Really? This is a good thing?

Dr. Wakefield had a 'lovely' story at his anti-vaccine rally:
"About 15 years ago a mother from London approached him and said “Do not judge me too harshly Dr. Wakefield, but when I die I am taking my son with me. You see, I’m all he has. I’m the only one who loves him.”

“I didn’t judge,” said Wakefield. “I was moved by the love that a mother must have for her child that she would take his life rather than have him fall upon a society that really didn’t give a damn.”
(My deepest thanks and recommends to the
Autism News Beat for their post on his rally)

So....there you have it, Wakefield thinks it's a loving thing to kill your autistic child when you die. Why, oh why, do some parents have outrage over percieved dangers in vacciness but not their matryr flat out approving of killing autistics? The world is a tough place for autistics so we should improve it, not kill the autistics! Any decent human being, regardless of where they stand on the vaccine issues, should see how wrong it is to say this. Where's the outrage? It's one thing for a frustrated parent to say something at wit's end, it's quite another for a doctor to agree with them.

Vaccine War: Love the show, hate the war

Okay, I loved Frontline: The Vaccine War. I really fail to see why the anti-vaccine side is offended either, it had plenty of their side. Not really PBS's fault that their side has little scientific evidence to go on. After all, they are the ones who use Jenny McCarthy as an advocate; it is not like PBS picked an obscure person to feature for their side. Seemed to have most of the main players. I don't think anybody was censored, they even had J.B. Handley on with his *lovely* language. (happy they censored the actual language though, I can do without that, thanks)

You can watch Frontline: The Vaccine Wars yourself here:
http://video.pbs.org/video/1479321646/

However....the annoying thing to me is there still IS a vaccine war. Why? We've seen study after study about vaccines and autism: no link. There is only so much money and time for autism research and advocacy. Why are people wasting it on vaccines? So many other issues are pressing: education support, respite, communication devices, sensory issues, safety, faith community inclusion, bullying, and on and on.

Studies all around the world have shown no connection between autism and vaccines. People are dying and getting ill from not having vaccines. From June 3rd, 2007 to April 17th, 2010 there have been 509 vaccine preventable deaths and 57,309 vaccine preventable illnesses. So not only are we wasting autism money and time; we are risking lives.

Please, please, vaccinate your kids, encourage others too. And autism community, stop harping on vaccines, it is NOT an autism community issue!

If you agree, please sign my petition to end the vaccine war within the autism community and move on to more important issues:

End the Vaccine War

(friendly remminder: No hate speech/cursing allowed in comments, that you need to send to my e-mail. Love you anways)

Check out Wired on the stands right now!

The issue of Wired magazine on the stands right now has my letter printed in the Rants and Raves part!
Thank you for your article. I am autistic, and I am sick of the anti-vaccine movement. They waste time and money that could go toward helping autistics. I’d love to see Jenny McCarthy be as passionate about job training, respite care, social skill classes, and providing communication devices to poor families as she is about spouting anti-vaccine lies. It would be nice to see Generation Rescue replace its dangerous practice of promoting chelation with the practice of promoting proven safe treatments. Hopefully your article has gotten more people to understand how destructive the anti-vaccine movement is.
Brandy Nichole Wilson
Virginia Beach, Virginia

Wired Rants and Raves

Must you act that way?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/autism-rate-now-at-one-pe_b_256141.html
Okay, I'm fairly sure most of the readers of this blog know I don't believe in any connection between vaccines and Autism. I really didn't see anything shocking in the article. But that's not what I'm annoyed about.

Anyways, the thing that annoyed me is the attitude towards a diagnosis of Autism; especially from Lee Grossman of the Autism Society of America. Who is he helping by using such a negative attitude? I don't think the idea of more Autistic people is "terrible" or "unfortunate". What's wrong with Autistics existing? I can expect this attitude from Kirby, but a leader of an organization like the ASA should not act this way. (especially considering there are actual Autistic members of ASA)