In Lieu of a Poem on Autism
I was thinking maybe I should write a poem about autism since April is National Poetry Month and National Autism Awareness Month, so I stopped for a moment to reflect on what that would look like and realized that I wasn’t up for an angry rant, so I canned the idea.
I am so upset that the incidence of autism in children has increased by 57% in the last 4 years. It was maddening enough to quote that one in every 150 children are diagnosed with autism. Now it’s one in every 110, which in my mind a holocaust against innocent children and their families.
I’m on record as saying that I believe vaccines play a significant role in the increase of autism. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the first cases of autism appeared after vaccine programs were instituted and that as the amount of prescribed vaccines increase so does the rise in autism.
Considering the neurotoxic ingredients in vaccines, it’s a no-brainer to me that some young children are unable to detoxify the barrage vaccines, as many as 24 with up to six being given at one time, given before the age of two. The rhetoric and bold claims by the medical establishment and those representing big business pharmaceuticals that vaccines do not cause autism (end of story) are like Bush saying Mission Accomplished after the fall of Baghdad. Those kinds of over-confident claims keep us from figuring out how to screen children at risk for vaccine injury and from making vaccines safer.
Here’s what I wrote in a commentary that was published in The Roanoke Times in 2008: Rather than arguing about whether immunizations save lives or not, we should be talking about the cumulative effect that so many vaccines are having on our children. We know antibiotics save lives, but their overuse has created resistant super bugs and the emergence of deadly infections like MRSA. Why is there no public debate about the overuse of immunizations?
I am chilled by the knowledge that a majority of parents with autistic children describe their healthy child’s descent into autism following immunizations. And yet, parents who question vaccination are frequently demonized, as the vaccine debate becomes more ugly and polarized.
At a congressional hearing on autism in 2001, Representative Dan Burton, whose grandson became autistic after being immunized, reminded those in attendance that, “It’s been parents who have formed non-profit organizations to raise research dollars to conduct the research that the CDC, the FDA, and the NIH have neglected to do.”
In a 2007 congressional address, Burton pointed out that “vaccines are the only medications that are mandatory for Americans to receive and as such we have an even greater obligation to ensure that they are as safe as possible.” He said that there “has never, to the best of my knowledge, been a purely genetic epidemic. So, genetics alone simply cannot explain how we went from 1 in 10,000 children with autism spectrum disorders 20 years ago to 1 in 150 today.”
Yesterday I read that the CDC is planning to study autism as a possible clinical outcome of immunization, as part of its newly adopted 5-year research agenda for vaccine safety. The announcement that they will study mitochondrial dysfunction and the potential risk for post-vaccine neurological deterioration, came one month after the federal government’s leading autism body, the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) announced a shift in research priorities toward environmental triggers for autism, reported journalist David Kirby.
Progress? Let’s hope so. But I’ve become jaded by the overuse of ‘we’ll have to study that,’ and I worry that the CDC will act like an arm of the medical establishment, so much so that my enthusiasm over the CDC’s new initiative was quickly followed by ‘what’s taken you so long?’
Note: Read The Vaccine-Autism Debate: Why it Won’t Go Away HERE. And HERE is the commentary I wrote in 2008 that was published in The Roanoke Times.
April 16th, 2011 2:44 pm
Scary stuff and I do agree with the article. Massive disease outbreaks are something the health community fears more than an unprovable increase in autism. But the data is increasing and common sense tells us to go slow with these little people in getting their bodies to rally antibodies due to a shot. Certainly an issue with multiple shots!
April 16th, 2011 5:36 pm
I have some relatives which diagnosed as autistic. It is really scary to think that there’s an increase of autistic children.
Anyway, it’s nice to be back blogging and visiting your blog as well! 🙂
April 16th, 2011 8:15 pm
I remember when we as woman were prescribed hormones for our menopause……..only to find out later on that it causes cancer!!
April 18th, 2011 4:27 am
I hope this is progress.
We had to go to the health department last week to get some paperwork, and while we were there, they looked up our daughter’s shot records (or lack of “complete” shot records) and the woman proceeded to have a very loud conversation with us about how we had to get these shots taken care of before we left.
There was a room full of parents staring at us like we were crazy as I calmly explained to the woman that we would NOT be getting shots for my daughter, and we just needed the paperwork.
There were several conversations as the woman went back in the back room to talk to her supervisor and came out to relay messages to us (one person in the room did make a comment that the health department didn’t seem very concerned about confidentiality after I asked the woman if we could go back into the office to discuss the situation and was told no, we would talk about it in the waiting room).
Finally we were allowed to leave with our needed paperwork and our daughter and no shots, after I signed paperwork registering us as being non-compliant with the shot recommendations. We were treated to a long lecture of how important vaccines are and how we were endangering everyone around us by not getting our daughter vaccinated on their schedule.
April 18th, 2011 2:02 pm
Not too long ago, Vaccines were given a clean bill of health by “those in charge”, and all this talk of Vaccines being the culprit where Autism is concerened was debunked….BUT….I for one NEVER believed that was in any way truthful or accurate. Now, there is going to be another study?? The thing is, we should not have to fight for the safety of our children—Because mostly we are fighting the Lobbyists for the Pharmaceudical Company’s……To me, there isn’t any foubt that Vaccines have to play a HUGE part in this imcrease in Autism, and there certainly may be some other environmenetal causes, too…BUT, the one thing that ALL these children have in common is the Vaccines….!
It amazes me that so many very dangerous drugs are used in abundence….Like Estrogen, which is Good, them Bad, then Good again, then Bad again, etc., etc., etc….These things seem to go in and out of favor like fashions—this is really very wrong and again, it is my belief, we are at the mercy of the Lobbyists for the Drug Company’s, who have such wealth that they can advertise using three and four pages in umpteen magazines and on television…(This should be outlawed….!!!) They have the money and the power to bulldoze any and all cash cows, which Vaccines certainly are….! This Is More Than Wrong It Is Criminal !!!!
April 18th, 2011 2:55 pm
Bingo!
April 19th, 2011 10:41 am
Colleen, first of all “HI!”, long time no see. I am shocked that the rate has risen by 57%, I had no idea!! This is a tragedy and I am glad you wrote about it! If you had one of those facebook add thingies, I’d put this on my facebook to get the word out. BTW, I just sent you a friend request.
This is Susan, from Texas, by the way. 😉
April 19th, 2011 10:43 am
One more thing. I homeschooled my kids so they got the early vaccines 20 years ago but then I got skeptical and didn’t go back for some of the follow-ups. HOWEVER, to be admitted to college they had to get the vaccines. It seems like the powers to be find a way to require these things or they scare you to death that your child will get meningitis or some other dread disease if they don’t get the vaccine. It is so frustrating to be unable to find the truth. End of rant.
April 19th, 2011 12:16 pm
Hi Susan, Good to hear from you! All you need to do is post the address link to this page on Facebook and share it that way. You can get a religious excemption to opt out of immunizations for school enrollment.
February 11th, 2015 6:32 pm
[…] us.’ Confusing the measles with diseases like polio is like lumping marijuana with heroin. HERE is something I wrote about the link between vaccines and autism in 2011, after the rate of autism, […]