Hearing Jenny McCarthy’s stance on vaccinations sickened me. This was no longer the innocent pseudo-science of UFO sightings and Free Energy, but rather a movement that has resulted in thousands of deaths world-wide, and outbreaks of previously-eradicated diseases in one of the most scientifically advanced countries in the world. Enraged, I decided to do something. I didn’t go out and hold a protest, or write an angry email. Rather, I decided to scour her Wikipedia article and see if I could find and fix any misconceptions. When I did, I found the following paragraph:

On April 2, 2008, she went on the Larry King Live special dedicated to autism, and engaged in a fierce, on-camera spat debating whether premature vaccines have contributed to the incidence of autism in previously unaffected babies. However, this opinion is in stark contrast to the scientific community opinion that no causal association exists between autism and childhood vaccines, such as the MMR vaccine,[15][16] although the US government has recently compensated a family whose child developed autism after receiving vaccines.

I took exception to the last part of that paragraph, and feeling that it was unnecessarily biased towards anti-vaccination sentiments, I modified it to read:

On April 2, 2008, she went on the Larry King Live special dedicated to autism, and engaged in a fierce, on-camera spat debating whether premature vaccines have contributed to the incidence of autism in previously unaffected babies. However, this opinion is in stark contrast to the scientific community opinion that no causal association exists between autism and childhood vaccines, such as the MMR vaccine,[15] although the US government has recently compensated a family whose child developed complications from a previously-existent disease, resulting in autism-like symptoms, after receiving a vaccination.[16] However, this is the only such case where a link has been established between autism and vaccination, and was most likely due to a pre-existing condition.¹

My addition was eventually removed due to the autism debate being deemed tangential to the rest of the article. That being said, I managed to start a process that would culminate in having the offended text removed. The current article now reads:

On April 2, 2008, she went on the Larry King Live special dedicated to autism, arguing that premature vaccines have contributed to the incidence of autism in previously unaffected babies. Her opinion contradicts the scientific consensus that no causal association exists between autism and childhood vaccines, such as the MMR vaccine.[15]

I feel satisfied knowing that I made a small difference. A minor victory, to be sure, but every little bit helps in the fight against medical hysteria — especially on a site like Wikipedia, which has become the go-to site for those unfamiliar with the topics they are researching.