Saturday, August 15, 2009

Start with yourself

As a new parent, there are a million things that go through your head on a daily basis: Am I doing the right thing, is my child happy, am I being a good parent, etc.

The best gift my mother gave me when I had my son was one of the books my Jenny McCarthy. It was entitled Mother Warriors and it chronicles the lives of parents with autistic children. I never knew what to do or to expect with a new child because it was never taught to me. My mother is a fabulous human being who has always been there when I needed anything for the baby but as a new parent you don't know what questions to ask until they've already hit you in the face. I'm not going to lie, I was utterly terrified that my child would, and can still get autism because he is a male and they are three times more likely to get autism than girls. But as a parent I couldn't not question what was going into my child's body. It's ironic because you go through the entire pregnancy monitoring what you eat, especially tuna because mercury can lead to autism. So it's entirely baffling that mercury is used as a preservative in vaccines for children. The whole mess just makes me sick to my stomach. If it's dangerous then don't use it... period.

So I feel it entirely inappropriate when someone divulges information as fact without the slightest hint of a 'fuck up possibility'. Yes, vaccines are needed in an era where children can get hurt. Prevention is most certainly key, but come on now. There are some things that work and they work well, but there are others that when given can cause more harm than good. That is why I am totally one hundred percent behind Jenny McCarthy and the awareness that she is trying to raise. As not only a celebrity, but an idividual and a mother who is living through the agony of doing what she was told, it turns out there was a health professional who was wrong. It's not the case for everyone, absolutely, but there comes a time when a health professional is wrong. Let's not forget the key subject here, doctors are real people too. They mess up just like everyone else.

What has started the fire in me? Amanda Peet. I find her to be utterly hypocritical and an asshole. I seriously doubt she has done any small amount of research in what Jenny McCarthy is really trying do. There was an article done featuring Amanda Peet and her 'parenting' if that's what you want to call it. She briefly talks about how she doesn't use medications or suncreen but wants to make it painfully clear that vaccines are a necessity and should be adminstered all at the same time; including that any parent who strays from such 'advice' is a parasite. Her research you ask? Apparently all of her questions were answered by her brother in law pediatrician. That's a little one-sided wouldn't you think? I think it's so easy to hide behind the 'because my doctor said so' or the 'I'm just really over protective so I did everything that I was told' scenarios. No it's not OK to take one person's opinions to heart. There is a reason they are called opinions, not FACT. What protects your child is doing the research yourself and determinig what is appropriate for your child and what isn't. I'm sure there aren't many who know but the original Rotavirus vaccine was pulled from use back in 1999 because it made infants' bowels collapse on themselves. How fucking ricidulous, because i'm sure at the time doctors were raving about its benefits and what wonders it could do. Well look what happened.

The bottom line is to be proactive. Children and especially infants are so sensitive and susceptible that it's not OK to bombard them with five vaccines every two months at a time, when really the child has five years to get everything that it needs. In my mind it's disgusting and should be monitored more closely, but who am I? I guess I'm just a parasite because I chose to make my child more comfortable with only getting vaccines required for schools and doing no more than two at a time. He's going to live and he's going to have the same immune system as a child who was immunized with all five at the same time. So what's the rush for?

Building awarness for safety does more than build walls. It's time to take the blindfolds off and become educated about what goes in a child's body.

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