"What do you call someone who sows misinformation, stokes fear, abets behavior that endangers people’s health, extracts enormous visibility from doing so and then says the equivalent of 'Who? Me?'

I’m not aware of any common noun for a bad actor of this sort. But there’s a proper noun: #JennyMcCarthy.

When did it become O.K. to present gut feelings like hers as something in legitimate competition with real science?

Are the eyeballs drawn by someone like McCarthy more compelling than public health and truth? Her exposure proves how readily television bookers and much of the news media will let famous people or pretty people or (best of all!) people who are both famous and pretty hold forth on subjects to which they bring no actual expertise. Whether the topic is autism or presidential politics, celebrity trumps authority and obviates erudition."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/opinion/bruni-autism-and-the-agitator.html?_r=4

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