Please let me be perfectly clear about this, I am -not- anti-vaccine.
My son has Autism and I know there is a large body of individuals who believe vaccines are a primary cause of Autism. I also know my son’s behaviors appeared to change after a huge battery of vaccines were administered. Does that mean vaccines are causing Autism?
I recently read an article in which Bill Gates indicates those who are buying in to the anti-vaccine theory are putting their kids at great risk. I happen to agree. But if vaccines aren’t causing Autism, why is there so much anecdotal evidence indicating there is? I would like to explore my own observations and questions that make some people think I’m anti-vaccine (but I’m not).
I am not a doctor, or a chemist, or even a behavioral specialist. I’m an engineering and troubleshooting type; analyzing and collating data to come to logical conclusions. I’ve been using the Kepner-Tregoe method of problem solving since High School, though I didn’t know it at the time. I don’t wish to spend days researching answers to these questions; they are meant to be taken at face value for the reader to ponder and react accordingly.
I have no doubt each vaccine that has been released to the medical community has undergone thorough efficacy testing and has been declared safe by the FDA. I myself have had many of the vaccines available today. Having been in the military it was pretty much mandatory for me to have them. These vaccines are safe; you should be getting them for your kids. But wait, are they really safe for every single kid on the planet? Doesn’t this line of thinking presume that every kid is made the same? Doesn’t ‘this presume the biochemical physiological makeup of every child is identical?
Every kid isn’t the same. Some have allergies to peanuts, other have asthma, others have some other immune deficiency. Not every child is the same. Still, the overall testing of vaccines covers the majority of physiological types (my assumption) if not all. So you should be okay.
How well developed is the immunity system in a newborn child? How much more developed is it at six months? I don’t really know, though I imagine it’s not quite fully developed I could very well be wrong. The answer to this question bears more on the following questions.
Is it safe to give you child any number of vaccinations at once? My wife came home crying from our son’s very first pediatric appointment shortly after his birth. My son had many small band-aids on both his legs. He had been given a large battery of immunizations. My son was not a happy camper and my wife was distraught. She nearly had to physically stop the nurse from giving him any more. Why did they try to give him an overwhelming number of vaccines all at once? Was that irresponsible on the part of the Pediatrician? Were they not following a standard practice of only giving so many at once? Or is there no standard practice? Or is the standard practice to give as many as you can in one sitting? After that day, our son seemed to be a changed little boy.
Sam became lethargic and mostly unresponsive. He didn’t seem much interested in talking anymore. We chalked it up to his little body trying to cope and recover from the vaccines. We kept telling ourselves it wasn’t any different than catching a cold. After all, we were nearly three years out from getting a diagnosis of Autism. Does that mean the vaccines were the cause? I’ve already stated the vaccines are safe, so why would they have been a cause? Let’s ask a new question based around household chemicals.
Many people have bleach in their house. It’s not entirely harmless, it smells strong but you don’t think of anyone dying from it unless they ingest it and get really sick. Ammonia is also a pretty common household cleaner, again with a strong smell and great cleaning powers. Well shoot, if they are both good at what they do, why don’t we mix the two together and get a really great cleaning solution that disinfects and deodorizes at the same time? NEVER MIX AMMONIA AND BLEACH! THE COMBINATION COULD KILL YOU (note separate links).
So mixing two rather harmless household chemicals can results in a new chemical makeup that is hazardous to your health. Don’t imagine it, it’s true. Now let’s take that idea to vaccines. Although all vaccines have been proven harmless, have they all been proven harmless in all possible permutations? Have they all been tested with and against each other in all possible combinations? If all childhood vaccines were given at once, would there be any adverse affect? Let’s take that thought a bit further.
Many times when prescribing drugs for a patient, the doctor must advise the patient about avoiding certain other drugs or alcohol. Why? Because various drugs, when administered at the same time cause undesired reactions in the body. I once read an article about volunteers who took experimental drugs as part of the FDA approval process. The one case this particular article focused on involved a handful of participants who nearly died (or may have, it was still early when the article was written), yet others came out fine. The bottom line? Some people react different to drugs than others. One step further now.
Antibiotics must continually change. Not everyone can take the same antibiotics as others. Some people can’t take the same antibiotic they did just a few years ago as it’s no longer affective. Physiology changes and adapts. Not all bodies are built the same. What happens when you give what amounts to an immunization Long Island Ice Tea to a newborn?
Julie Buckley is a Pediatric doctor who has explored the biochemical and physiological makeup of Autism in children. She wrote a book called “Healing our Autistic Children.” In it, she explains how biochemical reactions in the body can have an adverse affect on brain and other physical development. She doesn’t come off as an anti-vaccine doctor and takes some time to explain her position on it.
After reading this book I came away more convinced than ever before there may be a problem giving our kids too many vaccines at once. Let me be clear, not that -a- vaccine was harmful, but that perhaps too many vaccines administered at the same time, could cause undesired results. I have no idea what could happen if you mixed up too many vaccines and put them into a kids body. What would the immune system do? Is there a combination of vaccines that triggers Autism? Maybe and maybe not. There are many other factors that can contribute to Autism as well.
What is the physiological and/or genetic background of the mother and the father? What did mom do during her pregnancy? Are there environmental conditions that could affect the child, such as living too near Hanford Nuclear Reservation? What else?
We all want our kids to be healthy. We all want them to grow up and become productive members of our society, not burden us with the constant need for health care. Autism -is- a problem, especially if the numbers of one in every 99 kids is accurate. As a parent you need to do the best things you can for your child. You need to get them immunized. But hopefully what this small dissertation has illustrated to you is my position that you should take it easy on the vaccines; don’t get too many at once, spread them out a little and give that small child a chance to assimilate them.
And for any doctors out there who have read this, I pray you take the bleach-ammonia example to heart and make sure you are confident in the vaccine presentation method you are using with your small patients. You are the scientists, you are the doctors, you are who we trust our lives to when our bodies don’t do what we want them to. We rely on you to be smart about these things and help us understand.
Research is being done, steps are being taken. Even if Autism research receives less funding than all other childhood diseases, it -is- being looked into. For more information about Autism and what’s being done, please visit the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Let me make this perfectly clear, you need to get your kids immunized.
Epilogue
Please note this did not go into any detail regarding mercury used in or as a preservative for vaccines. After Sam’s diagnosis and our own research on the Internet, we -did- find one of Sam’s vaccines came from a batch known to have mercury. Does this mean that vaccine was dangerous? Perhaps, we don’t know, but what we do know is that he should have had the vaccine for that disease and he was given it. It was one given in that large battery of vaccines all at once. I refuse to draw a conclusion because I do not know if there was a level of mercury actually -in- the vaccine given to my son or if mercury was simply used in the storage of the vaccine. I’ve not had anyone be able to clearly explain it to me.
Asa Jay
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