Celebrities often take advantage of their popularity to spread awareness for a cause they feel impassioned about. As most famous people should realize, their voice can be highly impressionable on their fans, even when they are not speaking from a place of authority.

Tracy Anderson’s Extreme Fitness Plan, for example, promotes an unhealthy diet that is low in nutrients and has been pegged as a potential leader to eating disorders in youths, according to The Daily Mail. Although experts have warned against her diet regime, Anderson’s influence is still very strong as her Twitter boasts 76,000 followers. Anderson isn’t even a certified trainer or dietitian, yet she still uses her popularity to reach thousands of people with risky advice on how to eat and exercise.

If an issue a celebrity is pushing is a medical one that could harm impressionable fans, I believe it is best to leave the debate to scientists and experts.

This is not to say I am opposed to celebrities advocating to raise money for research going toward well-known diseases, such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. These are unfortunate diseases that afflict people worldwide, and trying to fund research isn’t spreading any potentially inaccurate information.

But, when celebrities such as Kristin Cavallari and Jenny McCarthy publicly state their opinions about something that can put children and whole communities at risk for serious illness — such as not vaccinating their children because of a possible link to Autism — I take issue.

This is because medical issues deal with facts, and facts are simply not up for interpretation. Just because a celebrity has had experiences with a medical issue does not mean that they are suddenly an expert on it.

With that in mind, I am merely saying celebrities, like the common person, don’t always have the appropriate knowledge to address a particular issue, and therefore don’t have the authority that scientists might have to spread information to the public regarding medical concerns that are still debatable. 

For example, the measles vaccination is one of the vaccinations that is debatable in terms of its relationship to the development of Autism.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports, “Eight outbreaks accounted for 77 percent of the (Measles) cases reported in 2013, including the largest outbreak reported in the United States since 1996 (58 cases). These outbreaks demonstrate that unvaccinated persons place themselves and their communities at risk for measles and that high vaccination coverage is important to prevent the spread of measles.”

Although I am not a doctor or even a pre-med student, I not only find it absurd that famous people are ignoring the dangers reported that come along with not vaccinating children, but are actually spreading this falsified information to the general public as well.

A report from the British Medical Journal showed that the original paper linking vaccinations to Autism was inaccurate and has since then been discredited: “Epidemiological studies consistently found no evidence of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism … by the time the paper was finally retracted 12 years later … few people could deny that it was fatally flawed both scientifically and ethically.”

However, celebrities are still jumping on some bandwagon to support a claim that has been condemned multiple times by accredited organizations such as The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Food and Drug Administration.

Although people are obviously able to think for themselves, many individuals might not be very knowledgeable on the topic of inoculation, or really any medical topic for that matter, and could be influenced by their favorite celebrity spreading information they truly have no expertise on.

Jenny McCarthy, an actress and model stated, “I do believe, sadly, it’s going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe.”

Although McCarthy has a child with autism, anecdotal evidence of the correlation between the time of her son’s vaccinations and development of Autism don’t take the place of more reliable scientific research that can infer causation.

It’s not right for celebrities such as Anderson, McCarthy, and Cavallari to spread information that encourage the risks that come along with following faulty medicine, especially when they have such huge influences on fans who might not know any better.

Sehar is a junior in LAS. She can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @Nimatod.