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I am not really a big Oprah fan so I don’t watch her show very much. But in my blog hopping this morning I heard a mention of today’s show topic….autism. Well, that still wasn’t enough to draw me in but I did decide to tune in when I saw that Jenny McCarthy (a gal I like) would be talking about her son’s recovery from autism and also the controversial reason she feels her son developed autism in the first place. After those details I had to watch. I have two very controversial beliefs about autism. I believe that autistic children can recover and I believe that vaccines play a part in the cause of this horrible epidemic. On the Oprah show today, Jenny McCarthy shared the same beliefs.
I think she was very brave to share what she did and it notably caused her some discomfort to say things she knew would anger some people…but she did it anyway.. a gal after my own heart. According to many medical professionals and many affected families, there is no recovery for the autistic but Jenny’s son did recover (his Doctors have even confirmed this) and so have hundreds of other kids…it is time that we start to make this information more widely known. One of the things she mentioned was putting her son on a gluten free, dairy free diet. She also said her son had a serious Candida build-up in his body. Changes like these, along with intense therapy, have brought him out of his autistic state.
And of course thousands upon thousands of moms have always suspected a vaccine/autism connection and been ridiculed. To hear this connection brought to light on a show with as many viewers as Oprah was refreshing. It also brought back some bad memories for me with my first child who was also damaged by a vaccine. Although he never received an autism diagnosis I always wondered if I hadn’t just gotten lucky because he certainly did have some strange mannerisms and behaviors that are typical of autistic children. I could relate to the feelings of helplessness and even shame when confronted with this bizarre behavior. My favorite part of the show was when Jenny told about she received the autism diagnosis and her immediate reaction to it. She said she felt like she had died and upon seeing her face the Doctor told her “Don’t worry, your son is still here. That is same boy you walked in here with.” Her response was priceless. “No that isn’t my son. My son is trapped in that body and I am going to get him out.”
There was also a great deal of discussion about Jenny McCarthy’s new book. It is the story of her journey from diagnosis to recovery and all that came in between. I think I am going to have to pick it up because it sounded great. It is called Louder Than Words: A Mother’s Journey in Healing Autism.
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Jenna said,
September 18, 2007 at 6:21 pm:
That’s a great review of the show today. Thumbs up.
Further confirmation that I believe our family is doing the right thing by selectively vaccinating, delaying others and completely avoiding even others. Some disagree. That’s fine by me. Our family, our decisions.
(I love Jenny McCarthy!)
Julia Fenster said,
September 18, 2007 at 6:33 pm:
I also stumbled on Oprah today, and actually posted on our site The Lohasian (http://www.thelohasian.com). I think she is incredibly brave to have said what she said - knowing that what she was saying was pretty much in line with Tom Cruise saying anti-depressants are dangerous in Post Partum depression…in other words - slamming the medical community. What I think this points to is that we simply DO NOT have all the answers to matters of the mind - from Post Partum to Autism…and the medical community has to admit that vaccinations are a fairly new advent in the context of medical history, as are phara drugs for hormonal or mental disorders. Hubris of the medical world is what keeps it from admitting to the obvious gaps in knowledge. What I appreciated most about McCarthy’s talk, was that she stressed that she “felt” that she should not give the vaccine to her son - and did,and perhaps in this one admission we are reminded that there is no more sacred of a gift that we are given as mothers, as our intuition. Hats off to Jenny.
Adventures In Babywearing said,
September 18, 2007 at 6:53 pm:
I am thrilled about today’s show. I’ve blogged about it today, too. I am SO GLAD that finally these Moms are saying LISTEN TO YOUR MOMMY INSTINCTS. Just so many things about the show today hit close to my heart, life, family, and home.
Steph
Carrie said,
September 18, 2007 at 11:04 pm:
Wow, I didn’t know that was the subject matter or I would’ve tuned in too. Thanks for sharing. And I totally agree with Julia who commented above, that a mothers intuition is a sacred gift that comes from above.
Sharon@New Urban Mom said,
September 19, 2007 at 2:55 pm:
TV isn’t possible for me during the day, but I wish I’d seen this. I know autism groups in my region have advocated to the government on this issue and have succeeded in getting them to underwrite the cost of providing behaviourial and speech therapists in classrooms where there are children with autism. There is more to be done, but I believe that was a successful first step. Any ideas that move us away from medicating our kids unnecessarily is good.
Thanks for this news.
RickRussellTX said,
September 19, 2007 at 6:36 pm:
Although there are good reasons to think that the current vaccination schedule is too aggressive, the problem with the theory is that many countries have frozen or scaled back vaccination schedules, and it’s not returning the autism diagnosis rate to pre-1990s levels. Thimerosol has been banned in vaccines for years in many countries, and it’s only rarely used in the US today. Mercury exposure levels for children are at record lows.
The situation is complicated by the fact that autism is now the most well-known of communication-based disorders, so many other diagnoses (apraxia, hearing problems, etc) are being “displaced” by autism diagnoses. I suspect that many stories of “recovery” are really early misdiagnosis. I’ve been around a *lot* of children with autism diagnoses, and I’m not seeing the emotional symptoms of “classical” autism. I suspect that several factors are converging to explain the increased diagnosis rate.
Long story short, it’s becoming clear that vaccines or mercury they might contain are not enough to explain the autism epidemic.
Rick R.
casual friday everyday said,
September 21, 2007 at 1:53 am:
I too watched it and blogged it. I know vaccines played a large roll (if not the total roll) in my son’s delays in speech, other developmental issues, and honestly, no one could tell me otherwise from my experience and the research I’ve since done.
I was thrilled to see Jenny on Oprah speaking so honestly. I was also happy to see that Oprah allowed it, she certainly didnt have to. I’m sick of people thinking we’re just emotional moms looking for something to blame!
RickRussellTX said,
September 21, 2007 at 11:18 am:
Don’t misunderstand me, I think a lot of the early research into links between vaccines and developmental disorders was sensible and based upon well-founded probable cause. There were some promising correlations that pointed to cause. And of course, there were the known problems of vaccine reaction/allergy and the government’s attempt to shield pharmaceutical companies from the legal consequences of vaccine injury. I’m absolutely sure that some of the anecdotal cases described — such as children that get a vaccine, get very sick, then have problems afterward — were honest statements of fact. These are troubling and legitimate concerns.
The problem is, the theories are not panning out — countries like Denmark have scaled back their vaccination programs since 1992 and there wasn’t even a downward blip in the autism rate. They’ve dropped vaccines from the schedule, replaced others with less powerful (and less effective) vaccines, but nothing is slowing that upward curve.
I concur that _something_ has changed in the last 20-30 years that is causing this spike in developmental problems, and 5 years ago I probably would have agreed that vaccines were a front-runner. But the epidemiological evidence just isn’t supporting it any more. Most of the vaccine-cause proponents have started switching gears, accusing countries like Denmark of concealing the facts, or falling back to “vaccines are just one component of the many causes that the government is responsible for.” OK, fine, but those are claims which need to be backed up, not simply asserted.
Hopefully we’ll find the real cause(s), and hopefully they will be truly treatable. Call me a skeptic, if you will, but I want solutions that actually work — not solutions hung on hope instead of science.
Rick R.
Natural Family Living Blog » Blog Archive » The Vaccine Issue - My Son’s Story said,
September 25, 2007 at 3:35 pm:
[...] posted last week about Jenny McCarthy’s appearance on Oprah and her new book Louder than Words. If you missed it, Jenny shared how vaccines played a part in [...]
Brain Blogging, Eighteenth Edition | GNIF Brain Blogger said,
October 1, 2007 at 11:57 am:
[...] Washko presents What Did You Think? Autism on Oprah posted at Natural Family Living [...]
Crazy Sexy Cancer » Natural Family Living Blog said,
October 23, 2007 at 8:01 am:
[...] fan but I am now blogging for the third time about a topic covered recently on Oprah. First it was Jenny McCarthy and autism, then it was Jessica Sienfeld and Deceptively Delicious and now Kris Carr and Crazy Sexy Cancer. [...]
Carrie Elsass said,
November 30, 2007 at 9:51 am:
Rick,
Only epidemiology has been used, and since epidemiology cannot show what happens to a subset of children(especially since we are not sure which subset to look at-those unable to excrete so many toxins, etc.), but rather the entire population, it is flawed. The Denmark study you mentioned doesn’t even employ good epidemiology. The population they looked at changed completely between measured data sets. In one they were looking only at inpatients, and then they were looking at everyone! You can’t make a comparison between disparate groups! No scientific study could be designed to show thimerosal is safe.
RickRussellTX said,
November 30, 2007 at 2:43 pm:
Throw out studies for second. Thimerosol has been largely eliminated from vaccines in this country (which is not to say you can’t find a few exceptions like flu vaccines, but bear with me for a second).
If thimerosol is a leading cause of autism, then rates of new autism cases must go down when thimerosol is significantly reduced. That’s the *definition of cause*.
Is the incidence of new cases of autism going down? Current thinking is that it is still going up. Therefore, thimerosol is not a leading cause of autism, and probably never was.
And epidemiology can certainly tell us what is happening to the subset of children with autism (like, how fast it is growing, how much thimerosol that subset has received, etc).
Does this mean thimerosol is safe? No. There are legitimate reasons to be concerned when medical treatments (whether it’s thimerosol-containing vaccines or chemo or surgery) carry a risk of side effects, and effort should be made to insure that the risks do not overshadow any beneficial results. I would agree that for many vaccines, this calculation was not done well.
The burden is not on anyone to show that thimerosol is safe; the burden is on them to establish that thimerosol is a cause of autism.
RR
Carrie Elsass said,
December 9, 2007 at 3:52 pm:
The Special Masters in the Autism Omnibus proceedings in federal court just conceded that thimerosal significantly exacerbated an existing developmental delay… we will know more when the record is unsealed. And I think the burden is indeed to show thimerosal is safe in general…which a recent report showed it absolutely is not…and no experiment could ever show. For my son’s case, I think that genetics, early antibiotics, and vaccine components, INCLUDING but not limited to- thimerosal. Also, we have to remember that only AFTER it was largely removed from childhood vaxes did the powers that be suddenly decide that even infants need a flu shot & started pushing those like crack cocaine.
Also, the toxic overload in the vaxes also includes aluminum, formaldehyde, etc. and those are getting lost from the public view because of the mercury arguments overshadowing them. And live virus components have also been a source of trouble for many. I especially think it may be problematic for those of us with family histories of auto-immunity. Pertussis vax causes seizure disorder in a significant # of recipients, including a few I know personally. And the list goes on. And as I have seen the attempts to obfuscate & cover-up firsthand, I doubt I will ever trust the vaccine program in general or those who promote it again.
Carrie Elsass’s last blog post..SKILLS Program -Dr. Granpeesheh