Autism and Vaccines: Parents Should Be Alarmed

When I was a young parent, autism was seldom heard of. In fact, most people had never even met a child suffering from the disease. Laura Munion's recent Associated Content article Autism and Vaccines: Evidence of a Connection should alarm today's parents and demand that they look into the connection between autism and vaccines before allowing one of their children to undergo another vaccination.

Something, according to Ms Munion, has caused a catastrophic increase in autism cases since the early 1980's. It seems strange, she says, that our government has restricted the use of any mercury in animal vaccines while insisting that the amount used in vaccines for our children is within prescribed safety standards.

This is scary, folks. Something that might be dangerous for a cow is perfectly safe to use on our children? This makes no sense at all unless manufacturing vaccines is so profitable that the people who make their money at it are willing to take the risk that the atrocity they are committing might someday be discovered.

The author describes an increase in her state alone from 22 cases in the 1992-1993 school year to an unbelievable number of 2217 in the 2000-2001 school year. I never liked the term, "boggles the mind," but these figures certainly should "boggle the minds" of every last American adult.

I live in Oregon, a state with one of the highest incidences of autism in school children. Each year, an article or two in our local paper mentions this terrific increase, but the article usually ends by assuring us that no connection whatever has ever been proven to link it to vaccines. Laura Munion emphatically disagrees, and her article includes footnotes listing references where we can go to find out the facts for ourselves.

Unfortunately, many of us grew up in a time when we considered doctors to be gods, or at least very like God. We were sure that no matter what was wrong with us, all we had to do was to pay a visit to kindly old Dr. Green, and he would have us fixed up in no time at all. It probably took me longer than most people to realize that this was not always true. Doctors are not gods, and there are plenty of limitations on what kind of healing they are able to provide.

Today, with doctors often specializing in just one field, most are likely to be very limited in their knowledge of other fields. Many have had very little actual training in vaccines and must rely on looking new ones up in a medical journal to find out the details of what dosage is recommended and what a particular vaccine is actually supposed to do. When this same doctor tells you that your 5-year-old needs a shot to prevent measles, you trust him and quickly give permission for the shot.

When an occasional parent does try to take a stand against vaccinations he or she ends up being treated as someone who doesn't care for the welfare of his or her child. In addition, some school districts will not enroll children who do not have the prescribed shots by the beginning of the school year. This puts the parent on the spot again as not being interested in their child's health OR education. This is difficult since most parents are neither doctors nor educators, and feel that maybe they really don't know enough about either area to make such important decisions themselves. But how long must we stand by and watch more and more children struck down by autism if there is any possibility that it could be prevented?

I was amazed recently to hear that some children have already had more than 20 different immunizations by the time they enter the first grade. Can all of these shots possibly be necessary?

The article mentions that a number of parents have been so thoroughly convinced that their childrens' autism stems from vaccines that contain dangerous additives that class action suits are being filed against the vaccine makers and against government agencies who may have known about such additives and still refused to stop the marketing of the vaccine. This includes suits in both the UK and in the United States.

Since my children are now adults, I am not faced personally with this terrible tragedy, but if you do still have young children at home, I urge you not to blindly accept everything you are told, even if it is by your doctor or your child's school. Take the time to educate yourself on this, and other controversial issues, and then make an informed decision based on what you have learned.

The article I referenced here is not Laura Munion's only article about autism. If you go to her content producer's page, you will find that she is very knowledgeable on the subject, and each of her articles is well-worth the time they will take to read.