Here we go. I’m putting it all out there. Once and for all, I’m going to try to explain why I don’t vaccinate my child.
I’m prepared for the hate mail. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been called names while talking about this subject. Bring it. But before you prepare your hate-filled response, I ask you to read my explanation, every word, maybe twice, and let it sink in before reacting. That’s all I ask.
I really want you to understand why I have made such a decision. I’m not stupid. I’m not ill-informed. And I’m not anti-vaccine. Read my words: I’m petrified.
Yes, my child is autistic. She turns 13 years old this month. The last vaccine she got was two days after her second birthday. By then, she was alre
ady gone. You see, she was completely normal, completely fine, until she was about fifteen months old. By then, she had already had 20 vaccinations, many of them cocktails of several at once. I never questioned any of them.
For her fifteen month visit, the pediatrician gave my daughter three vaccines at once – two of them cocktails. I thanked her for her care, brought my girl home and went on with my life.
A few days later, I came home from work and called out to my girl, who was sitting on the carpet of our den. I got no response. I called again. Nothing. I got down on the ground, eye level with her, and said hi. Still nothing. I turned her face towards mine, forcing her to look at me, and there was a glassy-eyed baby, playing with a piece of string in her tiny hands. Looking but not really seeing.
I lost a piece of my heart that day. From then on, there were no words. For many months to come, she was in her own world. Her eyes seemed glazed, her movements slow and awkward. I’d find her sitting in a corner, fixated on a piece of string. She would sit there for an hour, passing the string from one hand to the other and then back again, over and over, like a god-damned zombie.
I asked for answers, and got nothing. I was told my daughter was autistic: deal with it. No explanation of a cause, no hope for a cure.
I couldn’t just do nothing. I’m a journalist. By nature, we are inquisitive. Combine that with a determined, emotional mama, and you have a warrior.
So I searched and searched. And searched. I read and read some more. I suspected everything. I blamed myself. Was it the diet soda I drank during pregnancy? The sugar substitute I put in my coffee? The New Jersey air I grew up breathing? Was I autistic?
With little help from her doctor, I ventured out on my own. I paid thousands of dollars for medical advice that wasn’t covered by my insurance. I tried vitamins, supplements, chelation, special injections, special diets. You name it, I tried it.
Years later, my daughter has come out of her shell. She smiles, she looks me right in the eye. She laughs, she understands.
She is still autistic. She always will be. I have never heard the words Mommy, or I Love You, pass her lips. I don’t know if I ever will. I am still helping my daughter dress and shower and toilet herself. She likely will always need my care.
So what happened to my precious little girl? Your guess is as good as mine. After all this time, nobody has any answers. And autism rates continue to climb, to epidemic proportions.
All I know is what I know. I’m a fiercely protective mom. And when you’re a mom, in the absence of answers, you go with your gut. And mine tells me my child had a reaction — like an awful allergic reaction — to those vaccine cocktails.
Did I say that vaccines caused my daughter’s autism? I did not. I’ll be honest, I used to think so. Now I just don’t know.
But I can tell you this for sure: medicine and chemicals and my daughter do not mix. She is allergic to all antibiotics: I have learned that the hard way. She is sensitive to most lotions and perfumes. She can’t wear clothes with buttons or zippers. She breaks out from regular Band-Aids. Certain smells make her batty.
She has a VERY sensitive system. I have to watch everything she eats. I have to use special soaps and special detergents. And still she gets awful rashes and hives. She’s on a never-ending supply of prescription-strength antihistimines.
Genetically, she’s like her mama and her big brother. We are a family that is genetically sensitive to our environment. I once pricked my hand with a weed in my backyard, and ended up in the hospital covered with hives and a 105 degree fever. It took me months to fully recover. My son once blew up like a balloon after eating something new. He has eczema and awful seasonal allergies.
I believe that people like us, we can’t handle things that others can. Our bodies are not strong enough to fight them off. And so maybe — just maybe — she shouldn’t have gotten all those vaccines like that. And as long as it’s a maybe, she’s not getting any more. So I’m going to protect my daughter, as best I can. And that means not giving her any potentially harmful medicines.
Over the years I have had plenty of new moms ask me if they should vaccinate their children. Not once have I ever told them not to. I’ve told them to go with their gut. Ask questions. Are these absolutely necessary? Can we space them out? Can we wait on this one? Be informed. Be aware.
I’m sorry that my decision pisses you off. But not really. I understand the gravity of the situation. But I’m not changing my mind. Not until society helps me figure this all out. Not until government invests the money needed to find the answers. Not until drug companies stop fighting any efforts to figure this all out.
Please don’t tell me they have studied this enough, even though I know you will. They have not. All the studies you cite, I have read. They have not been big enough to come to any certainties. A decade after my daughter was diagnosed and I’m still reading these ridiculous headlines that make my blood boil: Circumcision Can Increase Risk of Autism; Father’s Age Linked to Risk of Autism. Enough already.
There have not been enough substantive studies on autism. If there were, they would have figured this out by now. What is it going to take for us to devote the necessary resources to solving this mystery, once and for all? Because now, now it’s all coming full circle. This whole measles controversy is glaring proof of that. Autism is not just my problem. It’s society’s problem. This is what happens when society says, “Not My Problem.” Guess what? It’s your problem now. Maybe now we’ll get the answers we’ve been seeking for so, so long.
Once last thing, before I go pour myself a glass of wine and prepare for the onslaught.
I almost didn’t publish this. After I wrote it, I e-mailed it to a journalist friend of mine, someone who has known me longer than I’ve been a mother. Someone who I know supports vaccines and thinks I’m pretty nutty for not giving them to my kids.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“My heart breaks for you,” he wrote back.
That wasn’t the response I was hoping for. I didn’t want sympathy. I wanted more.
“So answer me honestly,” I wrote back. “Does this make any sense? Does it provide any more clarity whatsoever on the anti-vaccine reasoning? Other than evoke sympathy.”
“No,” was his response. My logic, he said, was flawed, and was all emotion.
So no matter what I write, people think it’s all coming from the logic of a nutty mom desperate for answers. So why bother?
And yet, I still cling to hope — the same hope that has me sitting on the couch next to my daughter some nights, saying to her, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy over and over again, hoping she’ll say it back.
So I still put myself before you, knowing my odds. I pray for more open minds. I pray for my child. And I pray for yours. 
Leave a Reply