Dear Prudence

If there are anecdotal stories of people living in a building that's about to be demolished, prudence (in the form of plain old-fashioned care for fellow human beings) demands that we investigate thoroughly before detonating the explosives. To ignore reports from those folks close to the building, who claim they've seen homeless families going in and out of it, would be callous, dangerous, and just plain wrong. Hopefully the project foreman would order an extensive walkthrough of the property on the day of scheduled demolition.

So it is with anecdotal stories of parents who are claiming their children have been harmed by vaccines. If the CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics were prudent, they would thoroughly investigate the claims of these families before administering any more vaccines. This is what I would do, if I held the key to safeguarding America's children. Why are we, as a nation, even risking it one more day??

When I watched the video clip on WJLA of Hannah Poling's case, the images of happy, alert, healthy children descending into isolated, tormented shells of their former selves struck me like a punch in the gut. There is no way I would even want to subject my child to that risk. Isn't having measles a better option? Or the flu, or even mumps? ... I wasn't so sure about polio and life in a iron lung, but I was determined to find out. (By the way, polio, I have found, does not actually equal "iron lung." Only 0.04% of polio exposures lead to this fearful yet overexaggerated fate. That's straight from the Merck Manual - a doctor's reference book. Click here.)

As with many decisions, there is a logical path to weighing the costs and benefits. My questions at the outset, were:

1) Is autism truly a cost of childhood vaccination? (I found very quickly, YES. Though you won't hear that straight from most doctors, the AAP, or the government.) See http://generationrescue.org/studies.html, http://www.nvic.org/Diseases/Autism.htm, and/or http://thinktwice.com/autism.htm just to whet your palate.

2) What is the gravity of the risks of not vaccinating versus the risks of vaccinating? (I am still digging through the data, but so far am pretty sure neither measles nor mumps nor rubella are even worth vaccinating against, considering the 20 year history of parents' reports of MMR causing great harm to their children. More on those diseases, and others, later...)

3) Will my child be allowed to go to school if he is not vaccinated? Does the law tell me I must vaccinate? (First, yes, he can, at least in PA. All it takes is a signature. And second, no, it is not the law. I'm not sure yet where the command comes from, but for now, it isn't in the law. Let's hope our elected leaders preserve our right to make our own medical decisions.)

And so, I am on this path. Trying to collect enough information as a lay person to protect my child's health because the government does not appear to be doing so -- at least, not to the extent that I would like. Stay tuned.