14 DAY TRIAL // Jenny McCarthy caused serious waves after going on the record with her belief that it was vaccines that caused her son’s autism and, years later, she can still create a controversy with it. Only that, this time, she didn’t really do anything in particular.
If you happen to come across a recent quote from McCarthy comparing autism to passing gas, you should probably know that she never said it.
As Poynter reports, several major and reputable media outlets took the quote and simply ran with it.
It goes like this: “Let me see if I can put this in scientific terms: Think of autism like a fart, and vaccines are the finger you pull to make it happen.”
Among the outlets that didn’t even bother to see if McCarthy had really said it, Poynter names the Los Angeles Times, Business Insider Australia, The Independent, USA Today, ScienceBlogs, Celebuzz, and National Ledger.
As it turns out, the quote can be traced back to The Superficial, which is actually a celebrity blog that works under the label of “satire” and, the aforementioned publication believes, the reason it was picked up and passed around was because of McCarthy’s recent appointment as co-host on The View.
As we also reported at the time, the announcement that McCarthy would be at the roundtable and, thus, get a bigger platform for some of her most unpopular ideas (the autism vs. vaccines one included), caused serious outrage online.
The Superficial, for one, is amazed that a simple joke could so easily be passed for an actual quote.
“I don’t know if I should be impressed with myself for writing something so perfectly stupid no one would question Jenny McCarthy said it or be taking a mental inventory of anything I believed after reading it online which should be nothing. Believe nothing,” a post on the website reads, as cited by Poynter.