Oprah, for some reason I don't understand, wields a great deal of influence with the public. People listen to, and do what she says. Unfortunately, she has always been on the side of woo, but now seems to have stepped over a line she should not have crossed. She's giving anti-vaccination mouthpiece Jenny McCarthy an even bigger venue to spew her special kind of nonsense.

Follow up:

First off, the blonde one now has a blog on oprah.com. Unless you want your neurons to scream out in pain, I wouldn't suggest following that link. There are also rumors that Oprah is also in the works to give Jenny her own talk show. Now granted, the show is likely to be so bad an devoid of content that it won't last more than a couple of months, but the fact that Oprah is using her star power to boost J McC's fading stardom is bad enough to warrant that someone makes Oprah think twice about what she's doing.

Shirley Wu is trying to do just that. She has written an open letter to Oprah making some very cogent points into why Oprah should maybe review her new show prospects a little more closely.

While I generally think that open letters are never really effective, but sometimes grass roots movements actually do work, and I think this is one that everyone should try and give some momentum.

Link to Shirley's blog, go to Bad Astronomy and hit Phil's digg/reddit/StumbleIt links at the top of his article. Send the link to folks you know, especially if they are parents or are planning to be.

Jenny McCarthy is spreading misinformation concerning vaccines and she doesn't need someone with the influence of Oprah to help her out. What she is doing is assuring that diseases like Measles, Mumps, Rubella and Polio are going to make a comeback. She has actually gone so far as saying that maybe they should come back.

Not to resort to name calling or anything, well okay, maybe I will...she is an anti-intellectual idiot who is more dangerous than she realizes, and will only come to this realization when people start dying from diseases that have all but been eradicated because she is spreading fear and misinformation.

I'm doing my part in my own little corner of the internet. Are you?