Speaking up against anti-vacciners

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Today, while browsing over a website related to my obsession (cults), I ran across an article by a woman with many children with autism. In it, she started spouting anti-vaccine rhetoric. Vaccinations is one of my pet peeves and I'm always really insulted when people start railing against them and saying that autism is caused by them, because it's like telling me I'm a medical mistake. I checked out her website, and then sent her an email. Name has been omitted for obvious reasons.

I believe I was this way my entire life. I don't believe vaccines made me autistic. I've had boosters, and I am not more autistic after getting them. I think it is a cop-out for people who feel guilty and need a place to stick the blame. I am who I am, and it is no one's fault. People seem to be able to respect all kinds of diversity except for neurodiversity.....

ohhhh I hate these anti-vaccine people...............the research on vaccinations has been discredited...........some of it was even falsified. I have to go to bed soon so I can't look up the details on this in my psych books but I will later. It has been shown that the data used for the original study that indicated that mercury in vaccinations led to autism and started this ridiculous belief has been falsified! No scientific evidence supports this theory now....and it has been investigated extensively.

Autism is at least 80% heritable. The concordance rate for identical twins is between 61-90% and for fraternal twins 0-20% (LeCouteur et al, 2006). That makes autism more heritable than schizophrenia or bipolar disorder (Nicholson and Szatmari, 2003). Also ironically the chance that a child born to mom who has rubella will have autism is 10 times greater than that in the general population. This just shows the smaller contribution of non genetic prenatal influences but also that people who don't get vaccinated (the MMR vaccination which was implicated in one of those theories _may actually have more of a chance of having a child with autism (if they have the genetic predisposition to it) .....not less! ohhh irony

I am insulted and also alarmed by the ignorance of some people

Feel free to use any of these stats if you want to.

i am anti vaxx, i will be back once my children are in bed to explain.

Santa Claus gave me autism.

Well, I am offended at it. But I'm not offended at it because I find it insulting to me personally or some how belittling autism. I'm offended at it because it's got crap science that was manipulated and falsified to produce a specific result behind it and yet the people who claim it to be the holy truth try to justify their stance with it being scientifically proven. While religiously rejecting every scientific principle or practice that could possibly prove their one truth about vaccines to be false.

I'd be less offended at an argument of "Autism is caused by demons. The holy father spoke to me and told me so" because at least that's an argument founded entirely in religion. It offends me that the people ignoring all the evidence to the contrary can't at least have the decency to go with religion, which tends to just not care if science says it can prove it wrong. I have no patience or sympathy for people who believe in that falsified crap. Kids used to die or be crippled from these diseases in the thousands every year, in many less developed countries they still do.

But see, that's a reason we can understand. That's a concern and a realistic fear that you have that's founded in a very real and very serious previous incident. I don't think we would consider you anti-vaccination, not in the 'vaccinations cause autism, parents should not vaccinate their kids because it will give them autism' sense that offends us. And I'm sorry to hear that, must have been horrible to go through, and with him being so very young too it must have been terrifying.

So I got a reply from the person this morning, and I wasn't expecting anything different. I won't put the whole thing here for their privacy, but I'll give you all a synopsis:

- They have multiple children with autism and one parent with AS, as well as an older daughter who was recently diagnosed with it.
- Apparently they don't see the difference between severe autism and AS and treat everyone on the spectrum the same.
- The issues AS, even the very mild, causes hinders people and they need to be cured because it's disruptive to their lives. Autism is frustrating and upsetting.
- There's no such thing as a genetic epidemic, though there is a possibility of predisposition.
- Vaccines aren't the only problem - environmental issues and the way we live is toxic and creates autism.
- Vaccines never worked in the first place, our immune system is a "God-given gift" and science can't beat it, but can be "naturally stimulated" to work properly.
- "I am glad that you are happy with your Aspergers and have found the balance with your own life. Please realize that people get offended also when accused of trying to help their children like it is a bad thing.... I know what you are trying to say, but not everyone can live with their condition."

The last part particularly pissed me off. The problem with these anti-vacciners is that they only ever see it as a problem which needs to be cured. Not once in the email did she mention the beautiful, wonderful things about AS, the advantages it gives and the amazing insight we have. I hate it when people only see the bad parts of AS, only the sensory issues and the social problems, and they never look deeper to see through our eyes. They become martyrs. "Oh, woe is me, I'm burdened with this, pay attention to me". BS. AS is what you make it. I've turned what they see as lemons into my lemonade. Yeah, I have issues from AS that can make things tough, but I have so many great things too, and I feel so bad for this person's children. They'll never know the beauty of what they can accomplish.

Considering the money and lies behind the non-stop wave of vaccinations being pushed on kids (at ever younger ages), I see significant credibility to the possibility that MANY (not ALL) autism cases COULD be the result of toxins in the vaccinations harming neurological development.

Those claiming vaccinations can't cause autism can have their funding traced right back to the Big Pharma interests who don't want to be held accountable for the multitude of harms their drugs DO cause patients of all ages around the world.

The effort to discredit anyone saying vaccinations cause harm is so money-centered and it's all a shouting match for attention rather than impartially examining the evidence being presented.

FDA says vaccinations are safe...they also endorse aspartame, which IS a poison killing people, but big money got it approved. Pardon me if I choose not to trust what the FDA has to say as gospel.

Perhaps my having AS would have happened no matter what. I certainly was born early enough when the number of vaccinations was much lower and not given at such young ages. The explosion in autism cases happened since they started cranking out more vaccines and giving them at younger ages.

A similar comparison can be made with abortions and breast cancer. It is a known medical fact that a terminated pregnancy (stillborn or abortion) messes up the natural rhythms of a woman in pregnancy. These disruptions increase the odds of having cancer later in life. We have an explosive rate of growth in the number of abortions being performed in the USA, and about 20 or so years later, we see an explosion in breast cancer among women. No further studies are being done on this (political hot potato), but I question if the two are related. Because of the political ramifications, no scientific study of this relationship is ongoing (to what I know), but if having abortions does vastly increase the risk of breast cancer later in life, should not women be warned of this danger?

zer0, everything you've just said has been discredited time and time again. I'd also appreciate if you didn't attempt to hijack the thread with abortion controversy. That's a topic for another thread. Please go ahead and start it, but don't try to inject it where it doesn't belong.