Prednisone???? Good lord. It’s amazing (and extremely irritating) to see people on the one hand railing against modern medicine for “causing” autism with all of these toxic injections, only to see people then turn around and recommend considerably more dangerous medicines to somehow “treat” the autism.

The first of the really toxic ones I heard about was chelation. Chelation is nothing to mess around with; the stuff is lethal, and so it should only be used in life-or-death cases and in a hospital setting (i.e. there should be a crash cart on hand in case the person goes into cardiac arrest — a very real risk that somehow doesn’t get mentioned to parents of autistic kids). Then it was Lupron, a powerful testosterone-suppressing drug. Good grief. I’d hate to see the parents trying to explain *that* to their kid in fifteen years. And now Prednisone? *shakes head*

My grandmother has taken huge amounts of prednisone through the years. She has severe asthma, and until the recent advent of new drugs, oral (or in some cases intravenous) prednisone was the only option. Her skin is paper-thin, and crinkled like tissue paper. She is covered in bruises, because it’s so fragile. When she bangs her shin on coffee tables, she needs to see a plastic surgeon to repair the damage. A well-meaning nurse once put a band-aid on her before she could stop him; she needed a skin graft after it was removed. She’s had repeated surgeries to try to correct the damage after she had a melanoma removed, because it’s been so difficult to get a cosmetically acceptable result. (It was on her forehead, and the initial surgery resulted in her eyebrow sagging down over her eye and obstructing her vision.)

It is obvious that the people peddling these cures are not telling the parents the real risks. They are overstating the risks of vaccines while completely ignoring the much greater risks of their “therapies”. High dose prednisone for a kid who is completely healthy apart from a behavioral problem…. Wow.

Of course, there is good news. This therapy cannot possibly succeed in curing autism or ADHD. On the contrary, it will most likely greatly exacerbate the child’s symptoms. Prednisone makes people jittery. Very jittery. I believe my grandma has ADD. When she’s on Prednisone, she bounces off the *walls*. It gets so much worse. She’ll change topics five times in one sentence.

I think not getting vaccinations for your children is borderline abuse, but only vaguely. Just because your kid isn’t vaccinated doesn’t mean that the child WILL catch the disease for which your child isn’t vaccinated against. If the child catches a communicable disease for which there is a vaccionation, its effects could be equal to that of the “common cold”, they could be severely debilitating, or they could kill the child.

I think the parent has a right to do what they think is in the best interest of the child. Her stance is this: “You should have the choice whether or not to vaccinate your child, and it should not keep your child from receiving an education. In many cases both are required, giving parents no choice. On the flip side, you get to take the responsibility for what happens. And if one non-vaccinated child contracts one of the communicable diseases and brings it to school and another non-vaccinated child contracts it, too. The parents of both children made the choice to not vaccinate their children. The vaccinated children should not suffer the disease.” Boiled down to… you have the choice; you suffer the consequences. However…

I think that the choice (which is the part we agree on) is fine and dandy, but then the child potentially suffers. While the child is healthy, no action can be taken towards the parents because no harm has been done, but then when something does happen to the child, who is unable to take responsibility for his/her own health, suffers. So, then you punish the parents, which, if this is the only way the parents have “abused” the child (NO parent is perfect), in turn punishes the child along side the potentially crippling/life-threatening disease. I just realized this is a point I have not brought up into the conversation.

Where do we draw the line? Where is it parental rights in protecting their children (however misguided) and the government overstepping its bounds?

She also thinks that initially the current anti-vaccination crowd may have initially had reason to cry out against vaccination. And I tell her, that may be true, which is why studies are constantly being done on these types of things. I thought it, but I didn’t say anything with regards to those who continue harp on incorrect thought (e.g. vaccination == autism). I’m still trying to work out her entire thought process on this, and it’s been difficult for me to put into words what I think about this on the spot. This may be a poor analogy, but… Sure, I have heard I might get mugged if I walk down the street, but it isn’t going to stop me from doing so if I know that if I am aware of my surroundings, which streets to walk down, what times to walk, and how to carry myself, the chances of me getting mugged will probably drop. We can only go on what we know now and make corrections when new information is received. Even if the studies show chances of something say autism were to be higher with vaccination, would the vaccination saving my child’s life may be worth the risk? I guess it would depend upon what the specific disease the vaccination is for.

shingles aren’t a second case of the chicken pox. It’s having the first case come back.

I understand that, Doc, but if a child is immunized, and never gets the original infection, there is no latent virus to cause problems later, right?

The issue is not with people who carefully weigh the decision and, due to valid medical and health reasons (e.g., the vaccine is likely to kill or serously injure the person). The issue is with all the people screaming rather fanatically that vaccines (or thimerosal or MMR or…or…or…) causes autism.

Net gain at little cost of anything worthwhile!

[/sarcasm]

Well, one’s got to wonder. We can’t save everyone from every disease [i]and[/i] continue feeding everyone who can’t/won’t manage to feed themselves [i]and[/i] maintain economic growth [i]and[/i] maintain (much less save) environmental health all at the same time. Something’s got to give.

Now, I’m an idealist. Therefore, this situation sucks for me. Overpopulation is a problem, but when people talk of “culling” I suggest that perhaps they should lead the way by taking a Smith & Wesson mouthwash. Population reduction by natural attrition (okay, noneuphemistically: watching people die by not helping them out of random acts of Nature), while still grim, is at least more acceptable. Looking at this situation, people are [i]opting out of artificial survival benefits[/i]. At least it respects free will and independent moral agency.

I am advocating that parents should have the right to decide for them and their children what is best for their situation.

With rights come responsibility. How can parents with little or no scientific training judge whether to vaccinate their children? How do we help parents understand that Jenny McCarthy is not a reliable source of medical information? How do we help parents understand that personal anecdotes are not reliable, or that correlation is not the same as causation?

Regression at 20? That’s a new one. Let me suggest this is probably a nocebo effect. I assume your son is well aware of your views regarding his way of being being to an extent the result of vaccine damage.