Wow…this is such a beautifully written piece.
http://www.voicesforvaccines.org/how-my-daughter-taught-me-that-vaccines-do-not-cause-autism/
Sally thank you for posting that. It was beautiful.
@sally305 that is a great piece. My favorite paragraph:
“… Because I can tell you right now that if your baby is going to be autistic, she’s going to be autistic whether you vaccinate her or not. The only difference between now and fifty years ago is that kids with autism are diagnosed correctly now. They used to be called ‘mentally retarded’ if they couldn’t speak, but that diagnosis is rare now. If you looked, you’d know that rates of nonverbal autism are going up at the same speed that rates of “Mental Retardation” are going down. And autistic kids who can speak weren’t considered to have a disease until recently. They were called eccentric, or gifted. They were musicians and writers. There is no autism epidemic.”
Haha! I read that article last night, and noticed that HUGE error! I thought about registering to post on the LA Times website in the comments section, just so I could correct her, but didn’t.
I emailed the reporter. She emailed back and said that she is working on a clarification, but didn’t say whether that would be in a separate article or where.
Well, when there’s an outbreak their kids are at risk. Let’s just all pray that polio especially does not arrive on our shores again. I think more than any other one, it really terrifies people. People are still around who were crippled by it. I know one. And “back in the day”, it was common to know of them or to know them. Most of the other diseases are childhood illnesses. I know doctors counsel their young women to get updated on their shots. Rubella can cause deafness in a fetus. Mumps can make a young man infertile. I also knew a person this happened to. Knew him in the 70’s, a coworker, he had had the mumps in the late 40’s and made him infertile. I can’t fathom why people take these chances. And chicken pox is very serious and awful in adults. SMH.
People have forgotten and the young moms and dads of today don’t have a clue. Kids should be required to watch old newsreel footage of this stuff in high school. For information purposes.
Influenza viruses mutate too quickly. Same with cold viruses. Too hard to pin down. As evidenced by this years flu cases. I’m pretty sure a had a low level case. In 2009 I had a full blown case of one that the shot had not contained.
Beside the danger, being an anti-vaxer limits your travel options. We know an anti-vaxer family that was planning to take their kid along with them on a trip to Africa–a nice resort in Africa, but still sub-Saharan Africa. Without lecturing, we suggested that they really should read what the CDC had to say about travel to that country. They decided to leave the kid home with relatives. (Our kids have had some extra vaccines because of trips to China and North Africa.)
So I have a question for parents on here that we were trying to figure out in my families and health class the other day.
When vaccines first debuted, they were given in schools and, as far as everyone I’ve talked to can remember, opting out was not really an option.
My mom was born in the late 50s and doesn’t remember getting the vaccines in school. However, she was a military brat and thus had to get new vaccines every time she moved. Since she went to a base school when she was overseas, she figures that all the other kids got vaccines the same way she did- before moving- and thus wasn’t necessary.
My dad, born early 60s, does remember getting them at his elementary school. He says that he and his friends, being the huge sci-fi nerds that they still are to this day, joked that they were getting small aliens injected in them (think he came of age in the early sci fi era? lol)
Then of course by the time my sister came along in the mid-80s, vaccines were done at the pediatrician’s office.
So I’m curious what your guys experiences were. Was it the doctor? Was it at school? Do you remember when the transition happened? I know that it really wasn’t until the late 70s that having your own personal pediatrician became common so maybe it was around then? I’m really curious.
I was born in 61 and remember getting some vaccines at school and others at the doctor’s office.
I have a question. What is the incubation period for the flu? I was with my sick mom for a good part of the weekend before we found out what she had. I was very careful but would still like to know when I can consider myself as having escaped the contagion.
I was born in the early '70s and remember getting them at the pediatrician’s office. Also, kids just a bit older than me, or who had immigrated, had a Smallpox vaccine scar, but I did not.
I remember getting TB tests in school. I don’t remember vaccines at school, I def remember going to my ped for them. The oral polio was something you drank as I recall? I was born mid-60s.
I was born in 1962 and never got any at school. However, my mother kept meticulous records so I know exactly when I got all the shots up until I was married. Then I got my yellow card from the military that I always keep. I asked today about an MMR booster and she said no. I already had a DPT booster and a shingles vaccine.
I remember getting one or two shots in school. One was an MMR booster and I may have been in middle school or high school. I was born in the early 60’s.
If you watch the movie “Crybaby”, it starts with everyone lining up and getting a vaccine, smallpox I believe. They were all teenagers and it would have been the late '50’s.
I was born in 50s, as were many of my sibs. Some were also born in 60s. We all got all our shots at pediatricians.
I remember getting the polio vaccine in school–it was pink stuff on a sugar cube. However, it was not during school; it was after school and my mother brought us. I rmember getting the smallpox vaccine at my doctor’s office (GP not pediatrician). Don’t remember how I got any others off hand. (born in 58).
I was born in '65 and never got vaccines at school, but it was a private school. I had a regular pediatrician’s office as early as I can recall with colorful toys and walls and several doctors just like you’d see at a group practice today. I do have a smallpox vaccine scar. Mostly I remember the TB prick tests and being scared for days that I’d have a positive reaction.
I was born in 1950 and remember the sugar cube polio at school, and I remember getting the smallpox and it must have been at the doctor because you had to get it in order to go to school. I remember tetanus at the doctor’s office. How many other vaccines were there back then? I remember having chicken pox, measles, mumps–the diseases,not the vaccines.
Thanks everyone for humoring the history of medicine buff.
I didn’t even consider the fact that it might be regional. I wonder if the fact that most of the people I talked to grew up in an Ann Arbor suburb (where they first introduced the polio vaccine) has anything to do with it.
@fretfulmother is that the vaccine where it looks like there was multiple shots given at once? A circle scar? My mom has that from a vaccine but she can’t remember which one it was for.
@romanigypsyeyes - I believe so. The circle scar is the one I was thinking about. It looks like it was incredibly painful to receive, but since I never had it, I don’t know first-hand.
ETA: In the '70s we also did have the oral [live] polio vaccine for, I believe, 2 of the 4 boosters. The dark pink liquid on a sugar cube. Ultimately that was retired because it occasionally caused polio, including in a friend of DH’s who ended up crippled 
Oddly, a nurse much later, when my DS was being vaccinated with the non-live injection polio vaccine, said that the oral vaccine “didn’t work”. DH said, “well right, it caused polio” and the nurse argued with him (!)