Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History

by Kurt Andersen

The media did their part too. In 2002 The New York Times Magazine ran a long article called “The Not-So-Crackpot Autism Theory.” Kennedy, a liberal celebrity from a liberal celebrity dynasty, was endorsed all over TV, including in his appearance on The Daily Show. Oprah Winfrey: sure. But one doesn’t expect America’s great celebrity skeptic, the maker of a feature-film documentary mocking religion, to entertain and encourage provably false fantasies. According to Bill Maher, “Flu vaccines are bullshit”—in fact, getting vaccinated with a “flu shot is the worst thing you can do.… If you have a flu shot for more than five years in a row,” he said on CNN, “there’s ten times the likelihood that you’ll get Alzheimer’s disease.”