Chili's, and their choice to fund pseudoscience.

Hey guys!  I know it's been almost two years, but I've decided to resurrect this blog.  Now that I'm back to working part time, I have plenty of time to rant in written form. (Believe me, there was plenty of ranting the past few years - but most of it over beers with my SO.)

In any case, today's rant of honor is for Chili's Bar & Grill!  A few days ago, it was brought to my attention that they're planning on hosting an Autism Awareness fundraiser on April 7th.  Now, I'm all about supporting good causes and research - however the 'charity' Chili's has chosen to fund is the National Autism Association - a group that still grasps onto the thoroughly debunked notion that vaccines cause autism.

Chili's has defended their choice in charity on Facebook, claiming that "Our choice to partner with the National Autism Association was based on the percentage of donations that would go directly to providing financial assistance to families and supporting programs that aid the development and safety of children with autism."  In response, the We Love GMOs and Vaccines Facebook Page posted a link to NAA's tax returns (which are posted here on NAA's website), pointing out that only about 10% of NAA's expenditures are ACTUALLY spent on helping families or individuals with autism.  The majority of NAA's income is spent on overhead expenses (salaries, office expenses, etc.) with the remaining going to fundraising and advertising (which we can assume probably contains about as much anti-vaccine propaganda as their own website.)

Chili's followed-up with a response that they had been assured 100% of their fundraising monies would be allocated to NAA's Big Red Safety Box program, which is a kit to help families with Autistic children who are at high-risk of elopement (wondering off).

I've seen a lot of folks on Chili's social media sites who have benefited from this program.  That's well and good, but if you consider the numbers I posted above, then for every $10 kit that NAA sends out, there's another $90 that's either going into someone's pocket, or worse - towards propagating the "Ohmergerd, vaccines cause autism!!!111one" bullshit.  With the recent uprise in anti-vaccine crusades, there have been numerous outbreaks of preventible diseases that had a decade ago been close to eradication in the US.

So the real question is, if you choose to dine at Chili's on Monday - would you like a side of Polio with that?