CNN LARRY KING LIVE- 2007-9-26-1/2
Interview with Jenny McCarthy
Aired September 26, 2007 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight, Jenny McCarthy trying to save her son after his devastating diagnosis of autism -- the mysterious disorder that locks kids in a world of their own. The stress of dealing with it broke up her marriage. But now the new man in her life, actor Jim Carrey, is such a help, she calls him the autism whisperer.
Plus, meet the woman Jenny calls her angel -- actress Holly Robinson Peete. Her son's autism diagnosis nearly shattered her family.
Two stars battling the fastest growing developmental disability in America and inspiring emotional hours, next on LARRY KING LIVE.
Good evening.
Our entire program is devoted to a look at autism and hopefully a program that will help you.
Later in the show we'll be joined by one of the more prominent pediatricians in the field.
We begin with Jenny McCarthy, the actress and entertainment personality, the "New York Times" best-selling author. Her deeply honest and powerfully emotional new book is "Louder Than Words" -- there you see its title -- its cover, rather -- "A Mother's Journey in Healing and Autism."
Why write about such a personal thing?
JENNY MCCARTHY, SON WAS DIAGNOSED WITH AUTISM AFTER LIFE- THREATENING SEIZURES: You know, I knew it would help so many people. I knew also that my story, surprisingly, resembled so many mothers that didn't have a chance to say -- or will ever have a chance to say -- what I can do now. And when I started to do my own research, I couldn't believe how many women agreed with my opinions on how Evan got or became autistic, but also on how to heal.
So I wrote a book about it.
KING: All right, before we get into the whole story, let's introduce everyone to your son Evan.
We've got some videotape of you and him together.
Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MCCARTHY: No, no, no, no, no.
(INAUDIBLE) got you.
No, no, no, no, no.
(LAUGHTER)
EVAN: Don't get me.
MCCARTHY: Don't get me.
Don't get me.
EVAN: One, two, three.
MCCARTHY: Whoa!
EVAN: Would it open the door.
MCCARTHY: It sounded kind of crazy.
EVAN: Look at all the horses.
MCCARTHY: This is a beautiful horse barn, sir.
Giddyap, horsy.
Let's go.
EVAN: Ride like the wind.
MCCARTHY: Oh, you're going to be an attack man kid, aren't you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Now, he looks like a perfectly normal child.
MCCARTHY: Thank you.
KING: What is autism?
MCCARTHY: Wow! Well, it differs for a lot of people. But -- or opinions. But I believe that's -- it's an infection and/or toxins and/or funguses on top of vaccines that push children into this neurological downslide which we call autism.
KING: Which causes what?
What happens to the autistic child?
MCCARTHY: Basically what I noticed when I back track at about 18 months or so, Evan started to have loss of eye contact, loss of speech, hand flapping -- a lot of hand flapping. Social -- his social communication, he just didn't -- he didn't even notice his friends when they would come over and play. Those were the little tiny signs, when I look back, I saw developing.
KING: When was it diagnosed?
MCCARTHY: He was diagnosed at almost three. But what really woke me up was the first seizure he had -- actually, the second seizure he had.
KING: They get seizures.
MCCARTHY: Almost 30 percent of children with autism suffer from seizures. So on top of autism, we have seizures. And it is debilitating. I mean -- it still brings me to my knees thinking about what Evan had to go through with the seizures. In one of the seizures, he went into cardiac arrest in front of me. His heart stopped.
KING: Are there treatments?
MCCARTHY: For autism?
KING: Mm hmm.
MCCARTHY: I am so glad you asked me that. That is a wonderful question. Yes, yes and yes. You know, when Evan became diagnosed, I didn't get the pamphlet that said, sorry, your son has autism. You know, here's what to do next and there's hope.
There is so much treatment available. And no one told me, which is why I wrote the book, you know?
I went online, researched, I typed in Google and then autism. And what came up is autism is reversible and treatable.
Now, I thought to myself when I first saw that. Why isn't that on the news?
How come people don't know about this?
Yes, we know about ABA and speech therapy and that all works, let me tell you. But what gets these kids recovered from autism is biomedical intervention. And it's, you know, it's as simple as starting with a diet. Hello! I know that sounds crazy and so simple, yet so true. I talk about it in the book.
Evan started on a gluten-free, casein-free diet, which is pretty close to a wheat-free and dairy-free. And in two weeks he doubled his language and his eye contact came back on.
Now, if my story was alone, you might go well, Jenny, you got lucky. I have thousands and thousands of women and moms that taught me this, to try this. It works. But no one is...
KING: Is this some sort of secret?
MCCARTHY: You know, it's a damn shame that it has been for this long. It really has. There's something called the DAN! Conference every year, DAN -- Defeat Autism Now. And these are doctors, 600 doctors that treat these kids all over the country. But for some reason the pediatricians do not know how to treat these kids. And they're fixing them. I mean my best kind of scenario or example was, you know, you can't really become cured from it. It's like getting hit by a bus. You don't become cured, but you can recover. And you're still going to have boo- boos.
But the help, it is available out there. People need to know that it is real. And it doesn't help all. You know, I actually kind of started crying in the bathtub last night thinking about all the moms that are going to try all these things that I'm talking about and it's not going to help all these kids. But chemotherapy doesn't help every cancer victim.
KING: Yes.
MCCARTHY: But it's worth the try.
KING: Your book tells you -- tells the reader what you did?
MCCARTHY: It tells -- it's not only what I did, my journey, my heartache. I'm bleeding. But it gives you hope that wasn't there before.
KING: What happens to the autistic child when he or she grows up?
MCCARTHY: That's a good question. I mean I don't know. Evan...
KING: The adult autistic?
What are they like?
MCCARTHY: You know, to tell you the truth, I haven't really met any.
I'm hoping...
KING: They don't die young, do they?
MCCARTHY: No. No, no.
KING: So they've got to be around.
MCCARTHY: Of course. Yes, absolutely. But from the thousands that are becoming recovered, can you imagine if every parent had information about the treatment that is actually out there, how many of them would become recovered at such an early, early age.
You know, I called the American Academy of Pediatrics this week, because I've been complaining about why isn't the medical community behind this treatment so they can teach it to every pediatrician across the country, so parents don't have to go looking for a specific DAN! doctor. They can go right to their doctor and go these are my son's symptoms. They resemble Jenny's son's symptoms.
Can you help me?
They don't know how to treat these kids. That's a fact.
KING: Well, other than diet, what are the other treatments?
MCCARTHY: A lot of these kids have Candida, which is yeast -- overgrowth of yeast. By giving them anti-fungals, like Diflucan. After I cleaned out Evan's Candida -- and I'm going to say this very clearly -- he became typical. He started speaking completely. His social development was back on. He's now in a typical school. He got that much better. And my story is not alone. I have -- recoveryvideos.com, by the way, has pictures and stories.
KING: Are you saying he's not autistic anymore?
MCCARTHY: That's right.
KING: You're saying that...
MCCARTHY: I'm not. And I am not the only one.
KING: Your son is cured is what
You're saying...
MCCARTHY: They're -- I'm not saying cured. It's like getting hit by a bus. But you can recover and there will be some bruises. But he's no longer autistic. And I'm not the only one to say that. There are many. Larry, there's thousands. And I'm just the first one coming out to say, guess what, they taught me and now I'm here to teach you guys.
KING: The book is "Louder Than Words," Jenny McCarthy.
When we come back, I'll ask Jenny about the man she's referred to as the autism whisperer. He's somebody you have seen at the movies and on TV.
She'll reveal who he is after the break.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EVAN: OK, I need to take a walk.
MCCARTHY: OK.
EVAN: (INAUDIBLE), mom.
MCCARTHY: Oh, it is?
Oh, no. Oh, no.
Everybody watch out, here comes a scary monster.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: We're back with Jenny McCarthy. By the way, the quick vote tonight on our Web site, CNN.com/larryking. The question was, do you know someone with autism?
Currently, 74 percent say they do -- a number indicating how tragically common this has become.
Does that surprise you?
MCCARTHY: No, it doesn't.
KING: Seventy-four percent knows someone?
MCCARTHY: You know why?
Because -- I'm going to get a little bit into the vaccines for a moment. But in 1983, the vaccine schedule was 10. Ten vaccines given. Now, today, there are 36, and a lot of people don't know that.
KING: Meaning what?
Ten vaccines given cause?
MCCARTHY: Ten vaccines for your schedule, you know, back in the day, 1983.
Now...
KING: (INAUDIBLE).
MCCARTHY: Uh-huh. And now the schedule of saying, hey, welcome to the world, child, here's your schedule, it's now 36 shots.
KING: There's 36 inoculations?
MCCARTHY: Yes. Yes.
KING: And you're saying they're the cause?
MCCARTHY: I'm glad you brought that up. No, I do not believe that vaccines are the sole cause for autism. I do believe they are a trigger. They are a trigger and the dumbest way to explain it, though, for me is, if you become overweight, you might trigger diabetes.
KING: But you don't...
MCCARTHY: So there's something in the immune system that is weakened in these kids, they maybe can't process the vaccines. I don't think it's solely the vaccines. I think there's toxins in the environment, pesticides, (INAUDIBLE) women.
It's kind of like a pile up. If you can fill up a bucket of all this stuff going on with these kids, if they have a weak immune system, all that crap is going to overflow.
KING: What are you going to do, ban vaccinations?
MCCARTHY: Heck, no. I am completely for them.
KING: No.
So what do you do?
MCCARTHY: I would like the CDC to get a better schedule. Thirty- six -- I would like to see them clean up the ingredients. I would like for parents to feel safer by offering the families the test for their baby to see if their immune system is strong enough to handle these. I would love the CDC to give a piece of paper before they gave my a Hep B shot in the hospital saying here are the possible side effects for each shot. I think parents would feel a lot safer and they're not right now.
KING: Who's the father of your child?
MCCARTHY: John Asher.
KING: Is he a good dad?
MCCARTHY: He is. Now that Evan is really speaking and just being a typical boy, it's a lot easier for him to communicate and do boy things with him.
KING: And Jim Carrey is another man in your life, right?
MCCARTHY: He is.
KING: Are you going to get married?
MCCARTHY: (LAUGHTER).
KING: I just asked.
MCCARTHY: No. No. We're both very happy the way it is. And I couldn't have asked for a better person in my life. And the relationship with him and Evan goes beyond anything I could ever have dreamed. They were -- it's truly a blessing to him.
KING: You're saying you call will him the whisperer. He's (INAUDIBLE)...
MCCARTHY: I know. Really, he's -- he's got the gift, I say. He can -- he can, you know, help Evan through some difficult things when therapists couldn't even do it. Jim is able to do it.
KING: The gift of laughter, too?
MCCARTHY: Yes, absolutely. I've seen the claw come out a few times (LAUGHTER) (INAUDIBLE).
KING: So do you think we've joined the -- we've skipped the road now in autism, we're on the upside?
MCCARTHY: No.
KING: The light's at the end of the tunnel?
MCCARTHY: The light at the end of the tunnel is offering hope to parents that we can help make these kids, if not recover -- I'm not offering recovery for everyone -- but get better or feel better. In terms of schedules and the CDC kind of stepping up and helping out and changing things, I think you're going to see me in front of Congress next. I think that's where you're going to see me trying to really change things.
We're scared. I mean moms and pregnant women are coming up to me on the street going, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. And I don't know what to tell them, because I am surely not going to tell anyone to vaccinate. But if I had another child, there's no way in hell.
KING: Really?
MCCARTHY: Mm hmm.
KING: Huh.
MCCARTHY: But I'm not telling anyone to do that. But, in my opinion, for my next kid -- which I'm never going to have -- there's no way.
KING: Never going to have, why?
MCCARTHY: I got my butt kicked. You know, it was really hard those years. Pulling Evan out of the window, I call it. I suffered a lot. I cried a lot. I'm just ready to move forward. I'm ready to help out. I'm ready to spread the word. I'm ready to make this world a safer, cleaner place. That is my mission right now. It really is.
KING: You're a hell of a girl.
Jenny McCarthy.
The book is "Louder Than Words".
When we come back, we'll be joined by Mrs. Peete, a hell of a lady herself. Holly Robinson Peete. She's the wife of the Rodney Peete, the great former football star at USC and in the pros. And they, too, have an autistic child.
Don't go away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCARTHY: Who's that?
That's Evan. That's Evan. Mommy loves you. Mommy loves you.
I like my hand. I like my hand. Yummy. It's yummy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Jenny McCarthy remains. She'll be with us through the entire program.
We're now joined by Holly Robinson Peete, the actress. Her oldest son, RJ, diagnosed with autism in 2000. He was age three. She and her husband, you know, the former NFL quarterback Rodney Peete, went public with their son's story this summer.
Why so late?
HOLLY ROBINSON PEETE, SON HAS AUTISM: Oh, because we were in the trenches working to get this kid out of this window. We knew we had a very tiny amount of time to get him through this and we weren't ready to talk about it, Larry. We didn't know enough about it. We didn't have enough victories under our belt. We needed a journey.
KING: Is there any shame?
PEETE: No. We didn't have any shame at all. But we wanted to talk about it at the time when we felt we could help the most people and we knew what we were talking about.
KING: RJ Peete is a twin. He's almost 10-years-old.
Let's meet him on videotape.
(VIDEO CLIP OF RJ PEETE)
PEETE: She's like, you know what I call her, Larry?
She's like his nervous Jewish mother.
(LAUGHTER)
KING: That's his twin sister?
PEETE: Yes, his twin sister, because she's constantly protecting him.
KING: How did you hook up with Jenny?
PEETE: Well, Jenny and I knew each other around Hollywood things, two actresses. But her sister and my makeup artist are friends.
And when Jenny's son diagnosed, we connected. We stayed on the phone from sunup to sundown. And I told her about this little window of time that she needed to get busy, roll up her sleeves and start fighting for her son.
MCCARTHY: She was the first one to give me hope.
PEETE: I didn't know I was going to create this, though.
KING: No. A fireball. PEETE: But I have to tell you, I'm so proud of her, because what she's doing is so brave. I didn't know as much as Jenny knew at the time, you know, back then, a whole long seven years ago. I didn't know what Jenny knows. So I've learned a lot from her.
But what I really, really also know is -- you asked earlier about adults with autism. I mean there's really nothing for them. There's nowhere for them to live. There are not very many homes or any kind of programs to help these people as they grow up and become teenagers and then go on in to matriculate into the world that we live in. It's a very difficult, difficult road for them.
So I like just to say that these children are extremely valuable, amazing kids and are extremely smart. But we need to learn how to teach them and learn how to help them become one with our social life.
KING: So Jenny did a lot for you.
MCCARTHY: Yes.
KING: What did she do for you?
MCCARTHY: Oh, my gosh. She was the woman in the book that I called my Hollywood -- my Hollywood friend that gave me that first phone call. I was crying on the phone and she said, "Girl, you pick yourself up and you move forward. There is light at the end of the tunnel. There is this window. You can pull him out. There are so many things that you can do. You research. You dig in. You learn. You study. You keep going."
And I heard that and went, all right. And I went to the bookstore and grabbed every book. I went online and researched and did the work and just found this huge autism community of moms helping moms, because pediatricians at the time aren't helping.
KING: How's your boy doing?
PEETE: My boy is doing very well. I mean, you know, it's weird with this thing...
KING: As well as hers?
PEETE: No, actually. No. I have learned a lot of information from her that I'm going to actually try for my son. But for what we did and for that window of time, how we fought for him, he's doing extremely well. There was a time he was not verbal. Now he's verbal. He's mainstreaming with a shadow at school that's been a wonderful partner with him.
KING: Explain that, with a shadow.
PEETE: Mainstreaming -- mainstreaming means you go to a typical -- a neurotypical school and you have a shadow teacher that is actually with him, to help him, sort of guide him through, navigate him through fourth grade, which is really rough.
KING: Do you have to pay that teacher?
PEETE: You have to pay that teacher and let me tell you...
KING: So the poor family can't afford it.
PEETE: No, the -- no.
And good guess what?
You know, even us families with a little bit of, you know, something in the bank, we feel it.
MCCARTHY: Yes.
PEETE: So I can't imagine what it must be like. And I wish there were more resources for families in this country to deal with autism.
KING: How does your son deal with it emotionally?
PEETE: Well, he's at that age now where, you know, he's nine and he keeps saying -- he talks to me a lot. But most of his best, amazing feelings come out of e-mailing me. A lot of kids on the spectrum are not able to really verbally express themselves. And what he says is, I am not autism. Now, what he means is I'm not autistic. He hates when people call him autistic. He thinks it's a label and it's really uncomfortable for him.
So, but what I found with him -- and I'm so proud of him, because he really grasped that, you know, and we've done all this B roll. People come to the house -- they know, he knows why they're there. And his neurotypical twin sister, she knows why. Everybody knows they're here because of this autism thing.
And he says, "I'm helping people, right? Like that guy who hit all the three pointers" -- talking about Jason McElwain, who single- handedly, with those three pointers, just, you know, gave a whole new face to the autism.
And that's my son's hero, because of what he did. And it's hopeful to him that he's going to do something cool in his life, as well.
KING: Is every mother involved like the two of you?
(LAUGHTER)
PEETE: You know what I...
MCCARTHY: Well, there's some moms that I call black belt moms, that will chop through the system. When they can't get an appointment, they're going to get one the next day.
PEETE: Yes, you've got...
(CROSSTALK)
MCCARTHY: Yes, I know.
PEETE: You got a kid (INAUDIBLE)...
MCCARTHY: You've got to push.
PEETE: She is a warrior mom, for sure. But what I like to tell my fellow moms who are dealing with this that don't feel like they can pick themselves up is there is hope, there's information, there are resources, there are things you can do. And you've got to do whatever it takes, because you have a little tiny window of time from the time they're diagnosed to the time they're -- the window doesn't ever close, I want to make that clear.
MCCARTHY: Yes.
PEETE: But there's a time when it's easier for you to sort of get in there and try to help pull this child out of this world.
MCCARTHY: The best results, you know, for these kids is, you know, if -- this window between two and six, primarily.
PEETE: Mm hmm.
MCCARTHY: To kind of clean these kids out and Make them better.
KING: Yes.
We're going to take a break.
When we come back, one of the most foremost pediatricians dealing with this will join us -- so foremost, he wrote the foreword to Jenny McCarthy's book, "Louder Than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism."
Our guests are Jenny McCarthy and Holly Robinson Peete.
You're watching LARRY KING LIVE.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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