Rob Schneider, Censorship and Free Speech...and Measles

What is it with the anti-whatever mindset and claims of censorship? It seems to be a feature of these types of people, that they claim their free speech rights are being infringed upon when other criticize what they say or call for them to face reasonable consequences for their actions. I've written about this before, in the case of Jenny McCarthy, when she was being considered to join The View. Jenny McCarthy, as regular readers will know, was, for a time, the celebrity face of the anti-vaccine movement. She held rallies, gave interviews and was all around a very vocal proponent of anti-vaccination tropes. When the news came out that she was going to be on The View, many in the health and science community were concerned that she was being given a platform on which to spew her nonsense, lending her a legitimacy that she had not earned or deserved. They made their opinions known to the producers of the show. The anti-vaccine community, predictably, went into a frenzy, accusing science advocates of infringing on McCarthy's free speech rights and trying to censor her.

The latest D-list celebrity face of anti-vaccinationism is comedian Rob Schneider. He has not been shy, at all, about voicing his opinions on how bad he thinks vaccines are, whether on Twitter or in radio interviews. His public pronouncements on vaccines recently came back to bite him in the butt. And, once again, the tired old false arguments about free speech were trotted out and dusted off.

Rob Schneider's Hellish Nonsense

Thursday night, I mentioned that Rob Schneider was going to be on Salt Lake City's KXRK morning radio show Radio From Hell to promote his stand-up show Friday night at Wiseguys West Valley City. I joined Skepchick's Elyse Anders in urging people to contact the station if they had a call-in segment during the interview. Orac also put the word out about this appearance.

Well, I was fortunate enough to find time to listen to the show Friday morning via their internet live stream. As noted by Elyse, Schneider had been on the show before, shamelessly spouting a bunch of tired, well-worn anti-vaccine lies and myths. This morning, he was a bit late showing up at the studio, which I don't blame him for; it was early, he mentioned he only had about 3 hours sleep, and we don't know what his travel and traffic situation was.  The hosts, led by Bill Allred, pondered whether they should just rerun the clip (mp3 hosted at Skepchick) from the last time he was on.

At any rate, he finally showed up to sit down for a chat...

Robbing the Airways of Intelligent Thoughts

Just a brief post to let you all know that Elyse over at Skepchick has an action alert out. Tomorrow, October 5, at 7am MDT (9am EDT), the new Jenny McCarthy of the anti-vaccine movement, Rob Schneider, will be on radio KXRK, Radio X96 in Salt Lake City, probably to promote his comedy show playing at Wiseguys West Valley City the same evening.

I call him the new Jenny McCarthy because, well, he is a celebrity of similar stature who has latched on to the anti-vaccine movement, spouting much of the same, easily refuted nonsense, like this:

Click here to find out why Rob's question is dumb.

He recently spoke out against California's bill AB2109 at a failed rally on the California state house steps (the bill was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown on September 30), which would help to ensure parents are fully informed about vaccines before they make a decision to put their child and community at increased risk of disease by opting out of school immunization requirements.

At any rate, if you are in the area or have time to listen online, give the station a call with some comments or questions for Rob. Elyse provides some links to help inform you, but here are a some more:

• One Size Fits All Vaccination
• My series of vaccine-preventable disease wanted posters
• Praying, in Vain, for Exemption
• Demystifying Vaccine Ingredients - Formaldehyde
• Pertussis Toxin, Aiding and Abetting Influenza
• Disease Burdens More Then Just the Patient
• Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated - Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4
• I'm Not Anti-Vax, I'm Pro-Safe Vaccine

Also check out Just the Vax, Shot of Prevention and History of Vaccines.

Anthrax - Not Just a Thrash Metal Band

The other day, I got into a bit of a back-and-forth on Twitter with some folks that question vaccines. I know, I know. Big surprise! One of those people was comedian Rob Schneider, who has recently come out as a vocal critic of California bill AB 2109, which would require parents to get informed about vaccines before they could get a personal belief exemption. Schneider chimed in with a rather bone-headed comment to me:

Or, "I probably didn't think things through, but I'm going to ask anyway."

This isn't a comment that really surprised me or threw me for a loop. I mean, I wrote about it back in November 2010 and reposted the article a little over a year later, since I noticed the argument being brought up yet again. Schneider's comment really just illustrates that he either has not really thought the question through, doesn't understand the subject, cares little to none for people around him or some combination of the above. Suffice it to say, there are very good reasons to be concerned about those who do not vaccinate.

But that's not what this post is about. Rather, it's in answer to a question asked by another person who, presumably, follows Mr. Schneider and saw my exchange with him. This person simply wondered what I thought about complications from the anthrax vaccine. This caught me off guard. I suspected there was probably a bit more behind what appeared to be a very simple question. And sure enough, there was. It wasn't just complications in general, but specifically a possible connection between the vaccine and autoimmune disorders, fatigue and hypersomnia. I had to admit that I didn't know much about anthrax vaccine, but I promised I'd look into it.

And so, here we find ourselves.