Jenny McCarthy and Donnie Wahlberg’s inspiration porn

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Donnie Wahlberg and Jenny McCarthy have been inundated with congratulatory messages and heartfelt support after revealing their new "tear-jerking" documentary, Spellers.

Jenny took to Instagram on Thursday to showcase the trailer and explained the concept of the inspirational movie in the caption.

She continued: "Inspired by the book Underestimated, the new full-length documentary SPELLERS challenges conventional wisdom regarding a group relegated to society’s margins: nonspeakers with autism, who most 'experts' believe are cognitively disabled."

Jenny - whose son, Evan, was diagnosed with Autism when he was two, then concluded: "As the film opening asks, 'What if they’d been wrong…about every single one of them?' SPELLERS answers that question through the stories of eight nonspeakers—Aydan, Evan, Sid, Maddie, Jamie, Vince, Cade, and Elizabeth—who all found their voice through the process of using a letterboard to communicate their thoughts and feelings.

Jennifer McCarthy Wahlberg (née Jennifer Ann McCarthy; born November 1, 1972)is an American actress, model, and television personality.

Autism activism and views on vaccines
In May 2007, McCarthy announced that Evan had been diagnosed with autism in 2005. McCarthy wrote that he was gifted, a "crystal child", and that she was an "indigo mom. Evan's disorder first manifested as seizures and his improvement occurred after the seizures were treated, which symptoms experts have noted are more consistent with Landau–Kleffner syndrome, often misdiagnosed as autism. She has denied that her son was misdiagnosed.[54]

In a 2014 Daily Beast article she said that her son, then 12, was doing okay: "Evan's amazing, ... He doesn't meet the diagnostic characteristics for autism. He definitely has quirks and issues from the seizures. He has a little bit of brain damage due to his seizures. He doesn't qualify for any more services, but he does have issues in his school." McCarthy served as a spokesperson for Talk About Curing Autism (TACA) from June 2007 until October 2008.She participated in fundraisers, online chats, and other activities for the non-profit organization to help families affected by autism spectrum disorders. Her first fundraiser for TACA, Ante Up for Autism, was held on October 20, 2007, in Irvine, California. She is a prominent spokesperson and activist for the Generation Rescue foundation,mand serves on its board of directors as of January 2011.

McCarthy's book dealing with autism, Louder than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism, was published September 17, 2007. She said both in her book and during her appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show that her husband was unable to deal with their son's autism, which led to their divorce. In 2008, she appeared on a Larry King Live special dedicated to the subject and argued that vaccines can trigger autism.[60][61] As of 2008, her son's physician was vaccine critic Jay Gordon. In an April 27, 2010 PBS Frontline documentary, she was interviewed about the debate between vaccine opponents and public health experts.

In addition to conventional, intensive Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) therapy, McCarthy prescribed for her son a gluten-free and casein-free diet, hyperbaric oxygen chambers, chelation, aromatherapies, electromagnetics, spoons rubbed on his body, multivitamin therapy, B-12 shots, and numerous prescription drugs. "Try everything", she advises parents. "It was amazing to watch, over the course of doing this, how certain therapies work for certain kids and they completely don't work for others... When something didn't work for Evan, I didn't stop. I stopped that treatment, but I didn't stop." McCarthy has claimed on talk shows and at rallies that chelation therapy helped her son recover from autism.The underlying rationale for chelation, the speculation that mercury in vaccines causes autism, has been roundly rejected by scientific studies, with the National Institute of Mental Health concluding that children with autism are unlikely to receive any benefit to balance the risks of heart attack, stroke and cardiac arrest posed by the chelating agents used in the treatment.

McCarthy's public presence and vocal activism on the vaccination-autism controversy, led, in 2008, to her being awarded the James Randi Educational Foundation's Pigasus Award, which is a tongue-in-cheek award granted for contributions to pseudoscience, for the "Performer Who Has Fooled the Greatest Number of People with the Least Amount of Effort". Randi stated in a video on the JREF's website that he did sympathize with the plight of McCarthy and her child, but admonished her for using her public presence in a way that may discourage parents from having their own children vaccinated.In 2019 Rolling Stone magazine published a list of seventeen anti-vaccination celebrities, from which according to Stuart Vyse McCarthy was one of the most active anti-vaccine celebrities.

Generation Rescue released a statement saying that the "media circus" following the revelation of Wakefield's fraud and manipulation of data was "much ado about nothing", which led USA Today to report that McCarthy had "taken a beating on Twitter". Mary Elizabeth Williams responded to Generation Rescue's statement:

"It's high time the woman who once said that 'I do believe sadly it's going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe' took a step back and reconsidered the merits of that increasingly crackpot stance. And it's time she acknowledged that clinging to research that's been deemed patently fraudulent does not make one a 'mother warrior.' It makes her a menace."


In January 2011, McCarthy defended Wakefield, saying that he had listened to parents, reported what they said, and recommended further investigation:

Since when is repeating the words of parents and recommending further investigation a crime? As I've learned, the answer is whenever someone questions the safety of any vaccines. For some reason, parents aren't being told that this 'new' information about Dr. Wakefield isn't a medical report, but merely the allegations of a single British journalist named Brian Deer."

Having written three books on the subject after her son was diagnosed with the syndrome, "by dint of sheer energy and celebrity, McCarthy became the nation's most prominent purveyor of anti-vaxxer ideology",and has reiterated that she is not against vaccines. In an earlier October 2013 interview for TV Guide, McCarthy is quoted as saying:

"It's been three years now since I've even talked about autism or vaccines — I was taken aback when people freaked out that I was going to come on The View and preach. ... I will clarify my stance, which is still the same: That parents are in charge. Space it out, slow it down and do your homework. But I am not at all against vaccines.”

Jeffrey Kluger, senior writer at Time, has criticized McCarthy several times. In an open letter article referring to their past conflicts, he reproved her and rejected her denials:

"Jenny, as outbreaks of measles, mumps and whooping cough continue to appear in the U.S.—most the result of parents refusing to vaccinate their children because of the scare stories passed around by anti-vaxxers like you—it's just too late to play cute with the things you've said. You are either floridly, loudly, uninformedly antivaccine or you are the most grievously misunderstood celebrity of the modern era. Science almost always prefers the simple answer, because that's the one that's usually correct. Your quote trail is far too long—and you have been far too wrong—for the truth not to be obvious."

One month later in May 2014, McCarthy published an opinion-editorial addressing her position on vaccines, which specifically mentions Kluger:

"I am not 'anti-vaccine.' This is not a change in my stance nor is it a new position that I have recently adopted. For years, I have repeatedly stated that I am, in fact, 'pro-vaccine' and for years I have been wrongly branded as 'anti-vaccine.' ... Blatantly inaccurate blog posts about my position have been accepted as truth by the public at large as well as media outlets (legitimate and otherwise), who have taken those false stories and repeatedly turned them into headlines.”

During a subsequent Daily Beast interview she said:

"I am not anti-vaccine, ... I'm in this gray zone of, I think everyone should be aware and educate yourself and ask questions. And if your kid is having a problem, ask your doctor for an alternative way of doing the shots. ... The ironic thing is my position has always remained the same. People just never listened to it?

In a 2015 Medscape article about celebrities who "speak out about illness", Jeffrey A. Lieberman criticized McCarthy and her views on vaccines, thimerosal, and autism. He had this to say about her influence: "She has no idea what she is talking about. What she said is misleading and harmful, and the measles outbreak is a clear indication of the response to the spread of such pseudoscientific myths.

Objections to appointment on The View
McCarthy's appointment to The View called forth many protests. Amy Pisani of Every Child By Two wrote a letter to The View's Barbara Walters and Bill Geddie saying that McCarthy's "unfounded claims that vaccines cause autism have been one of the greatest impediments to public health in recent decades", and that McCarthy's assertions "[have] spread fear among young parents, which has led to an increased number of children who have not received life-saving vaccines."

James Poniewozik, a television critic for Time magazine, criticized McCarthy's addition to the series and Walters' endorsement of McCarthy, arguing that The View is largely aimed at parents, on whom the public health system is dependent, and that the credibility that McCarthy's hiring will give her will endanger the public. Poniewozik argued that McCarthy's views, which might be brought up in discussions with the other hosts, would have the effect of framing the issue of whether vaccines cause autism as a matter of opinion, rather than a firmly refuted idea.

David Freeman, senior science editor for The Huffington Post, wrote about the concerns of Bill Nye who said: "I believe Ms. McCarthy's views will be discredited."

Alex Pareene also protested and published a letter to ABC in Salon, entitled "Anti-vaccine conspiracist and 'View' co-host Jenny McCarthy isn't just quirky—she spreads lies that hurt people."

Michael Specter, writing in The New Yorker stated:

”Jenny McCarthy... will be the show's first co-host whose dangerous views on childhood vaccination may—if only indirectly—have contributed to the sickness and death of people throughout the Western world. McCarthy, who is savvy, telegenic, and pulchritudinous, is also the person most visibly associated with the deadly and authoritatively discredited anti-vaccine movement in the United States”.

Brendan Nyhan, writing in Columbia Journalism Review, commented: "ABC's announcement yesterday that actress/comedian Jenny McCarthy will become a co-host of The View brought forth a torrent of condemnation from doctors, science journalists, opinion writers, and even entertainment commentators who oppose giving the anti-vaccine activist a high-profile platform to spread misinformation." After an extensive review of news coverage of the hiring, Nyhan concluded that "[t]here is no perfect way to cover McCarthy's hiring, of course, but giving 'balanced' coverage to fringe beliefs is the worst approach to covering misinformation."

Toronto Public Health officially denounced the appointment and "launched a Twitter campaign to get... McCarthy fired from the ABC show The View", tweeting "Jenny McCarthy's anti-vaccine views = misinformation. Please ask The View to change their mind", and "Jenny McCarthy cites fraudulent research on vaccines & it's irresponsible to provide her with The View platform."

Katrina vanden Heuvel, member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Editor of The Nation, objected to the appointment and wrote about "Jenny McCarthy's Vaccination Fear-Mongering and the Cult of False Equivalence":

"One of the most prominent promoters of this falsehood [that vaccines cause autism] is actress Jenny McCarthy, who was recently named as Elisabeth Hasselbeck's replacement on ABC's hit daytime talk-show, The View. Once she's on air, it will be difficult to prevent her from advocating for the anti-vaccine movement. And the mere act of hiring her would seem to credit her as a reliable source. ... By giving science deniers a public forum, media outlets implicitly condone their claims as legitimate. ... False equivalency is one of journalism's great pitfalls, and in an effort to achieve 'balance', reporters often obscure the truth. What's the merit in 'he said, she said' reporting when he says the world is round and she insists it is flat. Indeed, there is an enormous cost to society when the truth could save lives."

Psychologist Stuart Vyse in an article for Skeptical Inquirer regarding the false cause between vaccination and autism and also the false cures said:

"McCarthy became the face of the anti-vaccination movement, and the subsequent rise in vaccine hesitancy has been called “The Jenny McCarthy Effect” (Dominus 2011). It is important to recall that correlation does not mean causation, but the Google Trends[...] data shows a sustained increase in Google searches for “autism & vaccines” following McCarthy’s book launch media blitz. It’s also impossible to know who was searching and why, but for a time Jenny McCarthy was the undisputed leader of the anti-vaxx movement.”