So originally this was going to be a sweet little post about Jack’s birthday, and how the day was perfect, and both he and all who attended enjoyed it. But then the
Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait, posted a news story that I felt compelled to present. Remember as you read that I am a granola chewing, tree hugging hippie, that I don’t take tylenol or aspirin for a headache, that I suffer allergies unmedicated, that I had my baby without drugs (though I fully support the availability of epidurals!), I breastfeed, make his baby food, put him in cloth diapers, and make him wear clothes I hand stitch out of leaves and spun tree bark (need I tell you this last is a joke? Obviously, since I am.) I have him roll in dirt and play with bugs and when he’s tall and walking he’ll be climbing trees. Skinned knees will get kisses and perhaps a bandaid, and if it looks really deep and nasty I’ll give him a little Neosporin (though there again, I prefer not to use it unless absolutely necessary – overuse leads to dependancy, in my belief, and I want his body to be able to fight off its own germs.) As long as he’s little, if a kid down the street has Chicken Pox, you’d better believe we’ll be down there with Jack in tow, getting him all infected an immunized with this disease (Chicken Pox is relatively harmless for hearty little’uns, but much more dangerous for adults.) I have been known to take this nature loving Mother Earth thing to extremes on occasion.
Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait, posted a news story that I felt compelled to present. Remember as you read that I am a granola chewing, tree hugging hippie, that I don’t take tylenol or aspirin for a headache, that I suffer allergies unmedicated, that I had my baby without drugs (though I fully support the availability of epidurals!), I breastfeed, make his baby food, put him in cloth diapers, and make him wear clothes I hand stitch out of leaves and spun tree bark (need I tell you this last is a joke? Obviously, since I am.) I have him roll in dirt and play with bugs and when he’s tall and walking he’ll be climbing trees. Skinned knees will get kisses and perhaps a bandaid, and if it looks really deep and nasty I’ll give him a little Neosporin (though there again, I prefer not to use it unless absolutely necessary – overuse leads to dependancy, in my belief, and I want his body to be able to fight off its own germs.) As long as he’s little, if a kid down the street has Chicken Pox, you’d better believe we’ll be down there with Jack in tow, getting him all infected an immunized with this disease (Chicken Pox is relatively harmless for hearty little’uns, but much more dangerous for adults.) I have been known to take this nature loving Mother Earth thing to extremes on occasion.
But a hypodermic syringe full of dead disease cells and preservatives gives me thrills. They vaccinated Jack with something on day one, and I was like – give him the rest! Right now! Can we just do it all at once?? His chain mail, I call these shots. His suit of armor. People don’t seem to understand that (a) autism rates may be on the rise, but no link has ever, ever been scientifically proven to vaccines – and in fact, just recently again a court of law found that the purported links are nonexistent, and (b) if Jenny McCarthy told you there are scientific links, she is talking about Doctor Andrew Wakefield who FALSIFIED HIS DATA. He admitted it. He just knew there was a link, so when the numbers didn’t come up – he fudged them.
This is the Jenny McCarthy body count, the number of deaths and illnesses from vaccine-preventable diseases that have occurred since June 2007, which is when she began publicly speaking out against vaccines. She claims her son developed autism immediately after receiving his MMR at a little over a year of age, and therefore draws the conclusion that the vaccine caused the autism. She also claims to have cured his autism through New Age remedies, including chelation therapy, which is – wait for it – injecting one of the following into your child to "draw out" the toxins that cause autism:
Because these look healthy and natural. Throw some Dimercaptosuccinic acid in my kid, stat. Scientists have put forth the theory that her son actually had something else, called Landau Kleffner syndrome, which is often misdiagnosed as autism and can go into remission when a child hits about 6 years of age, if treated. There is no doubt that Ms. McCarthy treated the heck out of her kid, and loved him, and wanted the best for him. There is also no doubt that at least a handful of the cases of dead children reported on the Jenny McCarthy Body Count site are dead now because of her. I don’t have a lot of love for this particular mommy, even if I can understand wanting to move heaven and earth for your own sweet preshusss baby boy.
This is a Time Magazine interview with her, where she says three pretty mind-blowing things – first, that parents with kids of autism would rather risk their child’s lives with a childhood disease than have to live with a "shadow," as she calls special needs kids. Second, that if vaccine preventable diseases do come back, well it’s ok with her, because it will show those doctors that they should have made a vaccine that was "safe." (Her contention that they are unsafe, again, is based on falsified scientific data.) But the third and most disturbing question is this one – that rates of childhood obesity, diabetes, and even cell phone use have gone up along with the rates of autism and of vaccine use. Why causation between the two but not the rest? McCarthy blows the question off – because she has no answer. She, recall, did not get a college degree of any kind, let alone an MD (she briefly went to nursing school before posing for Playboy and becoming famous for being beautiful but gross,) and seems to have never heard of the difference between correlation and causation. We are way to ready to listen and give credence to the rich, the beautiful, the famous. We seem to forget that being rich and famous does not mean being educated, even about the topics that a famous person holds dear to her heart.
This is the news story of one family in Australia whose 4 week old baby girl died of whooping cough, 2 weeks before she was supposed to get vaccinated against it. She caught it from somebody who didn’t want to "risk" vaccinating their child. They show a baby suffering from whooping cough, by the way, and it is the most horrifying 30 seconds of footage I have ever forced myself to sit through. I barely saw much of this video, because the opening sequence showed this Mum and Dad holding their little girl Dana on the day of her birth, and the played very song that I chose to back my footage of my own birth video with Jack. Besides showing that perhaps I am not an original movie editor, it also immediately catapulted me into sobs, knowing as I do that the baby in THESE pictures is now dead in the ground.
I’ve posted a few too many dead babies, lately, and one could accuse me of being a drama-miner, but that’s not what this post is supposed to be about. This is supposed to be a public service announcement, to beg parents to please understand what a world without vaccinated people would be – More! Dying! Infants! is not my idea of progress. Major debilitating side effects from vaccines are practically nonexistent, despite what these celebrities are saying. A cost benefit analysis of a one:batrillion chance of seizure versus a – what is it now? 1:100? 1:80? Getting smaller every day? – chance of catching a life-threatening case of measles – well, it weighs pretty heavily in favor of vaccination, y’think? It’s that old syndrome again – it has a name which I forget, and my wikipedia fingers are starting to weary – but it’s the syndrome where people will avoid like the plague the dangers that catch their eye and tickle their imagination, but completely ignore the huge dangers over which they have great control. Um, due to my brain dead description an example is required: after that e coli outbreak in spinach, for months and months and months and months nobody bought or ate spinach. Spinach could kill you, they said without irony, as they knocked back a McDonald’s burger in between puffs on their cigarette. I haven’t exercised in ten years and yeah, maybe my arteries are hardening, but hell if I am going near that leafy green! That stuff’ll kill ya!
Right now, vaccination is still an option, not a requirement. I would vote for it to be compulsory, if a vote came up. No matter what, I will allow none of my infant children to be around older kids who I know are not vaccinated – not until my babies are older than 1, and have therefore completed their first round of shots. If any of my children ever, ever cough like that baby on that video, I will never be able to sleep again I tell you.
Jack, having just had a birthday (hence the "Birthday" in "Birthday Soapbox") gets his MMR in a couple of days. Another hole in his armor will be patched up, and I will breathe a little more easily then.
Oh, and the cake and ice cream were delicious.