Autism Awareness Loses a Fierce Advocate

Well, the pro-disease nutters have driven away an autism research advocate from a position where he could do actual help. Dr. Eric London resigned from the Autism Speaks organization. You can read his letter in the link. Although, I think it's quite obvious where he stands... Sadly, this is a case where someone finally got overwhelmed by the dismal science that they would rather walk away than stain their credibility. Autism has lost a fierce advocate for understanding it better. I'd like to call out this part of his letter (emphasis mine):

The arguments which Dr. Dawson and others assert-- that the parents need even further assurances and there might be rare cases of “biologically plausible” vaccine involvement --are misleading and disingenuous. Through its website and other communications, Autism Speaks has been influential and contributory in encouraging parents’ doubts. By preferentially investing and advocating for the use of limited financial resources on the “biological plausibility” argument, the organization is adversely impacting the advancement of autism research.

Recent reports have documented significant outbreaks of measles and other infectious diseases which could have been controlled and even eradicated. The lowering of the vaccination rate has already led to deaths. If Autism Speaks’ misguided stance continues, there will be more deaths and potentially the loss of herd immunity which would result in serious outbreaks of otherwise preventable disease. I further fear that if and when herd immunity is lost, there may be a societal backlash against the autism community.

So, not only are these nutters increasing the risk of people dying, but they are hurting their own cause. How poetic. It just pisses me off that people will act that irresponsibly because some vacuous blonde with big tits thinks her baby got autism from shots. Never mind that there are mountains and mountains of evidence that says otherwise. Or the fact that this dumb bitch wouldn't recognize real science if it fucked her! Why the hell do we even listen to her when she talks? She's an actress! When you get right down to it, an actor is a professional liar! The better they are at lying, the more believable their roles are (although I would contend that Jenny McCarthy is actually a pretty bad actress, but you get the point).

Well, I'm upset that this has happened obviously, but maybe now there will be more fallout from these nutters spreading their lies (you know, aside from people DYING from preventable diseases). And we could also hope that the Swine Flu is somehow intelligent, and only kills the ones who voluntarially turned down a vaccine. Of course, that's just me being vindictive, and such a coincidence would have me questioning my atheism. ;) Sadly, what will happen is that the flu, and many other diseases will kill lots of people that didn;t have to die at all because of their stupidity and selfishness.