McCarthy, Carrey and Friends Plan a March to "Green Vaccines;" What Will Happen Next?

For months, the California-based Talk About Curing Autism website has featured a short video and information about a planned June 4 march on Washington. The video, starring actress/advocate Jenny McCarthy, urges parents of children with autism and other related disorders to join together to demand action. Specifically, according to the site, the purpose of the march is to -

Demand Congress take action to Green Our Vaccine Supply while reassessing our current vaccine schedule. Ask Congress to reenact legislation that would eliminate mercury and other toxins from our children's vaccines, study the instance of Autism and other neurological disorders in vaccinated versus unvaccinated children, and to extend the statute of limitations to allow all children affected by vaccine induced Autism to file in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP).

Fox News, in an article on today's business site, quotes Jenny McCarthy herself as saying:

"This day will go down in history as a time when parents' voices and their message to change the vaccine program was finally heard and acted upon," said Jenny McCarthy.

Of course, the goal of safer vaccines is like the goal of reducing pollution: it sounds wonderful, but it's more easily said than done. The CDC and American Association of Pediatrics have already made it clear that they feel the present vaccine schedule is the safest from a public health perspective. Thimerosal, the controversial mercury-based preservative, has already been removed almost entirely from most vaccines. There are no double-blind, placebo-based, replicated studies that I'm aware of that actually suggest that spacing out vaccines lowers the risk of vaccine injury (which, according to all official estimates, is already extremely low).

Given the star power behind this march, and the anxiety parents now feel about vaccines, I'm sure that there will be plenty of people to attend the rally. But to really have an impact, it seems to me that the organizers will need a truly robust and well-funded follow-up plan. I did send an email asking for details, but haven't heard back yet; perhaps readers who are involved can share information about what will happen after the rally to push forward the "greener vaccines" agenda.