When my friend had her baby I was so happy for her. Very early on, she asked me how I knew my daughter had autism and if there were any warning signs or any preventative things to be done. It was a question she would ask me more than once in her son’s first year of life. I was delighted that she wanted to be careful with her newborn son. I discussed the importance of a clean diet and organic food. I talked about gastrointestinal problems, what to look for and, more importantly, what to do. I discussed allergies, vaccines and toxins. She was receptive, but noted that she knew that they would be vaccinating, but they would be smart about it.
Not long after our initial conversation about preventing autism, my friend called again. Her 
son had reflux, gas and bloating. My heart sank as I recalled these same issues in my own child. Her son was crying a lot and seemingly never comfortable. I encouraged her to take him to a pediatric gastroenterologist. I talked about food allergies and intolerances. Since she was not breastfeeding, I also recommended a couple of formulas that are made specifically for babies with severe food allergies. She changed his formula and saw a doctor. Her son was now on reflux meds. I shared with her all the things I wished I had known to do that might have saved my daughter from autism. Then I told her about the things I’ve done to help my daughter’s healing since her diagnosis.
Only a couple of months later she started him on table foods. He was about four or five months old at that time. He reacted to most foods with gas, bloating and constipation. My autism mommy-brain was screaming, “Food intolerances! Leaky gut! Be careful with him!” I said as much to them. She said, “Oh we are very careful! His diet is all organic, whole foods.” My stomach dropped a little.
A month or two later they visited the beach and playfully buried his legs and lower torso in the sand. My friend posted pictures of him smiling gleefully. Then I noticed the pictures that came after the sand: every part of his body that had been in the sand was covered in a red rash. My autism mommy-brain screamed, “Mast cell issues!!!” She called a few days later and mentioned the rash. I encouraged her to do some research, suggesting Dr. Theoharides as a good starting point. I again encouraged her to be very careful with him. That night I said to my husband, “Mark my word, that boy is going to have autism, and it’s absolutely heartbreaking. I feel so helpless.”
When he was 13 months old I got the call. My friend’s son wasn’t meeting his milestones. “He lost the few words he had. His eyes are all “wonky” and unable to focus, but he has good eye contact, loves other kids and is social. Clearly he’s not autistic, right?” Her familiar tone stirred memories from three and a half years before when I leaned on those same facts about my daughter. I gave her the names of the best resources in our area, 
educated her about early intervention and offered to help in any way I could. She balked at the doctor’s fee. I explained her insurance to her, went through the pros and cons of this expert vs. other less qualified ones. She made the appointments. After the appointments she felt encouraged that the doctor noted that he was social and his eye contact was good. She said, “I’m sure he’s fine. It’s just a phase. He’ll be fine.”
Two weeks later she texted: “I have the report, but I’m confused. It says he’s on the spectrum, but then it says he has PDD. Is he autistic or not?” I felt like crying on the spot. I’d watched the whole thing unfold. I tried. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough. Maybe I shouldn’t have used my daughter as an example. Maybe she thought I was seeing my daughter in everyone and that made her brush off what I said. Maybe I should have pushed harder, been louder . . . or softer . . . or something. Another innocent, beautiful child thrown into the jaws of autism. Why?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Me: “It’s so disturbing. I have another friend whose son was just diagnosed with autism.”
Other person: “There is a lot of it today.”
Me: “You could see warning signs even before six months; it’s just so hard to see this happening everywhere. We need better food, fewer toxins . . . we need to avoid vaccines with these tiny vulnerable babies.”
Other person (now red-faced and infuriated):” That’s where you and I disagree. I’m not going to . . . I’m not . . . I absolutely don’t agree.”
Me: “Okay.”
Other person (still red-faced): “Are you just basing it on what that idiot who was discredited said?”
Me: “Which idiot might that be?” (I mean, come on there’s more than just one idiot out there, right?)
Other person: “I don’t know his name the one that was discredited who said vaccines caused autism.”
Me: “Dr. Wakefield?”
Other person: “ I don’t know.”
Me: “Did you actually read his paper?”
Other person: “No.”
Me: “Well, I did, and that is not exactly what his paper said.”
At this point I educated her on what Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s paper really did say and strongly encouraged her to read it for herself. I also asked her if she happened to see Dr. Martha Hebert on television on Autism Awareness Day this year. Not surprisingly, she had not. I recounted the portion of Dr. Hebert’s interview that I saw, where she noted that 
autism is treatable and sometimes reversible. She listed a number of contributing causes to autism. The woman I was talking to began nodding her head. After understanding a bit more about T1 and T2 cells, toxins and autoimmune issues, she was also no longer red-faced.
What bothers me about this entire interaction is the dynamic rather than the content. I have no problem sharing what I know. I am happy to encourage people to do their own research and avoid falling prey to rampant propaganda. That part is fine with me. What is mind-boggling to me is the strength of this woman’s reaction when I mentioned vaccines. To be sure, everyone is entitled to strong feelings, but this woman’s feelings were based solely on things that she had heard along the way. She hadn’t read the paper she coined as garbage. She didn’t know the doctor’s name whom she called an idiot. In reality, she knew very little about the subject arguing about. Why is that?
Why are people so vehement when they haven’t done any research at all? Since when do we take mainstream media’s word for anything? Tabloids have been reporting that 
humans give birth to alien babies for decades, but we don’t believe that! Some media sources report that a treatment center using electric shock to curb behavior in kids with autism is “therapeutic,” but the vast majority of us still see right through that. We know it’s torture. (Seriously, can we shut that center down already? Please?)
I find myself reading blogs and comments from time to time and am consistently shocked by the number of people who have such strong views, and who, at the same time, have not checked their “facts” or researched at all. There is so much lack of knowledge. Why?
Think.
Research.
Think some more. Then think again.
Think.
~ Money
For more by Money, please click here.
Or how about telling your elderly parents not to get a flu shot containing mercury? Who do they believe, you or their trusted physician?
On September the 18th 2010 I started an inquiry amongst parents of Autistic children
“I am compiling a list of children who were adversely affected by any vaccine. Please if you could say in about 4-6 sentences what that vaccine was, how they reacted, how they are today and what city the vaccine was administered.”
Over 1,300 parents voices of vaccine injury.
Send your voice to [email protected]
at http://www.followingvaccinations.com
The list that follows (below, via links to the right or pdf to the left) is the response. To date there are over 1200 comments here.
Please join the fight on Twitter to illuminate the subject of the #CDCWhistleblower We need to end this madness! Share with all your friends and fellow autism Moms!
Some people just have to learn the hard way. Even harder are people whose children have already succumbed to autism (or dyslexia, ADHD or all the usual neuro diseases), and you try to tell them that here are the causes and here are the treatments, and they want none of it. Cos their children were born with it, that’s just the way they are and there’s nothing wrong with them. So, harder than seeing a child become autistic or dyslexic? Watching them stay that way.
If you could post any resources you might know for natural treatments for ADHD I would be so grateful. I am constantly looking for new information to better help myself, my husband, and our children.
Hi Momma, some good places to start are the books Victory Over ADHD, by Deborah Merlin, Ritalin Free Kids, by Judyth Reichenberg Ullmann and Robert Ullmann, and Masgutova Neurosensorimotor Reflex Integration (MNRI). It’s not any easier for the ADHD parent than the autism parent in some ways, partly because the mainstream medical establishment doesn’t believe in anything but medication. I wish you a great deal of luck and inspiration.
Sam Iam,
It could very well be vaccine damage, and yes, the doctors are totally clueless. I’m in a similar situation with vaccine-induced MS, and I’m afraid I don’t have any answers. A lot of people think they do, there are a lot of things you can try.
There is a cure for MS. Google “helminthic therapy”.
Jay,
Wakefield’s colleagues recanted under threat of having their licenses revoked and being removed from their positions. Professor Walker-Smith, who had been considered for decades the father of pediatric gastroenterology, did not recant, and, like Drs. Wakefield and Murch, had his license revoked. He and Dr. Murch brought a lawsuit against the GMC for unjust treatment, and won. High Court Judge Sir John Mitting took several weeks recess to carefully consider the case, and found for the plaintiffs, saying that the GMC had used shallow reasoning to reach false conclusions. He restored the doctors’ licenses and reprimanded the GMC for its conduct. Dr. Wakefield’s insurance would not pay for him to be party to the lawsuit. If you read Callous Disregard, you will learn how it is industry interests which were incensed at the idea that if parents knew the truth about how dangerous the MMR is, then they would refuse the vaccine in numbers which would really cut into the billions of pharma profits. The Lancet study did not say that the MMR caused autism and bowel disease, it just observed in passing that the children’s medical records and parental accounts showed that they developed these conditions within days or weeks of the MMR, and that it would seem indicated to do further research on it. No one made any objection for years, until apparently Big Pharma hired Brian Deer to bring the GMC action on his own cognizance, even though he had no personal connection with anyone involved. When asked who paid him to attend the hearings almost full-time for many months, he said the Sunday Times and Channel 5, but both these agencies denied having paid him for this. So he lied. He got the children’s medical records and harassed the families, giving them an assumed name when he attempted to interview them.
What Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues discovered has been repeated many thousands of times since then, and autism families are grateful to him for not giving in to the power of the pharma juggernaut. CDC Dr. William Thompson, who revealed CDC fraud in August in concealing the fact that it knew that the MMR more than tripled the incidence of autism in black toddlers, texted Dr. Wakefield to apologize for having inadvertently been a part of the campaign which tried to ruin Dr. Wakefield’s career.
Thank you for this concise and accurate account of what happened. I am going to copy it and keep it on my desktop, and use it when appropriate…with your permission?
Bridget,
I thought at first that Jay had posted your request, my gmail notified me but I couldn’t find the right place. Of course you may use what I said. And, as I said below, you might consider writing to John Stone at Age of Autism for more facts on this case, he knows a tremendous amount about Dr. Wakefield and strongly supports him.
Hi, I’m an undergraduate physics student and so understands the process of writing papers, peer-reviewing etc. and what causes papers to become fraudulent or accepted. May I ask why you still see validation in Wakefield’s claims when 10 (out of 11) of his co-authors stated that the evidence is not sufficient and that they shouldn’t have implied a removal of the MMR jab? Here in the UK we do not have the single jabs and I reckon a much greater proportion of the UK get the jab than in the US yet the rates of autism are very similar which on a larger proportional scale would imply the disconnection. Also would you not question his motives considering the nature of his collection of subjects, application for a patent before he did the paper and that himself (as well as others) had disproved his claims?
Hi Jay, glad to be discussing with you. I majored in physics myself. 🙂 Have you read Wakefield’s paper? The authors were pressured into renouncing the paper, but what exactly did they “renounce”? They “renounced” interpreting their paper as “the MMR causes autism.” Only that interpretation was not in the paper. That was an interpretation that OTHER people PUT on the paper. Have you read it? The conclusions of the paper are: “We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described. Virological studies are underway that may help to resolve this issue.””We have identified a chronic enterocolitis in children that may be related to neuropsychiatric dysfunction. In most cases, onset of symptoms was after measles, mumps, and rubella immunisation. Further investigations are needed to examine this syndrome and its possible relation to this vaccine.” Personally, if I were a doctor involved in a paper that never made a particular conclusion, I wouldn’t have any problem “renouncing” a conclusion I never made in the first place to save my job.
Did you know that “single jabs” WERE available in the U.K. until Andrew Wakefield recommended people split them up? Interesting, isn’t it? Measles vaccine coverage dropped specifically because they were made no longer available. And yet, who gets the blame for that drop in coverage? Andrew Wakefield. As if he were the one to say “stop making the vaccine.”
Your assumption about U.K. vs. U.S. MMR coverage rates is incorrect. According to the CDC 95% of U.S. kindergarteners have had two doses of the vaccine. There are areas of the country where vaccinated percentages are lower, but they are not the states reporting high rates of autism. In addition, no one has ever stated that the MMR is the ONLY cause of autism. Indeed, many of the other vaccines children are receiving, which are greater in number here in the U.S., also seem to be implicated in the etiology of many autism cases.
The “nature of his collection of subjects”? Not sure what you mean by this. Are you talking about the charge of “cherry-picking” that people have made with regard to this paper? While that would indeed would be concerning in a placebo-controlled, double-blind drug trial, that is not a valid charge for a paper of this type: a case series. “A case series (also known as a clinical series) is a type of medical research study that tracks subjects with a known exposure, such as patients who have received a similar treatment,[1] or examines their medical records for exposure and outcome.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_series Of course, if what you are studying is gastrointestinal disease and its connection to regressive autism, you would “cherry-pick” your participants to be those who had gastrointestinal disease AND autism. Those are the only subjects suitable for the series.
I understand the difficulty with the “application for a patent,” but as he had never mentioned having his own vaccine in all the time following the initial publication of the paper, it seems highly unlikely that he was, in actual fact, anywhere near marketing his “own vaccine” at the time of publication. I think it is likely that what he says about the patent is true. The patent mentions many times that the subject is meant for the treatment of Chrohn’s disease and IBD, which was Wakefield and his colleagues’ primary concern as gastroenterologists. As such, it really would not behave or be marketed in the same way as a vaccine (which are not used to treat any illness). The vaccine idea was put in as an afterthought, in case measles-specific Transfer Factor turned out to be a useful preventive for measles virus in the first place. The patent, by the way was in the name of the The Royal Free Hospital, not Andrew Wakefield.
No one has disproved the claims made in the original paper, least of all Andrew Wakefield. Chronic enterocolitis in children is very definitely related to neuropsychiatric dysfunction in children, as evidenced by the fact that when it is treated the neuropsychiatric dysfunction often gets better. That has long been known to people in the autism community and has been more recently verified by mainstream scientists. In addition, vaccine-strain measles has been found in the guts of other children with autism. And recently it has comes to light that the CDC found in a 2004 study on the timing of the MMR and autism rates, that the timing alone was highly correlated with autism rates in two populations. The relative risk for autism in African-American boys originally participating in the study who had the MMR “on time” (< less than 3 years of age) was 3.4 times higher than that of African-American boys who had not had the MMR until after 5. In addition, they found that children were 2.61 times more likely to have "isolated autism" (autism not associated with another developmental disorder) if they had the MMR between 12-15 months (when recommended by the CDC) than if they didn't have it until after 3. The CDC itself had the strongest data supporting a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism, and they chose to bury it and pretend it didn't exist. Then they disingenuously pointed to this study over and over again as "proof" that there was no link between the MMR and autism. This information comes from one of the authors on that 2004 paper, who has rightfully felt guilty about it ever since, knowing that MANY more children have developed autism as a result of the CDC's fudging the numbers.
What a great response! So factual and accurate!
Jay,
Of course you have my permission to use what I wrote last week. You might want to also contact John Stone at Age of Autism dot com, he is a strong supporter of Dr. Wakefield and the father of a son who reacted to the DPT with autism. He knows a lot more about the factual background than I do, and his contact information is on that website.
Well put. I am terrified to have grandchildren in this day and age. I might be able to convince and coax my daughters, but I know that it will be harder with a daughter-in-law. I pray hard that progress will be made before they have children. My oldest is 19. Sigh.
“Fear is often disguised as moral outrage.” Judy Blume
This explains the vast majority of what goes on in relation to vaccines as well as so much more of what’s considered “parenting.” Most of this fear is imposed (from media reports, med pros, etc) & is not a part of reality. Most people are simply comfortable where they are & aren’t willing/able to break through the discomfort that they’d initially feel. It can be very sad & difficult to watch.
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It is almost impossible to think when you are down in it. My son was born and we’d put more thought into the paint in his room than we had into vaccinations. We were presented with the Hep B paperwork on his 3rd day of life and I didn’t even know what Hep B was. I didn’t know I was expected to make a decision. Both of his parents are lawyers and we didn’t know what to do or who to call. We allowed the vaccine.
At 2 weeks old he was diagnosed with “classic colic” and it did not let up for the next five months.
At 9 weeks old I took my miserable baby in for his 2 month checkup– again, not knowing what to expect– and was bombarded with the paperwork. Sign here, sign here, sign here, he needs his vaccinations. But is this safe? Why are there so many? I allowed the vaccines.
Within 20 minutes he fell into a deep unwakeable sleep for hours. And when he did wake, he screamed a high pitched scream I’d never heard before or since. I stayed up all night doing the research I should have done 2 months before.
That was the beginning of the end of vaccines for us.
He had eczema all of the time. At 4 months he was covered head to toe in a body rash from a tablespoon of banana. At 6 months old he got contact rashes on his face from food.
At 12 months his pedi kicked us out of the practice for not resuming vaccines.
At 13 months old he broke out in hives from a walnut. At 16 months old he was diagnosed with allergies to wheat, egg, melon, cat, ragweed, and a deadly peanut allergy. He also can’t have banana or corn or potato.
This was the beginning of the Paleo diet, similar to GAPS.
I know in my heart that my child cannot handle vaccines and he would have autism today had we continued. My second child who likely shares half of his DNA is nothing like this. A needle has never pierced her skin. She can eat anything. She does not get contact rashes. She never had colic. She does not have eczema.
Since the 2 month reaction we’ve gone fully organic whole foods, eat Paleo, stopped drinking city water, stopped brushing with fluoride, add non-gmo ascorbic acid to the bath water to neutralize chlorine, take quality probiotics and D3, put Hepa filters in the bedrooms, replaced our cleaning products, replaced our toiletries, no longer cook on Teflon, and bought non-toxic mattresses.
Thank God. Thank God we escaped with only eczema and food allergies. There is no doubt in our minds what path we were forcing our child to go down had we continued vaccinating.
I just have to comment on the “NON-GMO ascorbic acid”
You do know that vitamin C, Ascorbic acid, is a pure chemical compound with a defined molecular structure, right?
There’s no “magical aura” around ascorbic acid from *any* source. C6H8O6 – Ascorbic acid, as long as it is correctly identified as such, is *exactly* the same whether from GMO sources, natural food sources, or synthetic sources. If the material *isn’t* C6H8O6 then it’s not actually Ascorbic Acid.
Since they are all ascorbic acid, why pay some scam artist a huge premium (I’m certain) for non-GMO ascorbic acid? Probably 99% of the material is synthetic in origin anyway, so of course it’s not GMO sourced…..
Chemistry can be a useful subject when people start to make claims that they *say* means their products are worth more…..
You are correct about the defined molecular structure. However, we know that few supplements are pure. Most have contaminants, often from the substance they were derived from. I have no idea if that is much of an issue for ascorbic acid supplements, but I have frequently heard of people reacting to contaminants in supplements that aren’t “supposed” to be there.
Look into “helminthic therapy”. It will cure the eczema and food allergies.
http://opensourcehelminththerapy.org/mediawiki2/index.php?title=Studies_and_Papers
Exposure therapy is also good for food allergies, but no where near the level of the helminthics.
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/07/18/exposure-therapy-may-be-option-for-kids-egg-milk-allergies
Helminths are parasites. The therapy is based upon a pretty rocky foundation, that in some countries, children riddled with parasites have fewer allergies than children who aren’t. That doesn’t automatically mean that the parasites are helpful. What it means is that the parasites suppress the immune system. As someone who has spent the last six months on an anti-parasite protocol that is making it much easier to breathe, I think the helminthic approach is misguided. It’s worth reading The Peanut Allergy Epidemic by Heather Fraser to help see the logic gaps in this approach.
I googled helminth therapy, and found that the parasites suppress the immune system so it can’t mount autoimmune attacks that are as strong as they would otherwise be. So it’s similar to steroid therapy, which also depresses the immune system and reduces symptoms, and is used for attacks of MS and many allergies. I took Prednisone during my attacks, once intravenously in the hospital. I didn’t like it, the doctors agreed that it didn’t seem to slow down the progress of the paralyzing exacerbation, and it leaves you vulnerable to infection anc causes weight gain. Helminth therapy is apparently not a cure, just a symptomatic treatment. Is this correct?
I had the same objection to helminths for allergy treatment, Cia.
Please do not be so hard on yourself on how you could have reached the parent in your post. You did what you can do.
I am a homeopath, and I do have clients that do not continue, for whatever reason, and end up in far worse condition than they might have. One even died rather than take a remedy. Strange, but true. I learned to not beat myself up for it. No point in suffering for someone else’s decision.
Excellent post, Money. I wonder if I would have paid note when Soph was little. Sometimes our heads are in the sand and nothing can yank them out but a diagnosis.
Great article! I had this type of conversation today with a lawyer who specializes in special Ed. So frustrating to talk to people who either are like the reason in your article or don’t have any children when they are telling you that they know more about a particular behavioral/mental illness than those who are living with children who are affected.
Great summary — “Why are people so vehement when they haven’t done any research at all?”. I blame marketing, which uses brief psychological messaging targeting human vulnerabilities like fear of disease. Which, in turn, creates fear of others unlike ourselves.
Vaccine indoctrination is now year-round — drugstore chains giving walk-in shots with no follow-up care, and even drive-through shot clinics. The liability-free vaccine machine moves forward and doesn’t look back at what it grinds under its wheels. The socio-financial behemoth constantly enlarges itself, while its stakeholders continually self-reinforce their ideologies of profit and perceived protection.
The only people who look at vaccine injury are the people who’ve witnessed it firsthand, and the as-yet limited number of healthcare professionals willing to put their careers on the line to treat adverse reactions. Without multi-million-dollar advertising budgets, blogs like this are one of the few ways to show people beyond our family, friends, neighbors and co-workers exactly what is happening to children’s health in the real world outside corporatespeak.
That story hits close to home….. You watch it play out with your child you can see the early warning signs… Especially eczema and the food intolerances…. I know what it is to warn others and they can’t take their blinders off yet and see the senseless path they are about to be on and the needless heartache they are about to experience. I remember sitting at the pediatrician’s office asking is there something I can do for the eczema is it food related….”oh no just some people are born with it”. I asked is there a reason why her head growth is off the charts can we further look into it… “Oh her head is proportional to the rest of her body.” It saddens my heart the only time most people wake up is after their child becomes a victim.
Word. I am child free by choice. I have so many friends who have children on the spectrum: what amazes me is the skyrocketing numbers (I will give some weight to more diagnosing now than 20-30 years ago of everything). I figured out (again not on the autism spectrum) that my migraines were food triggered: not just aged cheeses and nuts but the “modifications”. It didn’t take a great leap in my mind to figure out we are dumping neurotoxins everywhere. I was insanely lucky that my parents had an old school German pediatrician for us who said “aside from Polio, don’t give your kids anything but whiskey for teeth and asprin” (ok, my mom had a bit more common sense) but his point was/is dead on. We had the minimum vaccines at the last possible second. I still don’t have the Hep-B, somehow managed to escape the second measles shot for a long time (and when I got it, had 3 days in the hospital) and my doctor doesn’t even ask about the flu vaccine. My heart goes out to all my autism mom and dad friends: I so think this is a created in the petri dish disease.
Don’t bother with the hep b vaccine for sure! I am in the medical field so thought I would get it just because of that, although we normally avoid vaccines like the plague. Within hours I had numbness all down my left arm and across my face across my nose. I still have recurring problems in those areas when I am tired where I am numb (am numb there as I speak!) It really shot my neuropathy through the roof. I didn’t ever get the second shot and will NOT get it either! I will work in another field if my job ever requires it if I cannot get my doctor to sign a paper stating I do not have to have it. End of story. And to think they give that shot to newborns!
I know what it is like to be attacked for speaking the truth about vaccine risks. As an R.N. returning to hospital work in Labor and Delivery (after caring for two “layers” of children and being a school nurse for nine years), I was viciously attacked and labeled “unsuitable for employment” on my unit for politely asking two questions about the practice of giving the Hep B vaccine to newborn babies. The infection control nurse going on and on about this “necessary” vaccine said that they all needed “before they escaped the system”. How’s that for a good reason? Sickening. I found out later that the hospital gets a monetary incentive for every baby who gets the risky neurotoxic vaccine before they leave the hospital. I did my best to as gently and tactfully as possible accurately inform and steer new moms to atleast hold off on the vaccine and not sign consent for it to be given in the hospital , but even a few parents accted alarmed at the suggestion of waiting on these “life protecting” vaccines (not). i lost my job because of my “alternative” and unacceptable views about childhood vaccines. Ironically, I was becoming severely mercury-damaged from toxic dental amalgams, psoriasis creams, Hep B vaccine series, spinal anesthetics for childbirth, and many other medications, pesiticides, coal gases, etc….and almost died from neurological and autoimmune diseases. I know what your children (and my daughter and my grandson) have gone through with their autism and the gamut of organs and systems that have been damaged. Mercury poisoning, autism, my M.S., and every neurological disorder no matter what “label” the doctors slap on us ….are really the same thing. I didn’t realize at first what was happening to me or why….symptoms show up subtly and gradually accumualte in many cases until one day BANG…..you have severe sweeling of your brain, excruciating headaches, your vision dims, your eye turns in and you get double vision, your balance is off, your have msucles weakness and/or pain, tremors, tinnitis, can’t take background noise, have auditory processing problems, learning disabilities, short-term memory loss, you can’t complete your sentences, forget where you are going, what you wanted, can’t make decisions, every cell in your body is starved for oxygen, your brain is starved for oxygen, your adrenals are shot, your hormones are depleted, you can’t digest anything and you get diarrhea after eating, your belly is bloated, your joints aches, you can’t sleep at night, you are hyper, you are exhausted, you get angry easily, you can feel suicidal or homicidal (isn’t mercury nice?), you have trouble swallowing, your tongue doesn’t work right and so you develop speech impediments, you lose facial recognition , you become shy, you have trouble making simple decisions, you lose your balance (how does a child describe this?), you can’t stand heat, your skin feels numb or like bugs are crawling under it, you itch so much it hurts, you can’t inhale deeply (lung meridian affected by mercury), you get asthma and allergies, you get sick all the time, you look normal so the doctore doesn’t understand how sick you feel, and I know I mentioned it before…the pressure in your head , the brain inflammation, the pain, the brain fog, the crushing fatigue both mental and physical. I know what the children are experiencing. I discovered that i have several genetic weakenesses that make it very hard to excrete heavy metals and chemicals (methylation, glutathione, and mitochondrial, chemicals and meds make them worse). My whole life I have been given medications and vaccines and chemical exposures that were the very things that make me worse. The Hep B and mercury amalgams the biggest insults to my brain and body. I have done the research and found the causes and road to recovery that my doctors refused to do. They added to my suffering, some ignorantly, some intentionally to protect themselves and the “system” that paid them. My mission is to expose and halt this injustice.
your balance is off, your have msucles weakness and/or pain, tremors, tinnitis, can’t take background noise, have auditory processing problems, learning disabilities, short-term memory loss, you can’t complete your sentences, forget where you are going, what you wanted, can’t make decisions, every cell in your body is starved for oxygen, your brain is starved for oxygen, your adrenals are shot, your hormones are depleted, you can’t digest anything and you get diarrhea after eating, your belly is bloated, your joints aches, you can’t sleep at night, you are hyper, you are exhausted, you get angry easily, you can feel suicidal or homicidal (isn’t mercury nice?), you have trouble swallowing, your tongue doesn’t work right and so you develop speech impediments, you lose facial recognition , you become shy, you have trouble making simple decisions, you lose your balance (how does a child describe this?), you can’t stand heat, your skin feels numb or like bugs are crawling under it, you itch so much it hurts, you can’t inhale deeply (lung meridian affected by mercury), you get asthma and allergies, you get sick all the time, you look normal so the doctore doesn’t understand how sick you feel,
This is me!! I haven’t even been able to articulate it!
Vanessa,
Basically, if you think any vaccine might be bad, then you can assume that they all have things in common. They all have similar possible reactions and all have reported cases where vaccinated people get the disease anyway.
Just because a disease is bad, doesn’t make a vaccine any more safe or effective. A bad disease doesn’t make less conflicts of interest in the science. A bad disease doesn’t make a vaccine more beneficial than the possibility of the natural disease. Do you know if the child in your town was already vaccinated before he died of whooping cough? Do you know that pertussis rises and falls on a regular basis? Do you ever wonder why the disease is not completely wiped out after 70 years of vaccinating against it? Did you know that whooping cough boosters for older children and adults is a relatively recent addition and that it has not reduced the number of cases? Feeling like it doesn’t work goes a long way to feeling comfortable not doing it. Did you know you have to get the tetanus and the diphtheria along with it in the Dtap? So when they scare you with the sick child, they are asking you to get three vaccines, and of course encouraging you to get the entire schedule too. What do all the vaccines have to do with one case of pertussis? All these scenarios could be applied to measles too.
Many parents fear being different more than they fear disease. Not vaccinating makes you feel different and alone. Many people fear the confrontation with their doctor more than they fear the disease. Try to sort out these feelings before you go. If you go to the pediatrician, have your decision already made ahead of time. They are trained to give you canned answers that are guaranteed to be controversial. I assure you, no matter what the doctor says, I can find another qualified doctor to oppose that opinion, and it is an opinion.
Many doctors feel that there is no “modified schedule” that is safe. Some feel that if some vaccines can go wrong, then a chance is taken at each and every dose. Just because a child “did OK” after one vaccine or one series doesn’t mean anything. Their effects, by their design, are cumulative. Many parents have vaccinated for a short time and wish beyond all wishes that they had stopped, just one series, before they did, because now they can see the damaging effects.
Don’t let anyone else make a decision for you. Because there is so many vested interests in the industry of vaccination, the decision should always be yours alone, without pressure. Make your decision at home, not in the doctor’s office.
Thank you, Bev, for your great post! It echoes mine, in many ways. You had a lot of courage to venture onto the Shot of Prevention website! My baby had vaccine-induced encephalitis, screamed all night for four nights, would fall into a deep, exhausted sleep for three or four hours, then wake to scream again for many more hours. I held her all night, rocking her in a rocking chair, my mother spelled me on two of those nights. Lara Lohne, at Shot of Prevention, said I must have shaken her, frustrated at her screaming, and that was what caused her problems. They have a cadre of commenters who jump on any anti-vax comment or comment about vaccine damage within five minutes of its being posted, and tear to pieces the commenter, calling him or her a liar, stupid, or crazy.
How wonderful that you are using your experience and knowledge as a medical professional to educate people on the dangers of vaccination!
Vanessa,
My daughter reacted to the hep-B vaccine her first day of life. I had gone to the pediatrician a month before she was born only to tell him I didn’t want her to get it, as I had read it often caused autism. He forgot to tell the staff at the hospital, who gave it to her at ten till midnight, without asking permission. She reacted when she was four days old with four days and nights of endless screaming, vaccine-induced encephalitis, and was later diagnosed with autism. She’s twelve now, her behavior is very good (though we never did ABA), and she’s normal in math, that wasn’t the side of her brain that was damaged. She’s very poor at language, memory, reasoning, social skills, and her interests are those of a much younger child. She got the DTaP at 2, 4, and 6 months, and then caught pertussis at a La Leche League meeting when she was nine months old, and gave it to me. It was alarming, but not dangerous, and she recovered after coughing over a month, I recovered in a little over two months. The vaccine is completely ineffective before four or five months old, not very effective ever for many people, and the Manitoba study (1998) proved that given that young it more than doubles the risk of asthma at the age of seven. One in nine vaccinated children has asthma now, only one in fifty to a hundred unvaccinated children has it. My daughter got the DTaP booster at 18 months, and it made her lose the only two words she had developed, uh for up at the playground and uff for dog. She didn’t say another word until 34 months old.
There is no safe vaccine schedule. I got a tetanus booster when I was nineteen that paralyzed both my arms for two days (brachial plexus neuropathy), and later developed MS.
I had measles and chickenpox as a child, nearly all children did then, it would be very unusual for a well-nourished, well-nursed child to have a bad case of them. Children born to healthy mothers do not get hepatitis-B.
I am sad every day that my daughter was permanently damaged by the hep-B vax which I had said I didn’t want, and by a DTaP vaccine that I regret having permitted her to get. I did say no to the MMR and the varicella vaccine, and was happy when she got chickenpox.
Dr. Sears recommends the DTaP, Hib, Prevnar, and rotavirus vaccines according to the accepted schedule, though only two at a visit. I disagree with him, this is a ton of vaccines with a ton of neurotoxins, given to very young infants. Breastfeeding is the best protection against the last three, and quarantine is safe protection from pertussis, unlike the vaccine.
My advice would be to breastfeed your child until he self-weans, that will give him a lot of disease protection, keep him out of day care for the first two years at least. Keep him at home in quarantine if there is any pertussis in town. Your child will be much safer if you say NO TO ALL VACCINES!
I recommend you read Wendy Lydall’s Raising a Vaccine-Free Child, for advice on treating the different vaccine-preventable diseases without getting vaccines.
I agree completely. I breastfed my kids. My daughter has never had the chicken pox, never got the vaccine for it either! She was exposed multiple times as a child and never caught it. I have often wondered if it was because I had a relatively bad case of it as a child and passed on antibodies through my breast milk. With my last child we knew there would be a strong chance she would die from our mitochondrial disorder before she was ever born. The doctor wanted to give her a hep b shot before she left the hospital. I said no. If she lives to be a year old we will talk about vaccinations. She lived 5 months. The doctor looked at me so strangely when I said that, and looked so sad and helpless later when she realized my child was going to die.
Sometimes I think this issue is what is going to start the next civil war. Seriously. I don’t tell parents what to do, but I do tell them what happened to my child, and I tell them to get educated, to do their own research, and to make a truly informed decision. The horror of what happened to my son is something that should give all parents pause. I knew about thimerosal, but only in the Prevnar vaccine. I refused any more of these vaccines and adamantly stated my son was not to get thimerosal-containing vaccines. Then I got deliberately lied to about the ingredients, and he was administered four vaccines (they also said multiple vaccines was perfectly safe), three of them contained thimerosal. My son began to change immediately. He immediately lost speech and would not recover some functional speech for almost three years other than one syllable utterances and then some one syllable words.So many things changed. His health went to hell in a hand basket.
I would never risk my son again, but I can also tell you that if he is bit by a rabid skunk, it is a no brainer and he’s getting those shots — full of thimerosal still though they may be. It is risk vs. benefits. Rabies is almost always fatal. Only one US child that I know of has survived it, and she has a lot of residual problems. The problem is the over use of vaccines in the face of little or no real danger. Anyone would take a shot or drug today if they knew it would prevent them from dying tomorrow.
Of course vaccines cause auto immune disease and a host of other issues. Few are going to do their own research and come to the conclusions of truth as we sisters of circumstance have had to do. Quite a few doctors such as the one my son had will LIE to further their own agendas. To this day there are shots on the shelves containing thimerosal. Few average Americans have done the research to know that all live virus vaccines are still MANUFACTURED using thimerosal, and then it is supposedly extracted out. But is the MERCURY? Really? Discuss that with Dr. Boyd Haley. Even the vials will say it may contain trace amounts of mercury or thimerosal, but the government, doctors, and media say they took it out in 2001. My son got 37.5 mcg via vaccines in 2001. Are we being lied to? I think so. Who decided what a “trace” is and who decided a “trace” was safe? Even when they took it out, they substituted aluminum. How many average American parents are going to read Lucija Tomljenovic’s paper, ” Mechanisms of Aluminum Adjuvant Toxicity and Autoimmunity in Pediatric Populations.” But I bet many moms of children with autism have read it already. It is easier for them to simply believe what they are told and what they must do. Few have learned to question everything — such is the sad state of education. Medical education is the worst. They are severely discouraged from questioning anything they are taught. The patients suffer for that, but more and more doctors are coming around.
I feel for their children. I don’t tell parents what to do. I can’t make that decision for them, but I can tell them that if anything goes wrong, they do not have the right to sue a doctor, hospital, or drug company. The weight of the fallout rests squarely upon the parents’ shoulders, and this is why I believe then the decision should be solely the parents, and it ought to be highly illegal for any doctor to refuse medical care because a parent won’t vaccinate the child — this practice is running rampant today. It is highly unethical IMO. We’ve come to the age of medical blackmail. This is precisely the kind of subversive medical dictatorship Dr. Bejamin Rush spoke of in 1776, and why he pushed for an amendment to the constitution guaranteeing the right to medical freedom. It did not pass then. They had a higher regard for the temperance of the medical profession perhaps, and Dr. Rush was a man ahead of his time. Dr. Rush’s amendment is back as a real possibility. Push for this in your state constitutions and then we can push for it in the federal bill of rights. If we do not do this we will see the day when there will be 100 vaccines required, and a day when exemptions end. As long as profits keep rolling in, they are not going to listen. Vaccination is a cash cow paid for off the brain cells of our children. some drug exec is driving a Lamborghini off the brain cells of our children. Where is the outrage? They are outraged that we don’t risk losing our children again? I am outraged that they don’t care so long as their children are unaffected. Give them information. Point them to research, but since they bear the burden either way, it must in the end be their decision to make. My heart sinks each time I hear of another parent having to start this journey, but we are up against a Goliath they have chosen to put their faith and hope in. All we can do is stand our own ground because we are all eye witnesses to the truth, and continue to spread that truth in an informed manner. If they call us crazy — how laughable is that? the truth is going to come out and will become an accepted truth one day. I do believe this. The rate may be 1:1 by that time — that is the truly sad part.
I am happily experiencing for once the opposite, and relishing every moment. My niece is pregnant with her first child, the first grandchild of my brother who passed away a few years ago from Melanoma. She has seen it all, and not only experienced the deaths of two family members from cancer, but watched my daughter regress into autism and now almost completely recover. On her husbands side is Tourettes. So my niece is going 100% natural. She has two midwives and will not set foot in a hospital unless the midwives recomend it. She caught on quickly that the so-called midwives in ob/gyn offices are really physician assistants, called midwives to retain more clients, but they are not truly midwives, do not offer home birth, etc. Her birth plan was poo-pooed, and she was talked down to at every turn, so found independent midwives who spend hours with her at every visit. Talk nutrition, fears, hopes, how things will happen. The religious zeal that people attack her with for having her baby at home is similar to the anti-vac apocaliptic meltdowns. But my niece says every single horror story she has been told can be traced back to medical interference in the natural process. So, my nieces little baby will come into this world in the most natural way possible, with no Hep B at birth. Despite our “genes” I have no doubt this little one will have no problems whatsoever. I am so elated that thanks to my niece, the baby will have the greatest chances that are humanly possible.
I too run into the same “rabid dog foaming at the mouth” reaction when I say I am against vaccination. I recently went to a blog site called ashotofprevention.com and was bullied, disrespected and totally blown out of the water for speaking out against vaccines. Those people said I was a disgrace to my profession, nursing. I was an LPN in a family practice and gave out hundreds of vaccinations and the whole time wishing I had gone into another line of work. In this rural health family practice office, we saw hundreds of sick, fully vaccinated children suffering with ADD, ADHD, autism, diabetes, ear infections, bronchitis, pneumonia, auto-immune disorders, to name a few. I once had a conversation with a 28 week pregnant mother about thinking twice about the Hep B vaccine for her soon to be newborn baby. She called the office later that day to speak to the phycisian about it and I almost lost my job. I decided I couldn’t do this anymore with a clean conscious. I went back to school and got my RN degree and now work in a hospital. (Surgery…no vaccines, yay!)
People need to look at the diseases for which we vaccinate against and realize they are not the horrible diseases (like the plague or ebola) the media portrays them to be. And, bacterial infections can be treated. Have people died from them? Yes, but the numbers speak for themselves. Get informed. Learn everything you can about each disease and make an informed decision. Even tetanus is treatable with tetanus immunoglobulin at your local ER if you suspect a wound is infected with tetanus. Please read about diptheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis, polio, haemophilus B, the different strains of pneumonia, chicken pox, measles, mumps, rubella, human papilloma virus. Get informed and stop the fear of these diseases. I had measles, mumps and chicken pox as a child. The general population accepted these diseases as a normal part of childhood in the 60’s. Vaccination is big business and the pharmaceutical lobbyists are very powerful in DC. How do you think the Hep B vaccine was passed into law for newborns? Lobbyists. My 5 year old grandson has never received a vaccination and he has never had to see a doctor for any illnesses. Has he been sick? Yes, he gets colds and fevers just like everyone else. The difference is he gets over them quickly and his God-given immune system works wonderfully! I speak to as many mothers as I can about getting informed before vaccinating. Look at NVIC website and thinktwice.com.
I’m always so thrilled to hear from nurses who are Thinkers. I, too, had measles, mumps and chicken pox as a kid, but, get this, I got the measles after being vaccinated — twice, with two different vaccines — and the mumps vaccine CAUSED the mumps and not just in me, I managed to pass it on to a family friend, as well. I also began my odyssey with allergies shortly after the mumps vaccine. My younger brother and I are the only ones out of eight siblings who got allergies and asthma as youngsters. He and I got them at the same time. Wonder what we had in common? I’m betting it was that mumps vaccine.
Part one I have lived and breathed for the past 2 years… Seeing signs, cautioning, sharing research, and then BOOM a diagnosis- either autism, add, ADHD, asbergers, mitochondrial disease, pick your pleasure… I am quickly learning they mean the same thing.
I try not to get wrapped up in the controversy and who said what… But I 100% agree with you that EVERY single person ( especially parents) MUST be doing their own research and not relying on private industry or governmental agencies to be doing it for them…. Does that mean setting up a LAB in their garage… No! It is called pubmed + experience of other parents… The information is there… It is just not being broadcast on the nightly news ( unfortunately).
You know, I have often wondered why people get so angry when they learn that you are not vaccinating your child. Personally, I think it’s a defence mechanism because we all generally feel like there’s safety in numbers. If everyone’s doing it, it must be a good thing, right? However, someone choosing to opt out makes people question their own decisions and then they must vehemently defend their position or try to sway you back to the other side because you’re disrupting the “all of none” balance. If I ever feel discouraged or judged as a horrible parent, I am renewed by a verse in Romans 12:2 “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
I think there are a host of reasons why people become so polarized on the vaccine issue, but I think one of the big ones is not wanting to accept the fact that a government would knowingly do such a thing to it’s own people. It is hard to swallow. Everything you have ever been taught is questioned, and you begin to think, ” if they lied about this, what else are they lying about”? It is scary, and for whatever reason, some people will not go down that road.
I think you’ve nailed one of the biggest issues, Lynn. I think that’s why we have to keep in mind that the people on the other side are just people doing their best according to what they believe. We have to counter that blind believe a little at a time. One reasonable statement after another and the denial will eventually give way. The recent polls tell us we’re making progress.
1. I just watched a kid down the street go through this. And then the family’s Royal Barge trip down the River of Denial…he didn’t get diagnosed with autism until age 4+.
2. Attended 2 end-of-year parties this week: one for my recovered kid, yeah, I said it RECOVERED, who graduated 8th grade and is entering high school with residual anxiety and a tendency toward inattentive ADD. His Language Arts teacher recommended he go for the high school paper as a columnist because he’s so insightful and communicates so well. Recovered kids are not as rare as unicorns. And even with this big handsome recovered kid walking around as living proof, my neighbor and other special needs parents (not to mention the world in general) still think biomed is bunk.
The other party for my 7.5 yr old at a school for kids with “issues” like ADHD, dyslexia, etc., but not full autism. My kid was the only one on a GF diet. Every event includes Doritos and foods riddled with HFCS and artifical colors. And I’m the “crazy mom” for protesting. Argh.
3. Thank you for mentioning Dr. Theoharides. I’m not up on his work and need to be.
But, Jill, your son grew out of it! DUH! 😉
Thank you… Thank you for putting into words how I feel. I watch it unfold with others. I struggle to keep my newest child from the prying hands of the pedi. Continue to struggle while I heal my ADHD child. ALL of which exhibited all these signs too. You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make them drink. When they notice the change and difference, offer your opinion. And then pray. Pray that the seed you planted has a chance to grow.
Thank you!
Sigh..this makes me so sad and scared . My daughter is scheduled for her 4 mth check up in a couple of weeks. I have trying to become informed and educated..but there is SO MUCH information to process. Can anyone here help me by suggesting the best vaccine modification schedule? I’m looking for a road map of sorts. I’m filled with a great deal of anxiety about how to proceed. A local infant in my town recently died from whooping cough. I watched an episode of Frontline on PBS that TRIED to cover both sides. The show had videos of children suffering from a variety of illnesses (Whooping cough, polio, measles, mumps..) and I am so conflicted. I do not want to expose my child to these diseases but I also believe that there is connection between all of the children with autism and other disorders to the vaccination schedules. Any help would be greatly appreciated. My doctor has been wonderful so far..very open to my concerns…and said she would support any modification that I felt was necessary. Feel free to email me at [email protected] Thank you!
Vanessa,
Unfortunately, there IS no best modification schedule. For a lot of children, even ONE vaccine will cause damage. For children of parents who have ANY sort of autoimmune condition, it is probably (and keep in mind that I tend to understate) best not to do ANY vaccination at all. The press will parade every case of death from whooping cough in order to show “how important it is that EVERYONE vaccinate,” but they won’t mention the number of children who DIE (yes, DIE) from reactions to the shots themselves. We have the highest vaccination rate in the country and spend the most money on “preventative care” yet more than 50% of our children are chronically ill.
If your child is well, and I sincerely hope she is VERY well, there is no hurry whatsoever. Take the time to make your decision. Do NOT let anyone pressure you. If your child is well, there is actually no need at all for a four-month visit to a pediatrician if you’re worried that you will cave in to pressure. And, believe me, they will probably exert significant pressure, at the very least implying that delaying or saying no is irresponsible. But as you can see from the above post, vaccinating without being informed is far more irresponsible.
There are a number of books about vaccination that can be helpful, at least in making you feel more comfortable about saying no when the doc shows up with the syringe in hand. I’ve heard a lot of good things about this one: http://www.google.com/products/catalog?oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&q=vaccination+books&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=9504780702340955401&sa=X&ei=UfPUT4rXJujk0gG86Yi0Aw&ved=0CIkBEPMCMAU
This one was very helpful to me when I first started researching: http://cure-guide.com/books/the-vaccine-guide/
Hi Vanessa,
Please listen to these ladies. If your baby is not ill, she does not need to go to a doctor. If you are not worried about her health or growth, she does not need to go to a doctor. Well-baby visits are ONLY so that the doctor can pressure you into vaccinating your healthy child.
I’ve just finished reading an e-book about the flawed data used to encourage vaccination. It was written by an Australian father who has been described has having an “encyclopaedic knowledge” of the subject. It is available here for immediate download:
http://vaccinationdilemma.com/proceedFO
It will probably be the best $10.00 you have ever spent if it saves your child from an autism diagnosis.
Good luck, stay strong and follow your instincts.
I would like to add that I have interviewed 300 families with children with autism. Many had family members with autoimmune and bipolar issues. That being said, that was not always the issue, but in the majority. Sometimes, the vaccine-injury occurred out of *seemingly* nowhere. I don’t want to tell you what to do, but I hope that helps.
I am watching it unfold here too…young Mom, the Dad is a close friend of my oldest son…this boy lived in my house most of his highschool days…read what I wrote…sat with me as I typed out facts about vaccines…but married a girl who told me I am wrong. SHE learned in college the real facts about vaccines…nope…she lead him and her now 4 month old son down the wrong path from before conception. Flu shots, cokes in aluminum cans, cheap food as “we are on a budget, saving for a house” over organic. I just hold my breath as he screams all night long, has yet to find a formula he can digest….WE can tell people all day long…but some just cannot hear us…or read or even try to think beyond what the CDC their MD says…..I pray for these families..I pray for these children….and I pray the madness ends…
This reminds me of a cartoon I saw last week. It had a picture of a horse and it said, “You can lead a human to information but you can’t make him think.” Sad, but true. I’m praying right along with you.
Thank you…and that’s true…so true.
This is all so familiar… I have this conversation frequently. Keep talking. Keep blogging. The world can’t ignore this forever. There is “another one down” very few seconds, and that’s just the diagnosed ones. Especially among our girls, sooo many go undiagnosed, and they struggle terribly.
Hopefully soon the Thinkers will outnumber the blind followers and the epidemic will be curbed…and eventually eradicated. I’m so honored to work beside parents like you! Keep doing what you do!
The “blind followers.” That is a perfect term. I read a recent blog post by an autism mom who is truly clueless. She blasts everyone for daring to lecture her about biomed and has said that she chooses to follow the science for her daughter. What a joke. So she listens, I assume, to doctors like Paul PROFIT and the mindless doctors who simply have no interest but to vaccinate and make a buck. God what an idiot. What is even more frightening are the 60 plus “blind follower” mommy commenters who tells her how wonderful and right she is.
Thank you Money!
The brutally thankless job of trying to save a child from their pediatrician.
I have polarized my close friends and family doing what you did. Some can’t stop thanking me, others watch their kids toe walking, delayed speech, hyperactivity and odd grimaces and say that I am projecting my own issues on their children.
Sorry, but when you have been to various podiatrists to figure out why your little unhuggable, not potty trained, still only using a sippy cup girl is walking on her toes, it’s time to fucking listen to the guy who says he knows exactly what it is! In this case they were going regularly for their flu shot to CVS. It’s so convenient! Just a quick stop for some tylenol and a bag of doritos….and why not, there’s no line for the flu shot.
I was accused by my whole family of “seeing reds (Communists) under the beds”. Old cold war term…
Fast forward to yesterday’s birthday party…A baby carrier with the familiar blue and white hospital towel. Discretely I pounce into action. lol. Some quick points on the sheer number of shots (26 year 1, 50 by 4 vs. 10 by 4 when we were kids.), lack of any testing as they are actually administered, and DO NOT DO HEP B!! 9 x the increased need for ESE.
And these people were receptive. Other cases include being taken out to lunch last week by a friend, his wife and mother in law to tell them about autism, and how to avoid it. Another two up!
So although the ones that go down are heart braking, the one’s you personally keep up make it all worth while.
ps, my brother’s two kids are not vaccinated. Stopped pooping in the diaper at 8 months. SO advanced people think they’re freaks.
Never stop what you do! More up than down is all that counts for now.
“More up than down” is great!! It’s funny how autism changes you. I went to a baby shower yesterday for a friend. I sat there watching her open gifts: Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, plastic baby bottles, coupons for Gerber baby food, Coppertone sunscreen. The dialogue in my own head was nonstop. Needless to say, I’ve made a lunch date with her for before the baby is born ;o)
Thank you for all you do!
Just lovely, Marco. You’re so right. We have to be happy with more up than down and it has to motivate us to continue. One parent, one child at a time. We shall overcome!
I recently did a post on something similar. In it I discuss a mom that I barely know but whom has an autistic son and who keeps asking me why my son is doing better than hers. I have told her several times it is becuase of biomedical interventions. She tells me I’m wrong. Says it is the ABa I did or the other therapies we got him early on and since she didn’t catch her son’s autism so early he can’t improve as much as my son. I tell her again how the diet helped, how zinc helped, how chelation helped, but she says I’m wrong. Then she watches my son and laments how much she wants her son to be like mine. Sigh. I did my best.
I have a friend like that. It’s hard to see her 5 year old son running on his toes stimming like a jet engine with a bag of Cheez-Its in his hands and his bloated belly hanging over his diaper. But we can never stop trying. Not everyone will listen, but some will. Your son is looking to have you for his mom 🙂
Maryann,
My ex used to insist on believing that we “owed so much” to my son’s speech therapist, when I told him over and over again that the major leaps were happening because of biomedical supplements. Much as I loved his therapist I didn’t seem him make ANY major gains to speak of in therapy. People believe what they want to believe.
Oh Maryann…just wait. My son is now 19 and when he was 7 and I was diving into biomed I held a group meeting at my home to educate all our local families about my “finds” I was flying to Florida to see a new thing called a DAN! doctor ( Jerry Kartzinel) and was willing to help these ladies with what I learned…infact back then this was so new even Dr. Jerry offered to come to MS and meet with us!! But no, these ladies had lives, careers, other children, and one NURSE let me have it about how wrong I was. So they all sent their kids to schools, special ed programs, or whatever….and dealt with life. Today that NURSE post often about how hard life with her son is, post clips on facebook of his melt downs, talks about how he breaks out windows and how the family cannot include him ever. People post pity comments to her about how sorry they are for her hard life…nobody ever feels for her son…but me. She CHOSE not to help him! Poor teenager is now a big man, a big hurting man who cannot cope with life. I feel so sorry for him…but not his Momma. She bashes us biomed and vaccine loathing parents plenty posting about how safe vaccines are and how wrong I am. Sadly, her husband looks at John and tells me how he longs to have the relationship with his son that I have with John….I hurt for him…but he never took a stand. You can’t change everyone, but you can share what you are doing…and be PROUD of that choice…you are saving your child…there is no higher calling if you ask me!
AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wonderful post Money. I don’t understand why people who haven’t done ANY research for themselves get so angry when I mention we didn’t vaccinate. I mention there was something “off” with my daughter and we had issues at her birth and chose to follow our guts that said, “Don’t vaccinate.” I also had a chiro who does AK that I was going to and taking her to, who looked at me and said, “If you vaccinate her, you will injure her, even with the alternative schedule. I get the ol’ YOU ARE IRRESPONSIBLE AND SELFISH! VACCINES DO NOT CAUSE OR CONTRIBUTE AUTISM, DON’T YOU KNOW THAT YET! YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT ANY CHILDREN INCLUDING YOUR OWN! IT IS YOUR BED, WHEN THEY OR SOMEONE ELSE DIES OF A PREVENTABLE DISEASE, YOU HAVE TO LAY IN THE BED YOU MADE! Sorry for the caps lock but most of the time it is fierce hate and anger that comes my way. Everything I have been reading from you wonderful mommies at TMR is that we made the right decision. In fact, my unvax DD had some of these issues itty bitty along with severe malnutrition due to the crappy pharmaceutical formula I was giving her. We were going to wait and start vax at 3 months on an alternate schedule and at 6 weeks I had enough. I said NO to vaccinations and began to make my own formula from the Weston A Price Nourishing Traditions site with raw goat milk. My former pediatrician FLIPPED out. I gave her a copy of the Texas law on raw milk. After a discussion that included clean poop is still POOP she basically told me a factory worker for Abbot Labs in Mexico cares more about my child’s safety than I do. It was after this we parted from the practice. I didn’t know any of this with my first. I can’t go back but I know had I not vaccinated and given her the Nourishing Traditions formula instead of Nutramigen, things would be a lot different for us. At least I have learned. It feels lonely out there a lot, especially when your family is in the medical and pharmaceutical industries. Thank you again for your post. It helps to go through all of this with other thinker moms out there. We’re NOT alone! 🙂
Thank God we’re not alone. Connecting with other thinkers keeps us sane in this battle to save children from illness!
AMEN!
Andrea,
I am EXTREMELY impressed with your ability to follow your gut and educate yourself, despite the kind of pressure I know you must be getting with family in the medical world. I’m glad it feels a little less lonely when you’re here with us. That’s one of the biggest reasons why we do this. All of us started out with that lonely feeling, too. We still get it when go to pediatricians or someone in the family starts in on us. It’s helped us SO much to have each other that we wanted to bring that to others.
I share the feelings of sadness when someone knows that I work recovering kids from ADHD, ASD, 1 to 1 and learns of some of my knowledge because of my written articles. I watched as a new nearby mother was vaccinated while pregnant. I watched and spoke when, at about 2 months, he suddenly went from an easy-going baby to a baby that would no longer be held in the carrier on her stomach. I watched as the mom wrote how he received 9 more vaccines and posted how “Great” he did with them. I can not bring myself to watch this for now.
Shell, I was thinking about that just the other day. I see all over FB my friends posting “xMonth Shots! She/He did great, I’m so proud of my baby.” at – xPediatric office or “Family Flu Shot time, make sure you protect your family this year, don’t forget to get your flu shots.” at – xOffice/Medial Center. It is very hard to watch, VERY.
It really is so heartbreaking to see…