As much as I’d love to take credit, the postponement of the appearance of Jenny McCarthy and J.B. Handley on Larry King Live! originally scheduled for last night had nothing to do with me. Really. The cancellation was apparently announced shortly after my post appeared, leaving no time for it to have had an effect. Heck, for all I know the cancellation had occurred before I posted and I just hadn’t noticed.
Despite all the insinuations of dire conspiracies in the comments of the Age of Autism post on the cancellation, it’s far more likely that Larry King probably just didn’t want to work on the Saturday before Christmas than that big pharma stretched out its dark arm and crushed this “threat” to its dominance. Of course, that Larry King substituted a rerun with that queen of breast cancer, “bioidentical hormone,” and now stem cell woo, Suzanne Somers, strongly implies that no lesson has been learned. On the other hand, perhaps Somers’ substitution for Jenny McCarthy is an unintentional admission that both are boosting equally bogus medical information and even outright quackery.
In any case, since the antivaccine side is no doubt deluging Larry King’s guests e-mail with complaints and requests that McCarthy and Handley be rescheduled, I thought I should do my little part and request my readers to join in on the reality-based side and either (1) request that no guests pushing antivaccination nonsense and autism quackery be given a forum to promote their views; (2) that reality-based celebrities like Amanda Peet be invited instead; or (3) both. Send your e-mails to Larry King Guests.
