Awesome. What bugs me about that review, though, is that she then says:
[QUOTE=Kristen Kemp, Parents]
This book is not for parents who agree with Jenny McCarthy.
[/QUOTE]
I think that’s exactly who this book is for, along with people who are uninformed or on the fence. People like me who are already pro-vaccine might well enjoy the book, but it’s kind of preaching to the choir. I wish she would have said something like, “Parents who agree with Jenny McCarthy (that there is a link between vaccines and autism) will find a wealth of information in this book that challenges those ideas.”
The problem is that, in my experience, people do not come to the conclusion that vaccines cause autism through logic and reason and therefore, logic and reason have little to no effect on their opinions. Do you know what Wakefield’s study was about? He hypothesized that the MMR vaccine was causing gastrointestinal problems in children and that was what was causing the autism symptoms. Now, there’s nothing to support this view in his study and later studies found a similar lack of evidence. So what happened? The anti-vaxxers transferred their fear to thimerosal and since vaccines have been thimerosal-free for many years, they find other chemicals to fear or simply state that there’s not enough info to come to an informed decision, despite the wealth of evidence on the CDC’s side.
Ditto - it’s definitely a broad spectrum of symptoms, and RyJae’s daughter is more severely impaired than my son (or yours).
Whether it’s truly growing, or better / more accurate diagnosis, or whatever, is hard to say; I haven’t done the research. I do know that my own family is pretty hard hit (4 out of 6 biological cousins have significant issues, 2 of them autism).
For Kolga and LavenderBlue: In your research, have you stumbled across any health issues that seem to be tied to vaccination? By that I mean things that appear to have an autoimmune tie (e.g. the increase in allergies, any other disorders).
We never subscribed to the whole Wakefield thing, but kept an open mind about a possible autoimmune component, mainly because my nephew’s symptoms seemed to improve somewhat when he was on high-dose steroids for a while. So, my kids have been fully vaccinated, but we did take a slower approach than the official plan (e.g. never more than 2 at a time, waited longer than average between 'em, never got a new vaccine within a year or two of its being introduced etc.). In our judgment, this posed minimal additional risk while ultimately offering acceptable protection.
We were aiming for two kinds of parents: those who don’t know much about this subject and those who do. We wanted to provide the latter with the means to help combat the nutters. Both of us have spent hours and hours and hours arguing about this issue on various message boards. We approached the book from the POV of what the hell are the anti-vaccine arguments and how can we show they’re wrong.
Many people who are pro-vaccine can find themselves confronted by anti-vaxxers and find themselves unsure about how to respond to their arguments. We wanted to help provide people with the tools to confront them effectively.
Inner Stickler,
We’re not aiming for the true believers. I have and so has Allison. At one point I spent three days of my time at the anti-vax forum over at the now defunct Mothering Magazine boards. The boards still exist unforunately but the magazine has stop publication. I got one thank you note from an on the fencer and approximately fifty allegations of pHARMAshill, baby killing, crazy liar.
I try not to poke my toes in the crazy unless I have absolutely have to.
Mama Zappa,
We did not see any autoimmune links from vaccines. We found no evidence of a decrease in side effects from spacing out or delaying vaccines.
Thanks - I’ll read up on that later. In our situation (this was mostly 10-15 years ago), we had to try to juggle the whole disease-prevention thing and the family concerns, and come up with a compromise. Plus I just thought it was mean when they tried to jab my kid 3 times in a single visit (I brought her back for the 3rd one a month or so later).
Had a discussion with my anti-vax sister the other day. Pointed out that vaccinations have helped reduce diseases once common, she replies “Polio was already on its way out when the vaccine was developed” I walked out and slammed the door.
Later on when I cooled down we talked more. She tries and makes peace by saying “we’ll never really know” which made me even madder as I tried to explain that yes, we will know, because we can look at statistics of people who did and did not get vaccines of various types. The concept seemed to escape her: her thought was that if a kid develops autism after a vaccination it may have been caused by that, even if the statistics over a large population do not support it. Absolutely pointless to argue, she can go to dozens of web sites supporting her view and any that disagree with her are just part of the pharma conspiracy. The only thing that gave her slight pause was when I pointed out that Wakefield was working for a pharma company himself trying to push an alternate vaccine.
I’ll be at the Words Bookstore in Maplewood, NJ for a book signing and q and a session on October 21st at 2 p.m. The independent book store aims to help employees and patrons with autism. I’m both excited and a little scared.
Lovely review of the book from a blogger who writes about her son’s autism. I think one of the very worst things the anti-vax nuts do is try and make parents who vax feel guilty if their child winds up autistic. I have seen quite a bit of cruelty directed towards mothers of children with autism who don’t tow the vacccines equal autism line.
(I brought her back for the 3rd one a month or so later).