Last week, to me, Jenny McCarthy was just another celebrity who has a child then writes a book on parenting and gets published because she's a celebrity who has a child, a circular development in modern publishing that can turn off a room of writing professionals as effectively as a power outage turns off lights.

That was until she went on Larry King to talk about her autistic son, and vaccinations.

Autism is the fastest growing developmental disorder in this country with one in 150 children now affected. For years, there's been an underground movement linking the rising rate of autism to the ever-expanding schedule of vaccinations for children — too many, too soon, too often, and what the heck is in those shots, anyhow? When Jenny McCarthy sat there on national television facing down a panel of [male] pediatricians who were attempting to deny any connection between vaccinations and autism, and declaring adamantly were she ever to have another child, she would never get that child vaccinated, she became my hero.

I'm not advocating the elimination of vaccinations, nor is Jenny. What I have advocated for years—quietly because this vaccination debate is often such a hot button as to turn people almost violently angry—is that every parent be given the opportunity, and support, to make an educated decision about each and every vaccination given to a child. What if the real question being posed in that pediatrician's office went something like this: Shall I thwart my little one's natural immune system, bypassing his or her body's normal defenses against pathogens or poisons by injecting directly into his or her bloodstream a mixture that may include, say, manipulated pathogens, dangerous artificial preservatives, or toxic chemicals; or shall I take the risk that my child can handle a case of the measles? (After watching her child go into cardiac arrest and as she explains it, basically die for about two minutes after a vaccination, Jenny's pretty clear on what she'd decide now: risk getting the measles.)

Every single one of us likely knows at least one parent striving to meet the challenges of an autistic child. The most recent acquaintance who told me her son had been diagnosed with autism also revealed that she was quite sure the onset of autism in her son was related to a vaccination. She said she talked to her pediatrician about her concerns, tried to garner support for at least backing off the standard vaccination schedule, even delayed the next shot, but she was met with such total denial that there was any possible merit in what she was saying, it finally wore her down.  Her son now continues to receive every scheduled vaccination, and continues to struggle with severe autism.  The bleak, searching despair in her eyes is deafening; she doesn't have to voice the question she lives with every single day for me to hear it.  What if this could have been prevented? Jenny McCarthy is now riding hard on her celebrity status to take that question to Congress, and insist on an answer, an answer which obviously can only truly come from research and studies not funded by pharmaceutical companies. 

Thumbs Up:  Jenny McCarthy