Generation Rescue

Media campaign

The organization was established in 2005 by Lisa and J.B. Handley and 150 volunteer "Rescue Angels" that included many members of the biomedical treatment movement at the time. Beginning in the spring of 2005 and running through January 2007, Generation Rescue began a national media campaign in the US, placing advertisements in such publications as USA Today. More recently it has been led by Jenny McCarthy, an author, television personality and former Playboy model. Since McCarthy has become president, the organization has been rebranded variously as "Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey's Autism Organization", "Jenny McCarthy's Generation Rescue" and "Jenny McCarthy's Autism Organization". Bonnie Rochman wrote in Time, "...McCarthy’s celebrity status has meant that her affiliation with Generation Rescue, an organization that links autism with immunization, has spooked thousands of parents, encouraging them to reject vaccines for their children — the same vaccines that are responsible for saving lives around the world."

Causes of autism

Generation Rescue has proposed a number of possible causes for developmental-related issues, such as vaccines, the increase in the number of vaccines administered, and thiomersal, a mercury-based vaccine preservative. Generation Rescue claims that biomedical intervention can help children recover. The hypotheses that vaccines, such as MMR, or thiomersal cause autism have been refuted by scientific research, as have claims that diets, drugs or chelation can cure autism. Because of Generation Rescue's public profile through national advertising and because its point of view is not shared by the mainstream medical community, its message has been controversial, and the organization has been described as anti-vaccine.

Reception

Generation Rescue previously co-sponsored an annual conference in Chicago along with another controversial charity, Autism One. The choice of speakers at these conferences led critics to accuse both organizations of promoting unproven therapies, such as the Miracle Mineral Solution, as a purported cure for autism. These conferences have also been criticized because Andrew Wakefield has spoken at them. They have also been criticized because many of the speakers presenting "so-called treatments" have a financial interest in them.

J.B. Handley said of Andrew Wakefield, originator of the claim that the MMR vaccine causes autism: "To our community, Andrew Wakefield is Nelson Mandela and Jesus Christ rolled up into one. He’s a symbol of how all of us feel." However, Wakefield's work has been characterized as "an elaborate fraud", and parental fears over vaccines sparked by the controversy, and by its continued advocacy by groups such as Generation Rescue despite its scientific refutation, have led, in turn, to decreased immunization rates and an increased incidence of whooping cough and measles, a highly contagious and sometimes deadly disease.

Generation Rescue issued a statement that the "media circus" following the revelation of Wakefield's fraud and manipulation of data was "much ado about nothing". Salon responded to Generation Rescue's statement with:

But any organization using a celebrity to mislead parents with claims of "new" data that rely on decade-old vaccine formulas and schedules is more than disingenuous, it's flat-out dangerous.

Much of Generation Rescue's case is based on publications that do not go through a proper peer review process. Writing for Forbes, Emily Willingham characterized Generation Rescue as "an organization devoted to the debunked notion that vaccines cause autism and that autistic people can be 'recovered' from their autism by way of various unproven and sometimes dangerous interventions, including chelation."