Pharma Smear Campaign to Deny Jenny McCarthy Job Exposed
A News from Underground exclusive
Warning shots: Who’s behind the campaign to keep vaccine talk off “The View”?
By Steve Schneider
When it was announced that Jenny McCarthy would be joining TV’s “The View,” America’s op-ed pages were filled with the protests of pundits worried that she would use her position on the show to further her crusade against childhood vaccinations. (McCarthy claims that her son was afflicted with autism and blames vaccines for his condition; she has urged other parents to question and/or reject the vaccinations many pediatricians recommend.) For some of McCarthy’s detractors, whether or not she would actually get to discuss vaccines on the program, and to what degree, was almost immaterial: **Slate**’s Phil Plait argued that just by having her on the show, its producers were lending tacit credibility to a cause that he (like many other advocates of the pharmaceutical status quo, both official and self-appointed) considers reprehensibly dangerous.
Plait had already orchestrated a reader write-in campaign to prevent the hiring from going through. Though it failed, the tactic is now being revisited in a petition circulated by Change.org, which seeks to have McCarthy replaced on “The View” before she can even shoot an episode as a series regular. That petition, curiously, is bylined “by Voices for Vaccines; St. Paul, Minnesota.”
So what is Voices for Vaccines, and why is it authoring Change.org’s content? On its own website, Voices for Vaccines describes itself as “a parent-driven organization supported by scientists, doctors, and public health officials that provides parents clear, science-based information about vaccines and vaccine-preventable disease…” But one look at the specific names involved makes it clear why the organization might be very interested in preventing any anti-vaccination talk from coming to “The View.” The Scientific Advisory Board of VFV includes one Paul A. Offit, identified in a CBS News report as holding a $1.5 million dollar Merck-funded research chair at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. According to CBS, Offit “holds the patent on an anti-diarrhea vaccine he developed with Merck”; in 2008, future royalties for that vaccine, Rotateq, were sold for $182 million, CBS reported.
The money trail doesn’t stop there. According to Barbara Loe Fisher, president of the non-profit National Vaccine Information Center, the Voices for Vaccines board is rounded out by another advisor (Stanley A. Plotkin) who is a vaccine developer, and two others (Alan R. Hinman and Deborah L. Wexler) with significant ties to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That last connection isn’t as innocuous as it might sound: As Maine-based M.D. and public-health blogger Meryl Nass explains, the pharmaceutical industry “funds CDC through the conduit CDC Foundation”; in turn, CDC funds the Immunization Action Coalition, another pro-vaccination advocacy group. (Voices for Vaccines advisor Wexler also heads the IAC.)
Voices for Vaccines is itself an offshoot project of the Task Force for Global Health. The Task Force’s board of directors is chaired by Jane Fugate Thorpe, an Atlanta products-liability lawyer whose official bio trumpets her “strategic defense of industry-leading corporations and industry coalitions, particularly with regard to Daubert strategies.” (“Daubert” refers to the standard governing the admissibility of expert testimony at trial.) In other words, Thorpe has made her reputation shielding product manufacturers from individuals like the concerned parents VFV purports to represent. Read the full post and comment at News Underground.
Jenny is great and that is what scares them ..like Bradley Manning, like all the other great whistle blowers they speak the truth....Corruption does not like the truth!
SHAME ON THEM!!
Posted by: ANGUS FILES | August 03, 2013 at 08:42 PM
Message for pro-pHarma Phil Plait:
Where do you think an Independent Research Investigator gets her data??? Please Mr.Phil Plait,just for you I recommend all 50 vaccines on the schedule,do not forget to include all three Gardasil shots and the yearly flu shots too.You are brain washed by big pHarma, or simply can not comprehend chronic immune system damage and chronic inflammations.Please do not write about issues you do not comprehend.
Parents know what is going on,Researchers and Immunologist know what is going on,so leave Jenny alone.It is time for big pharma to pull out their ugly head from the sand.
Posted by: oneVoice | August 03, 2013 at 07:45 PM
Thank you Mark,for sharing that bio of Jane F. Thorpe.
She appears to be a pro-pharma,pro-corporation s#!$ mixer,
as we can see it from her resume.Please look up this Wall Street Journal article: Autism Epidemic Linked to Epidemic of Vaccine Induced Diabetes by Dr.J.Bart Classen (and please print out copies for yourself and family before it disappears).Here
it is that we had been saying for ages: "Dr. Classen's research indicates that the large number of vaccines given to patients is leading to an epidemic of chronic inflammation resulting in epidemics of autoimmune diseases,allergies,and a comprehensive inhibitory response manifesting in obesity and metabolic syndrome (diabetes).
Thank you Dr. Classen for your RESEARCH,your honesty and hard work.Yes,the 36-50 vaccines are responsible for the immune system and brain damage. http://www.vaccines.net
YOU GO JENNY,THE PARENTS KNOW THE TRUTH, IT IS ONLY A SHORT TIME WHEN EVERYONE KNOWS THE TRUTH.
NO-ONE CAN STOP THE TRUTH.THE TIME IS NOW,TO PUT JENNY ON THE VIEW.The pundits are scared,they thought parents are not able to do research.We the parents,will do whatever it takes.
Posted by: oneVoice | August 03, 2013 at 11:47 AM
I agree with you, Mary, that this big stir was not accidental. Nothing in the MSM ever is. I believe your suggestions as to their motives are sound, and there could be others as well. They will attempt to ridicule and smear anyone who has successfully proclaimed the message that vaccines are neither are or ever have been safe or effective. The threat factor is very real, as more and more doctors can no longer deny what their own eyes see - more and more children and adults being harmed by the medical establishment, and particularly by vaccines. There appear to be two circles in our world - those who are completely controlled by the elite and their brainwashing media and those who somehow had their eyes opened. Sadly, autism is one of the mechanisms by which many people have been awakened to the reality that most of what passes for 'science' or 'truth' in the world is neither.
Posted by: truthseeker | August 03, 2013 at 09:58 AM
John,
I certainly agree that it is poor quality. Sometimes it is astonishing that doctors are willing to be seen using lousy logic. Didn’t they get trained to think clearly?
Here is a bit from a Dr Claire McCarthy, MD, poor thing. She wrote in Huffington Post, on January 17, 2012:
“We stick to the facts. But people like Andrew Wakefield don’t, and it doesn’t take much to scare parents. Some guy like Wakefield gets up and says authoritatively, as he did in the interview I watched, that the vaccine [causes harm]. At the end of the interview, Wakefield encouraged parents to get educated, and to read about immunizations. He even suggested the CDC website. He said, emphatically, that there are two sides to the story. I couldn’t agree more.
But just one of them is grounded in facts.”
McCarthy teaches “Medical Writing” (oh dear!) at Harvard Medical School. I wonder what the salary is for that position. I printed her letter in my 2013 book “Consider the Lilies: A Review of 18 Cures for Cancer and Their Legal Status.” I put it across the page from Joan Campbell’s jaw-dropping survey of vax damage. The juxtaposition is quite something.
So you are right; they are ineffective -- with the public. But where are the docs? Every pediatrician in the world, kazillions of them, should have re-read the 1998 Lancet article when they heard it was “retracted,” and noticed that it did not contain what the media says it contains. And they should have all written to the Lancet, every last one of them, and made a stink.
Mary
Posted by: Mary W Maxwell, PhD, LLB | August 02, 2013 at 07:47 PM
Mary
I have intermittently entertained the thought. I sometimes wonder, though, given the low grade of the articles whether they are doing a particularly effective job.
John
Posted by: John Stone | August 02, 2013 at 06:25 PM
It seems likely that all of mainstream media is coordinated into one entity. Each allegedly separate newspaper and radio station receives “Talking Points” from the big boss, resulting in the similarity of articles that Anne Dachel reports daily.
So if such high-level coordination exists, how was there a slip-up? How did Jenny get appointed to The View? I wager it was no slip-up. ABC’s appointing of Jenny was specifically intended to stimulate a new round of hurtful, inaccurate, outrageous articles about autism, and indeed it has done so.
Some say the main aim of strident vax-promotion is to allow Big Pharma to make money. Possibly, but more likely it is for other well-known goals of the baddies. The stridency of these lies about vaccines sends the following message to every doctor: “Deviating from The Program is something you guys don’t want to do; no one will support you. Stay quiet or else.”
In other words, the goal is to kill off some of the pillars of society, in this case, doctors. (Not kill them dead, but weaken their principled behavior.) Killing off the pillars of any society is about the best power-move the powerful can make.
Jane Jacobs says so in her brilliant book Dark Age Ahead.
Posted by: Mary W Maxwell, PhD, LLB | August 02, 2013 at 05:36 PM
Support Jenny on a counter-petition here.
Just went up today.
http://www.change.org/petitions/abc-s-the-view-support-jenny-mccarthy-as-a-host-for-the-view
Posted by: Joel Bee | August 02, 2013 at 03:47 PM
Sarah, GREAT ad idea!
Posted by: Laura Hayes | August 02, 2013 at 01:28 PM
Jane Thorpe worked of the industry that make fen-phen!
I believe that is enough said about her.
Posted by: Benedetta | August 02, 2013 at 11:46 AM
Oh, look! Move just a little bitty rock (like the CDC vaccine Task force, and look at all the snakes and cockroaches crawling out of it.
Karen Ernst;
Honey, I know it has been a great social club for you, even given you a measure of prestige.
But you better be careful of those social clubs that have other things attached to them like the issue of vaccines.
Example:
I lived in a small town that lost 45 of its young men in the Viet Nam War in just one battle -They all belonged to the National Guard of that area and it was kind of like a social club. So our trusted government called them all up and sent them over. 45 is a lot for a small town to lose, and it hit home just how many of our young men were being wasted in a war that had dragged on too long.
Posted by: Benedetta | August 02, 2013 at 11:39 AM
wow, our Jenny up against all those big bad wolves. Ya know, we can work with this!
I envision a big ad featuring Jenny M. with a suprised look showing several male hands wearing suits covering up Jenny's mouth. the arm sleeves all labeled things like: CDC, Merck, GSK, Voices for Vaccines etc.
underneath it says:
"Why do they want to shut Jenny up?"
and a web site
Posted by: Sarah | August 02, 2013 at 10:09 AM
After following the link I think I get why Karen Ernst was chosen for the role for VFV. Her total obliviousness or her ability to totally ignore the pharma connections while shouting "anti-vaccine conspiracy". (lather, rinse, repeat)
You'd have to be a real dupe to spend all that time and energy posting pro-vaccine dogma and not be compensated for your efforts.
Posted by: Will defend Paul Offit for free! riiiiight! | August 02, 2013 at 09:44 AM
Just submitted to New from the Underground
Hi Steve,
Thanks for writing this. I imagine that Voices for Vaccines, St Paul Minnesota is the person of Karen Ernst:
http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2012/09/04/keeping-minnesota-kids-healthy-lagging-immunization-rates-and-whooping-cough-epidemi
My understanding also is that VfV have been very active over trying to extend the vaccine mandate in Minnesota.
I wrote about another Voices for Vaccines rep Dorit Reiss last week on Age of Autism and thus had an exchange with Ms Ernst. At the time I did make the point to her that if they really wanted to be perceived as being independent from the industry and officialdom then they ought to have been more careful.
http://www.ageofautism.com/2013/07/dorit-rubenstein-reiss-and-the-benefits-of-agency-capture-1.html
John Stone, UK editor www.ageofautism.com
Posted by: John Stone | August 02, 2013 at 09:25 AM
An interesting Bio here for Jane Thorpe
http://www.expertguides.com/default.asp?page=2&egaBOBID=&CountryID=118&ExpertOfficeID=22892&GuideID=183&fcIndex=567&fIndex=1463
Posted by: mark | August 02, 2013 at 07:43 AM
VIOXX
the same Jane Thorpe ??
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/06/AR2007090600944.html
""This is a big win for Merck," said Jane Thorpe, a national class action defense lawyer specializing in product liability cases.
Lawyers have been watching the case closely since New Jersey Superior Court Judge Carol Higbee certified the class action using what Thorpe called "a very liberal standard." Thorpe thought it unlikely it would be upheld because national class actions are so rare.
"The decision by the court will have a significant impact in preventing New Jersey from becoming a dumping ground for junk class actions" and will affect future suits by third-party payers against drug companies, she said.
Posted by: mark | August 02, 2013 at 06:32 AM