Jenny McCarthy still gets a kick out of lunch on the patio at the Beverly Hills Hotel's Polo Lounge, where we meet on a sunny L.A. day. "Isn't this place funny?" she asks, with that smile that seems to reveal every single one of her perfectly white teeth. There's something refreshingly real and unjaded about McCarthy, despite her famed rise from outrageous MTV host to actress to Weight Watchers pitchwoman to her current role as most outspoken autism activist.
It's been a year since an interview with Amanda Peet in this magazine unleashed McCarthy's public wrath, and she wants to set the record straight. "I think vaccines are one of the greatest things ever invented," she says in response to Peet's use of the word "parasites" to describe mothers who don't vaccinate their children for fear of autism. "I used to be [Peet] before I had a kid with autism." Now McCarthy, along with her boyfriend, actor Jim Carrey, serves on the board of directors of Generation Rescue, an advocacy and research organization that calls for eliminating toxins in vaccines and for delaying shot schedules. The group's position is simple, she says: "Vaccinations are safe—dot, dot, dot—for some kids. Vaccinations are not safe—dot, dot, dot—for other kids. Let's protect the ones who are weak." McCarthy says that since not all people respond to medications the same way, it stands to reason that the same is true of vaccinations, and that they are therefore worthy of scrutiny. "We are pro–safe vaccine," she says emphatically, while digging into a spinach omelet with equal gusto. "Vaccines are just not one size fits all. If you gave everyone in the world penicillin, there would be some adverse effects for some people, and possibly deaths."
For all her on-camera bombast and her outspoken crusade to link autism and vaccinations, the actress, author, and mother (of son Evan, 7, who was diagnosed with autism at 2 1/2) is entirely reasonable in person—not to mention wildly articulate—no matter which side of the vaccination debate you're on. Indeed, McCarthy is so universally appealing, striking that elusive combo of unapologetically attractive and wickedly funny, that Oprah Winfrey is in negotiations with her for a multidevelopment deal that includes regular appearances on Oprah and the possibility, down the road, of her own talk show.
But what McCarthy seems most excited about today is Teach2Talk, a 15-part series of instructional DVDs for children that launches this fall. She developed them with Evan's behavioral therapist, Sarah Scheflen, a speech-language pathologist in the autism program at the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA, who uses video modeling as a form of therapy for autistic as well as neurotypical ("normal") kids. Through a series of entertaining vignettes featuring a cast of kids (including Evan), puppets, and dolls, the DVDs model correct social behavior and tackle everything from sharing and patience to maintaining conversations with friends to sibling rivalry. "Any parent will tell you that her kid watches a show and imitates it," McCarthy says of her inspiration for the idea.
The project is the apotheosis of all she has learned during the course of Evan's treatment. McCarthy's widely publicized journey began in 2004, when her son had a seven-hour seizure and went into cardiac arrest. When he got home from the hospital, Evan was put on a heavy dose of antiseizure medication, which kept him awake for four days and induced hallucinations that made him not recognize his mom and bang his head against the wall until he bled. "I ran out of my house and into my driveway and screamed at the top of my lungs to God to just take him away, because I loved him so much and he was in so much pain," McCarthy says of the period she describes as her "second rock-bottom" (the first being the moment Evan's heart stopped momentarily).
Evan was initially diagnosed with epilepsy, but his mother had an instinct that it was something else—and she was right. She took him to see a neurologist at UCLA and subsequently to two other doctors; all three diagnosed him with autism. So instead of resigning Evan to a fate of the harrowing side effects she had just witnessed, McCarthy found herself in Whole Foods, acting on the recommendation of a few pioneering mothers she'd found on Generation Rescue's website after Googling "autism." All had children with seizures, which occur in 30 percent of autistic children. "There wasn't anyone [in the medical community] talking about a gluten-free, casein-free diet in 2005," McCarthy recalls. "So in blind faith, I said, 'I'm going listen to other parents instead.' "
