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mvanluven
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22 Jul 2016, 10:59 am

Hello lovely people,
I am writing because the above subject has been a thorn in my side for quite sometime.
I don't want to get into the debate here on if vaccines cause autism and all of our "expert" opinions on the matter, but I wanted to know if other parents feel the way I do.
I hate seeing the stuff on facebook/yahoo news about how I shouldn't get my child vaccinated because it could cause autism. I worked on a pediatric floor for months and the amount of unvaccinated kids is beyond alarming. These parents would rather their child get whopping cough of polio and potentially die from these diseases instead of getting them vaccinated because autism is apparently the worst thing that could ever happen to a child.
Children who aren't vaccinated and for some reason end up in the hospital are at higher risk for complicated infections, and a lot of them cannot receive the health care they need because of they aren't vaccinated. We had children who came in for other issues (such as GI) and couldn't get treated for what put them in the hospital because their parents refused vaccinations.

I hope to eventually write a much more comprehensive blog on this, but I wanted to collect stories from other parents who have stories and opinions that may carry more weight than mine.

So what do you guys think about the select members of society that advocate that death is better than autism?



Joe90
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22 Jul 2016, 2:06 pm

It's hard to choose between having your child get ill and die and having your child live with autism for their whole lives. Both are equally as bad, but just for different reasons.


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kraftiekortie
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22 Jul 2016, 3:46 pm

It's obvious that vaccines don't cause autism.

If it did, we would have had an autism epidemic on our hands during the 1950s-1960s, the heyday of the polio vaccine.

I believe, firmly, in vaccinating children, while making sure all the ingredients used in the vaccine are safe.

I believe you would be an excellent resource for us.



mvanluven
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22 Jul 2016, 5:13 pm

Joe90 wrote:
It's hard to choose between having your child get ill and die and having your child live with autism for their whole lives. Both are equally as bad, but just for different reasons.


Do you have a child with autism?

Lots of parents of ASD children would never consider their kid's condition as something bad....


I was really hoping for view points of parents of ASD children to tell me stories about their children and how they feel about the idea of people preaching that vaccines are terrible because they cause autism and therefor death is preferable to autism.



mvanluven
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22 Jul 2016, 5:13 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
It's obvious that vaccines don't cause autism.

If it did, we would have had an autism epidemic on our hands during the 1950s-1960s, the heyday of the polio vaccine.

I believe, firmly, in vaccinating children, while making sure all the ingredients used in the vaccine are safe.

I believe you would be an excellent resource for us.



Couldn't agree more!



Fitzi
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22 Jul 2016, 11:20 pm

Those kinds of posts are a thorn in my side as well. I often comment on them to point out the ridiculousness of gambling with death (cuz if your kid gets Diptheria, there is a good chance they'll die) over Autism.

I also hate all those posts where some scientist claims to have discovered that some food additive/ using plastic bottles/ television/ chlorine pools/ non organic food (whatever) causes Autism. It's usually a scientist who is not even in a field related to Autism research (like a computer scientist), and the culprit they claim is usually something that they can use to claim bad parenting.

Plus, every unvaccinated kid I know (which is not a whole lot), has gotten Pertussis eventually. They were horribly sick, and had a horrible, debilitating cough for a few months. Thankfully, they were not babies. I live in a big city, where we all are traveling/ working/ everything in close quarters, so it's a really dumb idea not to vaccinate here. My doctor also said that there are actually vaccinated kids getting a much milder form of Pertussis here. They used to never see breakthrough Pertussis, because of herd immunity. However, now that there are so many people not vaccinating, there are breakthrough cases popping up because not everyone gets fully immunized from the vaccine. It is not dangerous to get it if you have the vaccine, but then they could still spread it.

I realize that there are valid reasons why one would choose not to vaccinate, but I think trying to avoid Autism is a stupid one.



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23 Jul 2016, 5:30 am

Next time you see such a discussion, post this image:

Image


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23 Jul 2016, 8:40 am

Joe90 wrote:
It's hard to choose between having your child get ill and die and having your child live with autism for their whole lives. Both are equally as bad, but just for different reasons.


Words cannot express how strongly I disagree with the idea that "both are equally as bad."
Forum rules dictate that I suppress my initial emotional response to it.

Logic says the argument is beneath ridiculous, rising to the "not even wrong" level.

Given:
a) Autism is not a single condition with a single set of symptoms experienced at a single degree of severity.
b) Fatal illnesses are not accompanied by a single set of symptoms and the process of dying can take varying lengths of time and involve varying degrees of suffering.

A single statement equating the two cannot be rationally made.

Unless you are prepared to defend the idea that person who is living the best possible life with autism is having an experience that is equivalent to the most painful and protracted death through illness, you should not make such a statement.

Not a sane position.

I don't understand why anyone would take it or why proclaim it on an autism parents' board.

But maybe that's just the way my mind works.

I can see that some parents face intense challenges and suffer greatly as they try to do the best they can for their children with very severe autism. I know that sometimes the symptoms can make life not seem worth living for the autistic person. None of this makes the "equally as bad" statement rational or conscionable.



Joe90
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23 Jul 2016, 3:00 pm

I know my statement is wrong, so I'm not going to argue. But I do understand why parents are afraid to have an autistic child. But I don't understand why they'd rather have their child die of disease.


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ArielsSong
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23 Jul 2016, 3:15 pm

I admit that the vaccination argument worried me with my own child.

I knew it had been disproven, according to medical evidence, but before anyone injected anything into my child I wanted to get a wide range of thoughts and opinions. There was absolutely no way that I would refuse vaccinations, but I felt that I wanted to go in educated - not just with science, but also with personal opinions.

And I read so many people saying that their children 'deteriorated' after the vaccination. These were people saying that their child was learning to talk, and progressing well, then suddenly started regressing - perhaps after a fever, maybe due to some swelling on the brain as the result of an immune response. Whatever the cause, it worried me.

My daughter was a very early communicator. She has always been advanced for her age, with things regarding the mind.

I don't need a smart kid. Her achievements are not particularly important to me. Her happiness, however, is. As an early communicator she was able to express her needs, wants and desires from a very early age. I let her make all of her own choices, wherever reasonable, from just months old. She could communicate with me clearly by three months. To this date, she's an excellent communicator. But just before her vaccinations, reading about those regressions, I was worried. I was concerned that she would no longer be able to communicate as clearly, that she'd be frustrated and upset at what she could no longer do if she lost her ability to speak. That was daunting. I definitely cried about the possibility, or perhaps just the thought of it.

As it is, that didn't happen. She was absolutely fine. But, even before the vaccination, I had convinced myself that it didn't really matter.

I would far rather have an alive, autistic (or otherwise regressing) child than one that was no longer with me. And I had enough faith in my own parenting to know that, no matter what happened in her future, I would be connected to her needs and would be her biggest advocate.



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23 Jul 2016, 3:51 pm

I think the people who would rather have their kid die than be autistic are the same people who get scared when you say you have Aspergers. Like they expect you to bring a gun to school and start shooting. That's what's been in the news.
They're just not that smart. :roll:



Joe90
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23 Jul 2016, 4:22 pm

That is why I hate disclosing my AS to anyone. These days if a mass killer is not an ISIS terrorist, they media claims they have AS or autism instead.


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mvanluven
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23 Jul 2016, 4:39 pm

To get us back on track, I am not trying to argue if vaccines and autism are related scientifically or other wise, but rather how parents or autistic adults feel about the part of society pushing that autism is worse than death.



LyraLuthTinu
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23 Jul 2016, 4:54 pm

Joe90 wrote:
It's hard to choose between having your child get ill and die and having your child live with autism for their whole lives. Both are equally as bad, but just for different reasons.



No. No, they're not. And seriously, how can you even say this unless you've had two or more children, and one of them died and the other had autism? How else can you compare which would be worse?

I've had a child die. I would rather she'd been born alive, regardless what disorder or disability she might have had. I also have autism. I also almost died from a severe undiagnosed respiratory illness when I was about two years old. I have no hesitation in saying that my parents are glad that I lived, even though I was difficult to raise due to my autism. I know that I know that I know that they would not have preferred that I died from my illness so they wouldn't have to "suffer" due to my inexplicable autism-related behavioral quirks.

I too work in pediatrics, with the records rather than directly with patients and their parents. But every time a parent refuses to have their child vaccinated, the refusal paperwork comes to me to be attached to the child's chart. I shake my head in despair every time.

Autism is not worse than whooping cough, or rubella, or even measles. Maybe it's worse than chickenpox. But no way is it worse than polio, and it's definitely not worse than the death of a child. That's pure ridiculous. Even people who say that the death of a pet is as bad as the death of a child make me cringe. If you've never had your child die, you have no place saying such things. You have no idea how deeply, despairingly painful it is to have a child die unless you've experienced it. I've had pets die too and it doesn't come close to comparing to the loss of a child. It doesn't matter how sick your child it is or how hard it is to take care of a sick or disabled child, if you love that child you don't want him or her to die. In my opinion there has to be some kind of evil behind the thought that you or your child would be better off if the child died. :evil:


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kraftiekortie
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23 Jul 2016, 8:54 pm

I think Joe gets our point. She didn't mean any harm.

One does have to have perspective. A social communication disorder should not be equated with a fatal illness.



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23 Jul 2016, 9:33 pm

Autism is NOT as equally bad as getting a life-threatening disease! I am so very sick and tired of hearing that your life is not worth living if you're autistic. People are idiots for believing that. I would much rather have Asperger's than be paralyzed from polio or drown in my own mucus from whooping cough. The end.