Entertainment

Jenny McCarthy Slams Rumors About Son

Whatever your opinion of Jenny McCarthy's stances on vaccinations, you have to agree — these rumors are terrible. In response to rumors that her 11-year-old son was misdiagnosed with autism, Jenny McCarthy has fired and labeled the assertions "blatantly inaccurate and completely ridiculous."

It all began with the rarely reliable gossip blog, Radar Online, published a (now deleted but still cached) story about McCarthy "changing her tune" on her son's autism diagnosis in a "new" interview with Time, even though the interview was actually from 2010 and contained no comments from McCarthy saying her son was cured. From Radar:

But in a new interview with Time magazine, McCarthy is changing her tune. Evan, who no longer shows signs of autism, may not actually have the disorder after all. And with that in mind, the host of The View says she is changing her long-held stance on vaccines.

“Evan couldn’t talk; now he talks,” McCarthy told Time of her son’s transformation. “Evan couldn’t make eye contact; now he makes eye contact. Evan was anti-social; now he makes friends. It was amazing to watch …”

This is low. Did they even think about the fact that someone, perhaps McCarthy herself, would realize the article is from 2010?

McCarthy responded to Radar's article and the resulting rumors in a lengthy tweet, posted this past weekend:

Stories circulating online, claiming that I said my son Evan may not have autism after all, are blatantly inaccurate and completely ridiculous. Evan was diagnosed with autism by the Autism Evaluation Clinic at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Hospital and was confirmed by the State of California (through their Regional Center). The implication that I have changed my position, that my child was not initially diagnosed with autism (and instead may suffer from Landau-Kleffner Syndrome), is both irresponsible and inaccurate. These stories cite a "new" Time Magazine interview with me, which was actually published in 2010, that never contained any such statements by me. Continued misrepresentations, such as these, only serve to open wounds of the many families who are courageously dealing with this disorder. Please know that I am taking every legal measure necessary to set this straight.

Since her son was diagnosed with autism back in 2007, McCarthy has been vocal against children getting vaccinations, asserting that vaccines cause autism.