Jenny McCarthy Covers Cookie Magazine

From MTV host, to actress, to Weight Watchers pitchwoman and finally, to her current role as one of the most outspoken autism activists, Jenny McCarthy still manages to seem “refreshingly real and unjaded”. The beautiful mother of one, 7-year-old Evan Asher, who was diagnosed with autism at 2 ½, recently sat down with Cookie to discuss her role as a mother of an beautiful autistic child, the controversy of vaccinations and her relationship with actor Jim Carrey.
On setting the record straight concerning her public wrath against actress Amanda Peet, who in a Cookie interview last year used the word “parasites” to describe mothers who choose not to vaccinate their children: “I think vaccines are one of the greatest things ever invented. I used to be [Peet] before I had a kid with autism.”
On the position of Generation Rescue, an advocacy and research organization that calls for eliminating toxins in vaccines and delaying shot schedules, for which Jenny serves on the board of directors: “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. We are pro–safe vaccine. 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.”
On what she describes as her “second rock-bottom” period when Evan had a seven hour seizure and went into cardiac arrest in 2004: “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.”
On her “breakdown” two years after Evan went into cardiac arrest and suffered from terrifying seizures: “When your kid is psychotic or crazy, you go into this place of shock so you can remain calm. A problem a lot of moms [of autistic children] have is that they need to get out all [their emotions] later. I kept mine bottled up for two years, and then I finally released all this pent up fear, sadness, and anger. I just cried and cried and cried and cried and cried.”
On parental instinct vs. following the doctor’s orders: “We’re the generation of parents who are saying, ‘Listen to us. We are the bosses of our children.’ I want parents to realize that, and not get pushed around by doctors who say, ‘Oh, that’s 100 percent safe.”
On boyfriend, Jim Carrey: “It’s wacky-weird that not only does [Carrey] not want to get married, which I love, but he also doesn’t want to have more kids, which I love.”
On her most humbling moment as a mother: “Watching Evan pee on a fake tree in a waiting room.”
On her plans to opens a second school for autistic children in Chicago next year (the first is in Los Angeles): “I’d like to open 20. And I want to be traveling a lot with Evan, and eventually watch him write a book about me: How to Care for Mom in Her Old Age.”