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Vaccinate Your Effing Kids

Donald Trump believes that posting a visual of the rise of autism and the rise of vaccines from 1983 to 2008 make him a scientist.

Maybe he went to one of Jenny McCarthy’s conferences and learned about her scientific method?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present you with the idocracy.

 

 

If you want advice on how to select breast implants Jenny McCarthy is your lady. If you’re looking for advice on how to emerge from bankruptcy and rebuild an empire your father left you then Trump is your man. If you are looking for advice on vaccinating your child your pediatrician is the person you need. Unless you go to that wacko Jay Gordon where all the helicopter moms converge.

One reason so many parents have been able to be lackadaisical about vaccines and vaccine schedules is because the rest of the country was vaccinating their children and the risk of exposure was lower. Unlike Polio, Pertussis (whooping cough or the 100 day cough) is alive and well in the US. There have been pertussis outbreaks and deaths countrywide and Washington reported an epidemic just a few short months ago.

This is what a Whooping Cough sounds like. Remember they call this the 100 day cough because it tends to actually last that long. Would you deny your child this vaccine? One hundred days of gasping for air day and night.

There is no scientific link between autism and vaccines. Children may show signs of autism near the times they have vaccines but adult women also tend to go through menopause shortly after starting Botox. Did Botox take their hormones away? It sounds ludicrous doesn’t it?

I can’t answer the autism questions effectively. I’m not a scientist and the scientists are somewhat befuddled. I can tell you with certainty that in 1983 and prior a good number of the kids I went to school with (and I’ll admit to being in the gifted classes) could have been diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum. What didn’t happen until more recently was that kids with ASDs (Autism Spectrum Disorders) would get therapies without harsh judgement and without missing other important parts of the school day. In 1972 if your quirky kid didn’t look someone in the eye there wasn’t a whole lot anyone would do except offer discipline. Those quirky kids grew up and now they’re on twitter, Facebook and G+ (or more likely building something new).

My assumption is that my readers are smart. My assumption is that you’ve read the headlines about the MMR Vaccine Controversy and the discredited Dr. Wakefield.

What I’m asking you as literate and intelligent people is to stop ignoring the Donald Trumps and the Jenny McCarthys of the world. Since they have TV picking up their stories they have tremendous influence and their thoughtlessness leads to very real public health issues. When you see the anti vaxxers spouting lies on social media channels please interrupt them. The facts simply aren’t there.

Vaccinate your children, update your own vaccines and encourage others to do the same. You know who can’t have vaccines? Premature babies, cancer patients, the elderly, some with allergies and the infirm. When you vaccinate yourself and your children you’re helping those people stay safe.

It’s time to speak up against misinformation. Celebrities are deliberately putting misinformation out there that is hazardous to everyone’s health. When you see stupid call it stupid. Please. Our collective health depends on it.

 

EDITED TO ADD: For everyone who thinks that their Dr. Sears approved modified schedule is a good idea please read this… don’t scan it, read it. I know most of you won’t so here’s how it ends:

At the heart of the problem with Sears’ schedules is the fact that, at the very least, they will increase the time during which children are susceptible to vaccine-preventable diseases. If more parents insist on Sears’ vaccine schedules, then fewer children will be protected, with the inevitable consequence of continued or worsening outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. In an effort to protect children from harm, Sears’ book will likely put more in harm’s way.

5 thoughts on “Vaccinate Your Effing Kids”

  1. Couldn’t have said it better myself. I don’t think Autism is is on the rise but there are more tests that can diagnose it and doctors aren’t ignoring parents who say there’s something wrong with their child.

    1. I’ve thought this for quite a while, Dee. There is a difference between a new epidemic and a condition being more frequently pinpointed. The numbers will rise, not because the incidents are increasing, but because they are found more quickly and finally put on record. What was once thought of as simply unruly behavior or a general learning disability can now be categorized correctly.

  2. I’m squarely in the vaccination camp. The Mother who didn’t vaccinate her kids, whose kids got chicken pox and she wanted to send them to school anyway because she had things to do – that woman made me crazy and still does. Don’t expose the rest of us to the diseases we’re trying to help prevent.

  3. My neighbor is in the hospital with spinal meningitis. We were just with
    her this past weekend. She has no health insurance. Neither do her
    kids. No insurance = no vaccinations.

    My daughter plays with her kids.

    I vaccinate my child. PERIOD. When she was in preschool, she got pneumonia and RSV and had to be hospitalized. I firmly believe she caught it from a boy in her class who was coughing like a lung would come up. He was allowed in school, however, my child was sent home TWICE for having BOOGERS. I’m also pretty damn sure that boy had not been vaccinated against anything.

    My daughter was born with meconium aspiration and nearly died, so the second hospitalization for respiratory problems was frightening for me.

    All because some kid was allowed in school with a hacking cough and mine couldn’t stay because of boogers.

    My point, like yours, is that vaccinations are necessary. Now do I think vaxx and autism have a connection? Yes and no. I think the kids that are diagnosed with autism or any of the other myriad of behavioral/cognitive disorders already had the gene that causes it/them and somehow the vaccine triggers it. I also believe that most of these diseases are enhanced by environmental factors.

    Look at all the shit in our food and water now that wasn’t there when we were growing up. None of that is good for anyone except the ones manufacturing/selling the products. They get a fat bank account and we get sick.

    But, no, vaccines themselves DO NOT cause autism. And it’s like you said, there were probably a lot more kids 20 or 30 years ago with autism or ADD than we know but they were not diagnosed. No one knew what it was then. Those kids were considered “problem children”.

    Sad, but true.

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