JACKEDMAN69

During the first week of my science class, I always take a little time to lambast Jenny McCarthy's claim that the MMR vaccine gave her son autism.  It's an excellent example of pseudoscience, and I'm not going to lie, the Newsweek article I use is a funny read.  Please don't misunderstand me.  Ten helpless infants dying in 2010 in the state of California from pertussis when it could have been prevented is not funny.  But McCarthy's interview on the Oprah Winfrey's show is a GOLDMINE of comedy.  I have been doing this exercise for years and in that time I have had maybe six students with ASD laugh along with me.

But not his year.  This year a young man in my class told me that his childhood vaccines did give him ASD.  I told him that science does not support that claim.  I even went on to explain what happened to Andrew Wakefield, but nothing could sway him.  I quickly began to realize, this was his religion.  He said this must be a case where the scientific community disagrees with itself.  But zero science supports a connection.  That was my reply.

So he sent me an email with five links.  Two were links to a website that claimed they had access to "God's medicine."  A third site was from the CDC, where it says there's no link between vaccines and autism.  A fourth site, the most compelling actually, is about a girl who was awarded 1.2 million by the government because the vaccines she took one day COULD HAVE triggered a very rare mitochondrial disease she had that resulted in "autism like symptoms."  But the best link was to a website for bodybuilders.  It was only a link to a thread that someone started that claimed autism comes from mercury poisoning.  And then a bunch of anonymous people tangentially comment on the posted statement.  Anonymous people like JackedMan69.  Now, JackedMan69 might be the author of many peer-reviewed scientific journals, but we don't really know what his specialty is.  I'm actually a little scared to know exactly what JackedMan69's talents are, so maybe we're better off keeping him anonymous.

I responded to his email and gave him a few links in exchange: http://www.npr.org/tags/167437905/thimerosal
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/21/no-link-between-mmr-and-autism-major-study-concludes

I'm sure they did nothing to convince him.