Nice Email

I received a very kind email today, and I wanted to share it with you. This was totally unsolicited, and I had never emailed this person before. That they expressed an opinion grounded in reality was refreshing, and it gave me a little hope for the future of the autism/vaccine debate. Especially considering that the author is the mother of an autistic child. Without further ado,here is her letter to me:

I thought this might be of some interest to you. This is a link about Dr Andrew Wakefield (the doctor, claiming that the MMR causes autism). It has a timeline about the MMR, how his report was discredited, how he was paid to falsify his report, how he and some of his associates are facing charges in court, and more. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5683671.ece

I find this to be interesting as well..as we know autism affects boys 4 times more than girls, why would a vaccine affect a boy 4 times more, the vaccines are not made and given according to a persons sex. I never seen anything that relates vaccines to supposedly causing autism in boys more than girls. I have son with autism, I don't believe his autism was caused by any vaccine, never even considered it.

Another thing I found interesting was in the report about Bailey Banks where the court stated that Bailey had suffered acute disseminated encephalomyelitis. Some reports about the case claim that it was not a form of autism but it was a pervasive developmental disorder, other reports have stated that ADEM is a autism spectrum disorder, when in fact ADEM has symptoms more similar to multiple sclerosis and it usually required for them to have a MRI in order to determine if their brain and spinal cord have had previous damage or if the damage is new, the doctor is suppose to keep a close monitor on the person with ADEM to see if a recurrence or progression suggests that it might be MS in order to determine an accurate treatment for the person since the treatments are different for each. I have read numerous articles, etc about ADEM and have yet to find anything that associates it with any of the PDDs.

I too, like many other people blame Jenny McCarthy for providing people with inaccurate information about vaccines and autism itself. I think too many people tend to believe what celeberties have to say rather than doing any in depth research into the subject themselves. I blame her along with DAN doctors for making people believe there is a cure for autism, to me that is a sense of false hope. She states she uses a variety of biomedical treatments for son (what DAN doctors use), one of which is the GFCF diet (gluten free casein free). She states that her son has recovered from autism, but yet she states that if anything in any of the biomedical treatments are changed such as having a food that is not acceptable in the gfcf diet, not giving a supplement, etc., he becomes worse. I don't get it, if her son is in fact recovered, cured, or his autism has become reversed, however she'd like to put it, why would she continue to treat him for something he no longer haves, it makes no sense. As we know, autism affects each person on an individual basis, each treatment has to be done on a trial basis, what may work for one, may not necessarily work for the other or you may not see the same results. These biomedical treatments are simply a way to help manage/control the behaviors associated with autism, they are not by any means a cure. If in fact she stopped any of the biomedical treatments the behaviors associated with his autism would again become more profound and harder to manage/control. Please don't take me wrong, these treatments do help some, not all, but they most certainly do not cure, reverse or make them recover from it.

Thank you for your time, it is much appreciated.
Michelle

Thank you Michelle for sharing your views and your story. I too am a parent of an autistic child (with all her vaccines) and I appreciate hearing from other parents as well.