Your Vaccination Status is a Matter of Life and Death to My Autistic Son
Jul 06, 2016

This guest post was written by Alethea Mshar out of concern for her son Ben.  A version of this post originally appeared on her blog Ben’s Writing, Running Mom.

Like all parents, my child’s health is very important to me.  That’s why, even after getting an autism diagnosis for my son, I still believe in and advocate for vaccinations.

I don’t believe autism is caused by MMR or any other vaccinations.  

The allegations made by Andrew Wakefield, the man who tried to convince the world of an MMR vaccine-autism link, were based on falsified data, yet he continues to make his claim to try to frighten people throughout the world.  This article by Brian Deer systematically addresses Wakefield’s flawed theories and debunks the autism myth that Andrew Wakefield has perpetuated.

As if that weren’t enough, there have been countless studies that have investigated any possible link between vaccines and autism and no evidence can be found to support such a link.  (You can access the latest published research here, here and here.)

The science is clear, and yet there are many autism advocacy organizations that continue to install fear in parents who just want what’s best for their children.  

As this Newsweek article explains:

“Despite the science, organizations involved in the anti-vaccine movement still hope to find some evidence that vaccines threaten children’s health. For example, the autism advocacy organization SafeMinds, —whose mission is to raise awareness about how certain environmental exposures may be linked to autism, recently funded research it hoped would prove vaccines cause autism in children. But this effort appears to have backfired for the organization—since the study they funded failed to show any link between autism and vaccines.”

Alycia Halladay, chief science officer at the Autism Science Foundation, commends SafeMinds for financially supporting the study, but she worries that some autism advocates may be asking the wrong questions.

“I’m not saying that we need to stop funding research in the environment, because we know the environment does impact neurodevelopment,” she says.

However, Halladay explains that organizations that look to blame vaccines for causing autism are “playing whack-a-mole”.

“First, the proposed association was between the MMR vaccines and autism. Then that was disproven. Then it was the thimerosal components in vaccines; now that has been further disproven in a carefully designed animal model study that aimed to specifically examine that question. It has also been suggested that the association is because of vaccine timing, but that too has been disproven. The target always seems to be moving, and the expectation is that scientific resources will be diverted to address each new modification of this hypothesized link.”

While there may always be people who will believe there is a link between vaccines and autism, despite the science that proves otherwise, I’m writing today to explain another issue that has swayed my decision to support vaccines.

This issue is one of life and death for my son Ben.

I realize, very clearly, that without vaccinations my son would die. 

That is why I am a fan of modern medicine and the science that makes vaccines possible.  If Ben had been born a century sooner, he wouldn’t have survived his Hirschsprung’s disease.  Had he been born less than a half century sooner, he wouldn’t have survived leukemia.  As it is, we have come face to face with his mortality several times.  I see vaccinations along the same lines as chemotherapy – far from perfect, but with the help of the scientific method, getting better all the time.  Vaccines, and even chemotherapy in Ben’s case, are the best shot we have at giving our child a long, healthy life.

For us, though, it goes a step further.  

Ben is also immunocompromised.  

That means that even fully vaccinated, he doesn’t have enough ability to fight off diseases.  He is that kid.  The kid who needs herd immunity.  He’s the reason our whole family gets flu shots and chicken pox vaccines.  He’s the kid who needed boosters for pneumococcal vaccines – because his body lost immunity to them.  Even though we do our best to protect him, he’s the kid that could get infected during a measles outbreak. And he is the kid whose body is weak and who is very likely to succumb to a disease like measles, which would inevitably hospitalize him or worse…cost him his life.

I wrote this piece after weeks of consideration.  I realize this could ruffle feathers.   So I ask…

If you don’t vaccinate, have you researched the diseases we vaccinate against as well as the side effects of vaccinations?   Have you seen what polio and diphtheria can do?  Do you realize that if measles encephalitis sets in that your child will be isolated in the Intensive Care Unit while you wait to find out if he or she is the lucky one who survives with brain damage?  And do you realize that, statistically speaking, the greatest risk in getting a vaccine for your child is driving your child to the doctor’s office?

I realize the rhetoric goes around and around, and that I’m about as likely to change your mind as you are likely to change mine.  But if there’s that tiny chance that you’re really considering all the facts, I’m hopeful that Ben’s face and plight would make a difference.  After all, I am his mother, and I must do everything I can to protect him and keep him healthy. I have to try.

I have a sad feeling that it will take a true epidemic to turn the tide. I just hope that my child will not end up as a casualty. He is not a statistic, nor would I ever want him to be one…he’s our precious child and we don’t want to lose him.

So please remember, your vaccination status could mean the life or death of a child like Ben.

Every Child By Two is collaborating with various immunization advocacy organizations to collect personal stories about the value of vaccines.  These stories will then be shared with state and federal legislators throughout National Immunization Awareness Month (NIAM) in August.  Help ensure that our government representatives know that our country, our communities, our students and our families deserve protection from vaccine preventable diseases.  Join the movement and speak out in favor of vaccines by sharing your story at the following link: bit.ly/28NoZCR.

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