." But! The media ignored this and gladly fueled a public hysteria against vaccinations in general, based off of research that didn't focus on this idea in the first place. Also, it is important to note that it is grossly unscientific to make an assumption about vaccinations for all the children in the world, based on research on only 12 children with other medical conditions! Needless to say, there was a huge drop in vaccinated children, and ten years later there is still a emotionally driven debate on this issue that almost rivals gay marriage and abortion.

And here's the other fascinating part: By 2004, 10 of the 13 original scientists retracted any presumed link between vaccination and autism, stating that "now is the appropriate time that we should together formally retract the interpretation placed upon these findings in the paper." And since then, more than 14 separate studies have clearly shown that there is no link whatsoever between vaccines and a risk for autism! Amongst scientists and medical professionals there hasn't been a real issue here for years, so where is the information coming from that Jenny is still relying on?

I think it would be great, if not completely necessary for Jenny's credibility, to bring all 13 of the original authors on the show for an _intelligent_ debate on what happened, and how we can educate the misinformed about this drawn out, irrational, public hysteria. Let me know what you think!

I know I'm not exactly original with this suggestion, so why don't you guys send in some of your own ideas!