Measles and an outbreak of stupidity
It’s a shame there is no vaccine or cure for ignorance.
A drug company could make billions just in Hollywood. From Leonardo DiCaprio’s hypocritical crusading for the planet to Charlie Sheen’s embrace of “inside job” conspiracy theories around the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, there is no shortage of famous charlatans, blowhards and truthers in need of a smarten-up injection.
Fortunately, we can usually ignore the ignorance. We can roll our eyes when Barbara Walters betrays her own sexist views. We can snicker when Jessica Simpson is baffled by canned seafood: “Is this chicken, what I have, or is this fish? I know it’s tuna, but it says ‘Chicken of the Sea.’ ”
This grade of folly does not put others at risk, except for maybe pulling a muscle while doubling over and howling.
But what happens when a celebrity’s muddled beliefs or dubious grasp on preventative medicine infects other minds? What happens when he or she exercises an unalienable celebrity right — life, liberty and the pursuit of haughtiness — and takes up a cause that can harm others.
An outbreak of measles hit Toronto this week with four reported cases. South of the border, the highly contagious virus has recently infected more than 100 people in 14 states.
On this continent, measles was once considered a disease of the past. It was eradicated in the United States 15 years ago. Even before that time, “measles” had started to sound as anachronistic as smallpox or rinderpest.
Now it’s back like a villainous Arnold Schwarzenegger character.
And celebrities such as Jenny McCarthy, Kristin Cavallari, Bill Maher, Mayim Bialik, Alicia Silverstone, Rob Schneider, Donald Trump and Jim Carrey, to name just a few, should hang their uninfected heads in disgrace.
They should be quarantined for reckless endangerment. They should be ridiculed for endorsing the anti-vaccination movement and using their soapboxes to spread ignorance. They should be declared a public menace. They should be forced to study the works of Louis Pasteur or Edward Jenner, all while getting improvised physicals from Nurse Betty and Dr. Dre.
McCarthy, a former Playboy model turned pop immunologist, has made it her mission to connect autism and childhood vaccinations. There is no medical evidence to back this connection, of course. This is a mission powered by junk science, anecdotal tales, gut feelings and widely debunked studies.
But in Hollywood, facts are always the least of it.
While McCarthy is in a class by herself as a reprehensible mouthpiece for the anti-vaxxer crowd, others have also picked up rhetorical firearms in the depressing war on science.
This includes suggesting: 1. Vaccines are causally linked to autism (Trump, Carrey). 2. Vaccines should not be trusted because the government should not be trusted (Maher). 3. Vaccines should be a personal choice (Bialik, Cavallari).
This last argument is a big reason the anti-vaccination movement has spread beyond community pockets where cultural or religious beliefs were once considered the biggest threat to herd immunity.
Now the people opting out of vaccinations are just as likely to be middle- to upper-class urbanites in chic neighbourhoods. These buyers of organic produce and drivers of hybrid cars have somehow equated “vaccines” as another toxic product. At best, vaccines are optional. At worst, they are bad for us.
This me-first, I’ll-do-what-I-want attitude, perfected in Hollywood, ports easily into a society that is at once skeptical of institutions and wary of a pack mentality.
It’s also an attitude that will lead to more outbreaks.
We have speed limits and restrictions on weapons and hate speech laws to protect everyone. We no longer allow people to smoke in public places or send their kids to school with peanut butter sandwiches in lunch boxes. Why? We do not put others at risk. With measles returning to the news this week, a heartbreaking letter by author Roald Dahl resurfaced. In 1962, his 7-year-old daughter Olivia died after measles led to encephalitis. More than 20 years later, Dahl wrote the open letter to other parents. He encouraged them to do the opposite of what today’s celebrity anti-vaxxers are preaching from the shadows of ignorance.
As he noted: “In my opinion, parents who now refuse to have their children immunized are putting the lives of those children at risk.” vmenon@thestar.ca