Where's Jenny McCarthy Now?

I couldn't resist a little follow-up post to Ian's rip on celebrities that focused on Jenny McCarthy a couple weeks ago. An article was posted yesterday on USAToday.com entitled, "Study links rainfall to autism in children." I recommend reading it for some light entertainment. The actual published journal article reference is from a reputable journal, Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. This is a heavier read for the non-scientists following our blog.

Let me just give you Ted's Executive Summary©, as a trained and practicing physician:
Autism is a mysterious disorder. Nobody understands it, and a lot of people are trying to isolate a cause. The best guess anyone has is that it (like many, many, many other illnesses) has a genetic basis that is triggered by some combination of environmental causes. This article used anecdotal stats to form a hypothesis that autism appeared to be more prevalent in states where there was bad weather that forced kids inside. On delving deeper, fancy statistical analyses seemed to support their crazy hypothesis. To justify their dumb conclusion, they associated a handful of possible reasons that keeping your kids inside is bad and could trigger autism: too much TV, low vitamin D from lack of sun, chemicals in household cleaners, toxins in the rain, and my favorite - too much rain causes more weeds and bugs and leads to more pestacides. The authors readily admit that this hypothesis has no clinical evidence, and is fraught with potential concerns.

So there you have it! I think Jenny McCarthy has a new cause to jump onboard. Whether she chooses to support weather control measures, moving to the desert or investing in umbrellas, she will be able to hit the talk show circuit for another round. I doubt she will apologize for spreading the garbage that she peddled for years.