“La la la, I can’t hear you.”
Noted anti-vaccination crusader and self-professed tree humper Jenny McCarthy took a break from co-hosting The View — which is still on air *shrug* — to ask her Twitter followers, “What is the most important personality trait you look for in a mate? Reply using #JennyAsks”. The responses — from the first reply onward — focused on her anti-vax asshattery instead of her question. Ha ha!
And just to be clear, the criticisms are warranted. As recently as 2008, McCarthy went on Larry King Live and said, “We need to get rid of the toxins, the mercury — which I am so tired of everyone saying it’s been removed. It has not been removed from the shots.”
Which is a flat-out lie. The shot her son received did not have mercury in it. It didn’t even have thimerosal in it; the preservative had already been phased out of vaccines in the U.S.
Oh, and remember that study by Andrew Wakefield claiming a link between MMR vaccines and autism? It was a fraud perpetrated by a man who was developing his own competing vaccine and took a pay off from a lawyer (Richard Barr) who was trying to build a case to sue an MMR vaccine maker. Yet anti-vax people will claim we should distrust vaccine makers because they’re just in it for the money, and those same people champion a fraudulent study by a guy who was taking payoffs. Meanwhile, Jonas Salk refused to patent the polio vaccine. But yeah, he was totally in it for the money. Sure.
Okay, enough of my ranting. Well, one more thing: Dana McCaffery didn’t have to die.
Now let’s get past my usual vitriol and look at the funny Twitter hashtag hijacking. Some of the responses she received were just plain creepy. Meanwhile, the very first reply set the pro-vaccination tone:
A minute later another criticism of McCarthy’s anti-vax stance rolled in.
And we’re off. The bashing continued all weekend long, with most of the tweets having nothing to do with the question McCarthy asked. Some of these responses were brutal.
SHOTS FIRED.
Others were silly, subtle jabs.
And others were clever or downright blunt. Check those out on the next page.
Agreed, Hillary.