Jenny McCarthy’s Crusade
When you think about it, what other choice is there but to hope?
—Lance Armstrong
Jenny McCarthy’s film credits include The Stupids, BASEketball, John Tucker Must Die, and Dirty Love, which she also wrote. More recently, McCarthy has made guest appearances on My Name Is Earl, Chuck, Just Shoot Me! and Two and a Half Men. Her latest book, published in 2012, was Bad Habits: Confessions of a Recovering Catholic.
On September 24, 2008, Oprah interviewed McCarthy about her book Mother Warriors: A Nation of Parents Healing Autism Against All Odds. McCarthy’s son, Evan, had been diagnosed with autism. Like Somers, McCarthy didn’t trust mainstream doctors. They didn’t know what caused autism or how to cure it. McCarthy, on the other hand, knew both. And she was there to tell mothers that it was time to take control. Time to be their own doctor. Oprah agreed. “During a production meeting not long ago,” said Oprah, “one of my producers brought in an unforgettable article from the Boston Globe Magazine about the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever heard of. Right then and there we knew that she was somebody that we had to share with you on our show. Call your friends right now, because this woman, she’s not just a mom—she’s a warrior.” Where doctors failed, Jenny McCarthy and Oprah Winfrey would succeed. And another counterfeit industry was born.
In 1973, Bernard Rimland, a researcher at the Institute for Child Behavior Research, in San Diego, and the father of an autistic son, wrote a chapter titled “High Dosage Levels of Certain Vitamins in the Treatment of Children with Severe Mental Disorders.” (The book was edited by Linus Pauling.) Rimland believed that large doses of vitamins and minerals could treat autism. He later founded the Autism Research Institute, which spawned Defeat Autism Now (DAN)—a group of clinicians dedicated to the notion that autism could be cured with vitamins and supplements. Where Somers aligned herself with gynecologist Christiane Northrup to promote bioidentical hormones, McCarthy aligned herself with Jerry Kartzinel, a DAN doctor, to promote treatments for autism.
In 2010, McCarthy and Kartzinel published a best-selling book titled Healing and Preventing Autism: A Complete Guide. Although McCarthy didn’t start the movement to treat autism with biomedical therapies, she did, with the help of Oprah Winfrey, bring it into the homes of tens of millions of Americans. McCarthy, Kartzinel, and doctors affiliated with DAN believed that autism had many causes and many cures. DAN doctors variously argued that:
• Autism is caused by mitochondrial dysfunction and should be treated with megadoses of vitamins A, C, D, E, K, and the B group, as well as zinc, selenium, calcium, magnesium, chromium, cod liver oil, omega-3 fatty acids, taurine, glutamine, arginine, creatine, carnitine, and coenzyme Q10.
• Autism is caused by food allergies and should be treated by restricting gluten (grains) and casein (dairy). “I started it,” said McCarthy. “In two to three weeks Evan doubled his language.”
• Autism is caused by overgrowth of fungi in the intestine and should be treated with antifungals and cow colostrum. “Once you detox that, these kids are getting better,” said McCarthy. “You’re cleaning up the gut. You’re cleaning up the brain. There’s a connection.”
• Autism is caused by heavy-metal poisoning and should be treated with detoxifying therapies such as coffee enemas and intravenous ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA). (In 2005, a five-year-old with autism named Tariq Nadama died of a heart arrhythmia after an intravenous injection of EDTA.)
• Autism is caused by misalignment of the spine and should be treated with vigorous chiropractic manipulations of the head and neck.
• Autism is caused by inflammation of the brain and should be treated with Curcuma longa, a plant from the ginger family.
• Autism is caused by improper digestion of food and should be treated with digestive enzymes. “If our immune system is operating from our gut,” wrote McCarthy, “how can it possibly do its job if it’s filled with poop.”
• Autism is caused by incorrect wiring of the brain and should be treated with electrical or magnetic stimulation.
• Autism is caused by an imbalance of immune cells and should be treated by infecting children with hookworms and whipworms.
• Autism is caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain and should be treated by placing children in hyperbaric oxygen chambers. (On May 1, 2009, a four-year-old boy with cerebral palsy, Francesco Martinizi, died after an explosion in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber caused burns over 90 percent of his body.)
• Autism is caused by a leaky gut and should be treated with probiotics.
• Autism is caused by immune dysregulation and should be treated with intravenous immunoglobulins or stem-cell transplantation.
• Autism is similar to a drug addiction and should be treated with low-dose naltrexone suspended in emu oil. (Naltrexone is used to treat drug dependency.)
• Autism is caused by excessive stimulation and should be treated with marijuana or melatonin.
• Autism is caused by a defect in metabolism and should be treated with shots of vitamin B12. “It happened with Evan,” wrote McCarthy. “He was at UCLA autism school at the time and they said, ‘What did you just do? He just had a burst of language.’ And I said, ‘B12 shots.’”
• Autism is caused by chronic viral infections such as herpes and should be treated with antiviral medicines.
• Autism is caused by a blockage of the lymph glands and should be treated with lymphatic drainage massage.
• Autism is caused by intestinal parasites and should be treated with chlorine dioxide, a potent bleach used for stripping textiles and purifying industrial waste. (Bleach cocktails or enemas, which can be given as frequently as every two hours for three days, have caused severe vomiting and diarrhea.) Although one can only have sympathy for parents desperate to help their children, desperation can become child abuse.
• Autism is caused by vaccines. “Right before my son got the MMR [measles-mumps-rubella] shot, I said to the doctor, ‘I have a very bad feeling about this shot. This is the autism shot, isn’t it?’” McCarthy told Oprah. “And then the nurse gave [my son] that shot. And I remember going, ‘Oh, God, no!’ And soon thereafter I noticed a change. The soul was gone from his eyes.” McCarthy didn’t want other parents to make the same mistake, later writing, “Many people ask me if I had to do it all over again with a new baby, would I vaccinate? The answer is no. Hell no.” Kartzinel, McCarthy’s co-author, agrees, writing that children shouldn’t receive vaccines if they have ever experienced cradle cap, constipation, diarrhea, sleep issues, tantrums, reclusiveness, transition issues, or red cheeks (in other words, everyone).
Oprah was impressed. Impressed that Jenny had written a book that contained so much good advice. Impressed that Jenny had become an expert in the treatment of autism. “She wrote the book,” said Oprah. “She knows what she’s talking about.”
The vitamins, minerals, supplements, coffee enemas, and herbs recommended by McCarthy to treat autism are the same therapies that were recommended by Michael Schachter to treat Joey Hofbauer’s Hodgkin’s disease, William Kelley to treat Steve McQueen’s mesothelioma, and Suzanne Somers to counter menopause and aging. Vastly different problems, eerily similar treatments.
Although McCarthy doesn’t mention it in her books or television appearances, researchers have shed a great deal of light on the cause or causes of autism. For example, Ami Klin, at the Yale Child Study Center, studied babies who were only a few weeks old. He wanted to see how they attended to their mother’s face, finding that those who were developmentally normal looked into their mother’s eyes, while those later diagnosed with autism watched their mother’s mouth. Eric Courchesne, at the University of California at San Diego, found structural abnormalities in the brains of children later diagnosed with autism when they were still in the womb. And Hakon Hakonarson, of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, along with many other investigators, found certain genetic abnormalities in autistic children. Researchers have also found that environmental factors can influence the risk of autism in the developing fetus—specifically, drugs like valproic acid (an anti-seizure medicine). Of interest, susceptibility to environmental influences appears to occur before children are born, not after.
Given our current understanding of the disorder, McCarthy’s advice to treat autism as if it’s caused by parasitic infections, heavy-metal poisoning, or blocked lymph glands is nonsense. So it shouldn’t be surprising that whenever her therapies have been tested, they haven’t worked. Worse: McCarthy’s advice to avoid vaccines is not only useless; it’s dangerous. Parents who choose not to vaccinate aren’t lessening their children’s risk of autism; they’re only increasing their risk of suffering preventable diseases.
Sometimes it’s hard to have much sympathy for the buyer. Adults who spend hundreds or thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars on the endless array of vanity items found in the cabinets of anti-aging gurus—all with the hope of turning back the clock—are going in with their eyes open. But when alternative healers take advantage of desperate parents, it’s a different story. Parents of children with autism will do anything to help their children. Perhaps no story shows just how desperate parents can be than one involving an obscure intestinal hormone called secretin.
In the late 1990s, secretin became all the rage when a woman named Victoria Beck said that it had caused a dramatic improvement in her autistic son’s language acquisition. Others also claimed remarkable results. So autism researchers decided to test it. They divided children into two groups; one received intravenous secretin, the other intravenous salt water. None of the parents knew which preparation their children had received. The results were interesting. Most parents in the secretin group rated their children as improving. But so did parents whose children had received salt water. In other words, parents had such a strong desire to see results following an expensive intravenous medicine that they believed their children were improving, regardless of what they’d received. It’s hard to know why this was true. Maybe parents perceived children as better even though they weren’t. Or maybe parents had become more attentive, causing them to appreciate subtle differences they hadn’t seen before. Whatever the reason, salt water doesn’t treat autism, so something other than the pharmacological effect of secretin had been at work. Fifteen studies have now shown that secretin is no better than a placebo for autism.
The most amazing part of the secretin story was what happened next. When parents were told that responses to secretin and salt water were indistinguishable, 69 percent still wanted to use the drug—still wanted to pay thousands of dollars and travel hundreds of miles to get something they now knew didn’t work. That’s how desperate they were. Because mainstream medicine didn’t have anything better to offer—didn’t have medicines that could make autism melt away—parents mortgaged houses and cashed in retirement accounts to find anyone who could promise hope, even if it was false hope. And even when they knew it was false.
Alison Singer, founder of the Autism Science Foundation and a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Business School, explains how easily well-educated parents can be duped. “When my daughter, Jodie, was diagnosed with autism, I wanted to fix her,” she said. “I wanted to do everything possible to make her better. What kind of mother would I be if I didn’t try? At that point I didn’t realize how lifelong autism would be. We tried gluten- and casein-free diets. We tried dimethylglycine. People said you had to sprinkle it on French toast. So I learned to make French toast.” Singer’s moment of clarity came when she saw a doctor who had been recommended by a friend. “One time I took Jodie to a chiropractor,” she said. “He told me he could cure Jodie by rearranging the ions in her brain with a giant electromagnet placed under her mattress at night. And, ‘oh, by the way,’ he sells the magnets for two hundred dollars. So I went home and I talked to my husband about it. At this point, I had stopped being a smart person. And he just looked at me and said, ‘Listen to yourself. Do you hear what you’re saying?’ It was that moment when I realized how far I’d gone. This was my grief, not my brain. And you can’t think with your grief.”
For Singer, acceptance of her daughter’s disorder came slowly. “I was convinced that I was never going to be happy again until Jodie was cured. And I believed with all of my soul that it was just a matter of finding the right cure and then she was going to be fine. And then we would all be fine. And slowly I came to realize that it’s a developmental disorder and that she’s going to have challenges her entire life. When she was born, I looked into her beautiful little eyes and thought about her future and all the things we were going to do and all the joy we were going to have. But our lives have been very different. And it took a long time until I accepted that and was able to go back to thinking with my brain. That’s when I finally sought out science-based interventions instead of quackery.”
Singer doesn’t blame parents. “I think the culpability lies with the quacks who are preying on the desperation of families. I think that’s the worst kind of person who would take advantage of a parent or child during a time when they’re grieving. I don’t blame parents for being susceptible to this. I don’t blame them for wanting to believe. You just can’t imagine that there is someone who wants to take advantage of you.”
In the 1995 movie The American President, Lewis Rothschild pleads with President Andrew Shepherd to counter the attacks of his rival, Bob Rumson. Rothschild is angry that Rumson is the only one offering answers to America’s problems.
SHEPHERD: Look, if people want to listen to [Rumson] . . .
ROTHSCHILD: They don’t have a choice! Bob Rumson is the only one doing the talking! People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they’ll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They’re so thirsty for it they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand.
SHEPHERD: Lewis, we’ve had presidents who were beloved who couldn’t find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don’t drink the sand because they’re thirsty. They drink the sand because they don’t know the difference.
Alternative healers who promote secretin or spinal manipulations or hyperbaric oxygen chambers or ion-rearranging machines to treat autism are selling sand. They do it because of a misguided belief that their therapies work; they do it because it’s lucrative; they do it because responsible advocacy organizations haven’t stepped forward; and they do it because some parents don’t know—or prefer not to know—the difference. Nothing is more contemptible than a clinician who takes advantage of loving parents by raiding their life savings.
For children with diseases like diabetes, bacterial meningitis, and lymphoma, medicine offers cures like insulin, antibiotics, and chemotherapy. Not so with autism. McCarthy’s treatments are seductive, in part, because medicine offers so little. (In her books, McCarthy promotes 260 chiropractors, naturopaths, dentists, doctors, and nurses who sell autism cures.) But the problem with McCarthy’s campaign isn’t only that her therapies don’t work; it’s that they might do harm. Children have died from medicines that bind heavy metals or suffered perforated eardrums in hyperbaric oxygen chambers or bone thinning from casein-free diets. Perhaps worst of all are the children who have suffered from McCarthy’s very public denouncement of vaccines.
Before vaccines, Americans could expect that every year diphtheria would kill fifteen thousand people, mostly young children; rubella (German measles) would cause as many as twenty thousand babies to be born blind, deaf, or mentally disabled; polio would permanently paralyze fifteen thousand children and kill a thousand; mumps would be a common cause of deafness; and a bacterium called Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) would cause hundreds of children to die of suffocation from epiglottitis—no different than being smothered by a pillow. In the developed world, vaccines have completely or virtually eliminated these diseases.
Although acupuncturists, chiropractors, naturopaths, and homeopaths all come from different places in history—and offer therapies based on different philosophies—the one place they all seem to come together is vaccines, which they uniformly disdain. It’s hard to know why. Maybe it’s because it distinguishes them from their competition (mainstream doctors). Or maybe it’s because they think vaccines are unnatural (although it’s hard to make a case that coffee enemas are natural). Or maybe it’s all part of the countercultural playbook (you’re either on the bus or off the bus). Whatever the reason, it’s done a lot of harm. And although most alternative healers don’t have much national appeal, Oprah does. And when Oprah gave credence to McCarthy’s anti-vaccine message, it had an effect. During the past few years, Americans have witnessed an increase in hospitalizations and deaths from diseases like whooping cough, measles, mumps, and bacterial meningitis, because some parents have become more frightened by vaccines than by the diseases they prevent.