It started innocently enough......

It started innocently enough. My youngest son was running late this morning, in an effort to beat the starting bell, I drove him in. When we pulled up, the children were exiting the cavalcade of yellow school buses, seeking out their respective cliques. My maternal instinct kicked in and I read the crowds of children like a mommy version of Evelyn Woods, skimming groups like pages, looking for my son. My heart skips. From a distance I see a familiar coat, a little larger than the frame that holds it up, His dark chocolate colored hair, scissored cut with longish layers, begin to convince me that this could be him. The dense backpack hung a bit more to the left than the other kids, same as Gabe, the sway from side to side, the height, just like Gabe....And then he sees his friends, the casual tilt of the head, the calmness in his hands, the way he merges with them and their stride immediately finds unison as they walk together towards the open school doors. My heart trips. Wishful thinking meets reality.

On February 20, 2011 Doonesbury, a comic strip created by Gary Trudeau, ran a story line where a playmate is disgusted by Jenny McCarthy because she popularized the "debunked"Autism Vaccine debate, called her a menace to the public. She's upset that it hurts the image of a playmate. Knowing Gary Trudeau has always sarcastically played with social issues, and because I am so close to this particular topic, I don't know how to read it. I can see it as both a pro and a con. But it comes to run at a particular time in my life when I find my dear friend looking for her options as to how to best protect her son. Years ago, she diligently followed a vaccination schedule only to have her normally developing child vanish right before her eyes after the last set of vaccinations. Where have I heard that story before? Oh, yea, it's mine and so many others. Her battles to retrieve this child were the typical you hear about. Her son now 15, has also been diagnosed recently with type 1 diabetes and has had seizures. Her school district is mandating that she give her son the DTP booster shot, they refuse the titers and religious exemption. She has deep fears and they are justifiable. Her oldest son has been fully vaccinated and up to date, her youngest when she gets there will be vaccinated, but this child, this child who regressed into a severe neurological disorder AFTER vaccination, whose health is fragile, and whose immune system is compromised, this child is different. The Doctors she has spoken to are weary of writing a medical exemption. She fears regression. She fears putting her child again in the line of danger. She fears what would happen next. The school district could not care less.

Her fears are mine as well. If you don't vaccinate your child you are seen as a bad parent, if you question the vaccine schedule or the preservatives in a vaccine, you are criminalized. Yet what kind of a parent would you be if you continued to sheepishly follow the rules knowing full well the impact it has had on your child? It's far more than just vaccines. It's genetically modified foods, it's far more pesticides in our foods than we can keep record of, it's the traces of antibiotics and psychotropic drugs found in our water, it's the silent contamination of high fructose corn syrup with thimersol that was kept quiet for 4 years, and was continued to be put into our name brand foods because these companies they didn't know either. It's the chemicals dumped into our streams, our oceans, our lakes..It's the fumes that are spat out into our atmosphere, and the chemicals that line the cans that hold our foods, or the plastic bottles that hold our drinks. It is not just a vaccine issue, it's an issue about how we nurture what is suppose to nourish us. It's about knowing and respecting the limits of each individual to tolerate the overwhelming amount of toxins we are exposed to daily. It's about not putting a compromised child in a compromising position. It's about allowing the parents a moment of peace. Parents who, from the moment of regression have been combing through every last instance, every possible thing from conception on that could have contributed to their child's diagnoses, while simultaneously researching, fighting, financing,educating, brainstorming, holding onto hope, redefining normalcy, going about creating possibilities as they are being villainized because they demand better. Because when you question, you get classified and labeled.....Just like they have been trying to do to Jenny McCarthy, just like they did to Dr. Andrew Wakefield. How not wanting to vaccinate a child who regressed after vaccination is completely anti-vaccination I'll never understand.

Whether Mr. Trudeau's comic was an observation on a hot button issue, or a jab being that his wife, Jane Pauly, had less than 6 degrees of seperation from GE, or that it was all flippant, the truth of the matter is that while a tremendously powerful industry is continued to be protected by our elected officials, our medical professionals, our institutions, our children will remain at risk. Medicine is necessary. Vaccines are necessary. Research is necessary. Scientists should not be compromised, but niether should we. We do need pharmaceutical companies, but as they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely. There needs to be a real focus on safety. And if we don't have the Jenny McCarthy's of the world, playmate or not, what chance do we have?

It all started innocently enough..............
My heart......