discover:

It has had a particularly strong life on the Internet, including the heavily trafficked Huffington Post, and in pop culture, where it is supported by actors including Charlie Sheen and Jim Carrey, former Playboy playmate Jenny McCarthy, and numerous others.

slate:

Jenny McCarthy begs to differ. McCarthy dropped out of nursing school in 1993 to become a Playboy bunny and later starred in an MTV show that focused on her bodily functions. She believes that vaccines made her 7-year-old son autistic—and that she “recovered” him with alternative therapies, as she details in her parenting books.

time:

There was not much in Jenny McCarthy’s early career as a Playboy model and MTV star to suggest that she would become a passionate advocate for family issues, children’s health and autism awareness.

abc news:

Amy Pisani, executive director of ECBT, says she hopes Peet’s advocacy is “a 100 percent antidote” to the position of former Playboy model Jenny McCarthy’s position that the current vaccine schedule places children at a higher risk of developing autism.

shockingly, usnews, the latimes, and the ny daily news manage to write a story about jenny mccarthy without mentioning her playboy stint 16 years ago.

the time and discover descriptions are the worst of the bunch. why do jim carrey and charlie sheen not have descriptors in front of their names besides “actors?” i believe mccarthy can accurately be described as an “actress” right now, and it sounds like the author is mostly amusing himself by being able to get “playboy” into his science piece. if the writer wants to kill the credibility of all celebrity anti-vaxxers, why doesn’t sheen get the the hit job treatment either? i do believe he was a loyal heidi fleiss customer and a coke addict, making him a pretty shitty authority on vaccines.

the time one is even more stupid. a playboy playmate can’t ever become a “passionate advocate for family issues, children’s health and autism awareness?” even if they’re having children 16 years after they were a model? women who do dumb things when they’re young can’t ever be expected to become good moms later? things change when people grow up and have kids. not that surprising.

it’s perfectly valid to point out mccarthy has a credibility problem. she’s not a scientist, a doctor, or anything that gives her any authority to talk about a public health issue like wide-scale vaccination. it’s even ok to call her “just an actress” (which is what she is, right now). but her occupation in 1993 is pretty irrelevant, and it’s just another annoying way that women’s sexuality gets woven into unrelated narratives. just another way to snicker at women that men don’t have to deal with.

/feminist rant