You Might Be Anti-Vaccine If...: The Hidden Mission of "Children of God"

By Karen Ernst

It’s no secret that anti-vaccine organizations like to hide the fact that they are anti-vaccine. By name alone, one might never guess that the National Vaccine Information Center was anti-vaccine, but its main purpose is to frighten people away from vaccines, and they spend the bulk of their bandwidth and energy opposing any legislation aimed at increasing immunization rates. While NVIC claims it is “pro-safe vaccines,” you would be hard-pressed to look at its efforts and conclude anything other than that the organization is anti-vaccine.

But there are some organizations that are anti-vaccine without presenting their primary purpose as the opposition of immunization. These organizations can be a pitfall for people not actively attuned to the world of the immunization advocacy. Chili’s fell into such a trap a few months ago when it tried to support autism awareness and services and ended up promoting an organization that promotes the debunked vaccine-autism link, National Autism Association, before it abruptly canceled the promotion after a nationwide outcry.

For a long time, I had given another organization, Children of God for Life (CoG), a wide berth because I took the organization’s statements about vaccines at face value. The people running the organization claim to want pharmaceutical companies “to produce safe, effective alternatives for the existing vaccines and medical products and to use ethical alternatives in future products.” This statement has to do with their pro-life stance. I had always assumed that CoG were parents who were so passionate about being pro-life that they hoped to petition companies to make vaccines that are not produced through the use of cell lines derived from aborted fetuses. If that were truly their mission, they might not be pro-vaccine, but you’d be hard pressed to characterize them as anti-vaccine, either.

In the last week, however, I have had encounters with CoG that have convinced me that they are anti-vaccine, and in sharing the tell-tale signs of this anti-vaccine organization, I’m hoping to help others avoid being ensnared by such anti-vaccine organizations.

Reliance on weak science to prop up their position

Children of God has a number of doctors and PhDs associated with their organization, and discerning the science that is valuable from the science that is junk ought not to be difficult for them. So it is troubling that they latch on to science that comes from unreliable sources and is flimsy, poorly constructed, and dismissed by the majority of experts in that field.

Their current scientific cornerstone is a recently published article by Dr. Theresa Deisher that claims that autism incidence increased at points in time when vaccines grown in human cell lines were added to the CDC schedule and that residual DNA from the cell lines is itself inserted into the cells of children, then replicated, making them autistic. A thorough debunking of this idea can be read here, here, here, and here. Earlier analyses of these claims can be found here, here, and here.

Children of God has also latched on to anti-vaccine activist Brian Hooker’s recently published article (which has now been taken out of public domain) claiming that the MMR vaccine given between 24 and 36 months increases the risk of autism in African-American boys (as compared to “not specified”). This study, conducted by a man who is actively seeking compensation from the government for a claim that vaccines caused his son’s autism and who partnered with fraud Andrew Wakefield to promote his claims, is thoroughly eviscerated here, here, and here.

Caption: CoG Director Debi Vinnedge shares Hooker study on the CoG public Facebook group.

Anti-vaccine organizations often try to use science to their advantage, but they put ideology ahead of evidence. Science is about data and evidence. Science isn’t about promoting a cause, and any group that makes claims about vaccines and science in order to promote their primary agenda (be it a pro-life agenda or an autism “recovery” agenda) might just be anti-vaccine.

Replacing evidence with ad hominem attacks against vaccine-promoting people

Anyone who promotes science should expect close scrutiny of their claims and the evidence he or she presents to support those claims. As with government testimony or professional publication, conflicts of interest should absolutely be examined, and, if found, remedied. However, unsupported accusations of conflicts of interest should not be the sole basis of any critique.

It is telling when the director of an organization lobs the Pharma Shill Gambit to distract from her absence of argument. Debi Vinnedge, CoG’s Director, can be found in several places using the Pharma Shill Gambit.

In one blog’s comment section, Debi Vinnedge call infectious disease specialist, author, pediatrician, and rotavirus vaccine inventor Paul Offit a “shill for the pharm industry.”

But here’s the thing, according to CoG’s guidelines, Offit’s rotavirus vaccine is ethically produced. They should have no problem with him, according to their primary goals. (More on that in a bit.) Perhaps the problem for CoG is that after working for twenty years on inventing a vaccine, Paul Offit was paid for his work.

But the attacks are not limited to vaccine inventors or public figures.

In another blog combox, Ms. Vinnedge calls a fellow pro-life, Catholic parent a “shill” because she once wrote (without pay) a blog post for Voices for Vaccines. The rest of the comment is ugly as well and not worth commenting on, except to say that if the director of an organization willingly slings mud on those who should agree with her but are in favor of vaccines, that organization might just be anti-vaccine.

Public statements against vaccines with no connection to the organization’s primary purpose

If I were director of a pro-cancer organization, it would make sense that I would rally against the HPV vaccine, since it is a vaccine that prevents cancer. If I were an organization whose main purpose was to promote abstinence-only education, I might be under the very wrong impression that the HPV turns girls to a life of promiscuity, and then maybe--maybe maybe-- it would “make sense” to be against the HPV vaccine. However, any autism organization or pro-life organization that has anything negative to say about the HPV vaccine is merely demonstrating its deep anti-vaccine tendencies.

The HPV vaccine is not made with human cell lines, and is therefore made ethically according to CoG standards.  And yet, on their home page, CoG has a warning about “Gar-duh-$-ill.”

It’s clever because it tells you in one word that a cancer-preventing vaccine studied across the globe on millions of girls and found to have no severe side effects is dumb (duh), made only for the profits ($), and will make you ill.

Want to know if an organization is anti-vaccine? Ask them what they think of the HPV vaccine. If they have a clearly negative opinion based on the work of known anti-vaccine organizations, they just might be anti-vaccine.

Reliance on information from other anti-vaccine sources

There are plenty of organizations and websites that exist in order to frighten parents away from vaccinating. They often use conspiracy theories to further their mission while favoring unsubstantiated rumors over scientific proof. Natural News is among the most preposterous of these sources, and no legitimate organization would share information from Natural News unless they were trying to stoke fear about vaccines.

Another anti-vaccine website is SaneVax, whose sole purpose is to scare parents away from the HPV vaccine by sharing unsubstantiated and medically unverified stories on their website.

And if your public supporters include anti-vaccine group National Vaccine Information Center and Vaccination Liberation, you might just be anti-vaccine. After all, the company you keep shines a light on what you believe.

Organizations with a clear purpose should shy away from establishing anti-vaccine goals

Many solicitors visit our front door, and often these solicitors are representatives of non-profit organizations looking to further their cause. The environmentalists are frequent visitors, and I never think to ask them their stance on vaccines (although I did once dismiss a young lady who told me of the danger of “toxins” in our environment because I was suspicious).

How can you tell if an organization is anti-vaccine? Look at its use of science. Check out how it handles disagreement and if it is able to bring evidence to support its arguments or if it relies on personal attacks. Investigate its public statements about vaccines that have absolutely no connection to their mission. And make sure they are not associated with other anti-vaccine organizations or sources.

And if you agree with their primary purpose, ask yourself if you are really willing to support an organization willing to endanger public health and the lives of children in order to further their mission.

It's About Time: Voices for Vaccines

The reason this blog exists—why it continued beyond our initial efforts—is because of fellow parents. Since starting Moms Who Vax, Karen and I have met many remarkable moms and dads who choose to vaccinate their children and are, frankly, fed up with the lack of push-back against the loud and rancorous voices of parents who intentionally leave their children unvaccinated. By sharing their stories, we know many of these parents have changed minds, provided reassurance, perspective, and sanity.

But it’s not enough. It’s one thing to blog. It’s quite another to join forces in an official way, under the auspices of an organization. Organizations get invited to conferences. They get a seat at the table. They can streamline advocacy efforts, print flyers, provide educational materials, reach out to media, provide members to testify at legislative hearings. Time and time again, Karen and I heard parents asking: what else can we do?

Now we have an answer: join Voices for Vaccines.

Over the past eight months, Karen and I have been working with vaccine legends Dr. Deborah Wexler, Dr. Paul Offit, Dr. Alan Hinman, and Dr. Stanley Plotkin to re-launch—and perhaps more important, to re-imagine—their pro-vaccine advocacy organization, Voices for Vaccines. Initially designed to be the “go-to source for vaccine information,” the project stalled, despite great interest. When Karen and I came to the project, we both felt very strongly that a parent-driven, parent-focused organization was the missing link in this vaccine conversation. More than ninety percent of parents overall vaccinate their children. If this is the case, why are the anti-vaccine parents the ones we see in the media, on blogs, in the comment sections, and at legislative hearings? Why is the anti-vax National Vaccine Information Center the dominant parent organization in the vaccine world? It was this conundrum that we wanted to address, and the founders of Voices for Vaccines were in complete agreement.

Karen and I held a few conference calls with some of our past contributors and trusted partners to share the initial idea, and when we gave them a description of this new direction, the excitement was palpable. One of our “Moms Who Vax” said she’d been dreaming about such an organization for years. The enthusiasm was infectious (no pun intended--okay, pun absolutely intended), and it has kept us going over these last six months. Between preschool, soccer games, dance lessons, our day jobs, and our other vaccine-related efforts, this thing slowly came together, along with the help of some amazing individuals, including Immunization Action Coalition's Julie Murphy and Mike Franey.

Now we are ready to open the workshop doors, and even though we still have work to do, particularly on the website, we didn't want to delay bringing pro-vax parents into the fold any longer.  At Voices for Vaccines, you will find a home for the ninety percent of us who vaccinate our children on time. You will find vaccine information vetted by the best minds in vaccinology, but you will also find opportunities to make your voice heard—in your local community as well as nationally. You can share your story in the VFV blog Parents Who Vax (still a work in progress). You will be able to download toolkits on topics from “How to Write an Op-Ed” and “Keeping the Media Honest” to “How to Talk to a Vaccine-Hesitant Parent” and beyond. You can sign up for the VFV newsletter to stay on top of the latest vaccine news and to receive action alerts, including calls for comments on articles about vaccine topics (typically dominated by anti-vax voices) and invitations to conference calls with heavy-hitters in the medical and scientific communities, and beyond. Learn about opportunities to join forces with other pro-vax parents! We need you--your creativity, your ideas, and your passion. 

We have a new website, although it is far from complete and still in need of fixes and design tweaks. But this is just the beginning. Even more changes are in store, and we want you with us. Please join VFV and join forces with other pro-vax parents to take over the world—or at least protect children and vulnerable members in our community from vaccine-preventable disease and bad science!

For us, and for the founders of VFV, this relaunch is the stuff of dreams. A national organization uniting parents who vaccinate and are passionate about it?

It’s about time.

Editor's Note: If you're in Minnesota this weekend, please come to the Voices for Vaccines' launch party, "Our Voices Rockin' at downtown Minneapolis' PourHouse. Hosted by Don Shelby and featuring the music of rock band Verge, there will also be a silent auction. Saturday, January 19th, 7pm-10pm. Suggested donation of $10 and 21 and up. Hope to see you there! 

Moms Who Vax: Your Baby's Best Shot

By Karen Ernst

The concerns parents have about vaccines could fill a book.  Fortunately, a new book co-written by Stacy Herlihy (SH) and Allison Hagood (AH) addresses these concerns.  Meticulously researched and exhaustively documented, the facts in the Your Baby’s Best Shot are actually presented in a readable and accessible way.  The unassuming tone is no surprise as Herlihy and Hagood are a thoughtful, intelligent pair.  Moms Who Vax recently sat down with them (via email) and picked their brain about a few issues related to YBBS and to vaccines in general.

MWV: What motivated you to write Your Baby's Best Shot?

SH: For me personally it was extreme frustration with debating with hardcore anti-vax nuts online. I’ve been involved in a few parenting message boards over the years. Parenting can be a very lonely experience sometimes, especially if you work at home as I do and don’t always have time to get out much to interact with other parents.

So I became involved in a few boards over the years. Over and over again I’d see this issue come up again and again. I become known after a while as someone who could confront the nuts and help others make sense of this issue if they were on the fence.

The problem was that after a few years I felt as if I were repeating myself time and again. I would write out these very detailed posts only to have them ignored by the anti-vaxxers who would then accuse me of being crazy and over the top on this issue.

So I said to hell with it, walked away, stopped posting and said hey I’ve always wanted to write a book. Why not? But the book was too daunting a project to face alone. So I sought out a co-author. Luckily I found just the right person to work with.

AH:  I’ve been having discussions about this particular issue for a number of years.  I got involved because a friend’s child was diagnosed with autism, and our mutual friends immediately began blaming vaccines.  I thought to myself “that doesn’t sound right,” and started looking into the science.  The more I read, and the more I learned about the lies and misinformation of the anti-vaccine movement, the more passionate I became.

I began to have more online and face-to-face conversations with people about this issue, and realized how widespread the anti-vaccine misinformation had become.  I felt that this was going to be an ongoing battle against people who have no compunction using lies and frauds to manipulate people.  It is incredibly unfair for the anti-vaccine movement to mislead parents about vaccines.

But I didn’t have an idea of writing a book until I “met” Stacy.  We were members of an online discussion board on which vaccine discussions had taken place regularly.  She threw out a “I should write a book!” post, I sent her a private message, and here we are two years later with a book of which we are both very proud.

I love educating people, so the book is a natural existence of that love.

MWV:  Which section of YBBS brings you the most pride?

SH:  The one where we call out the bad anti-vax websites. I had so much fun with it. People like Barbara Loe Fisher and those who run the Age of Autism really annoy me so much. Their websites look so convincing to anyone unfamiliar with this issue. I’ve spent hours trying to explain to people online exactly why they aren’t.

Figuring out polite ways to call them names was both challenging and fun. And hard to get past our editor. Lol

AH:  It’s difficult for me to pick out just one section!  I am very proud of the fact that we managed to communicate the decades of science that supports the safety and efficacy of vaccines in a way that a parent with little to no science background can understand it.  As an educator, that’s always a win.

MWV:  At the beginning of YBBS, Stacy describes a moment in which she is sure she made the wrong decision to vaccinate her child.  Was there an a-ha moment that convinced each of you that, in fact, vaccines were the right choice to make?  What tipped the scales in favor of vaccines?

SH:  I’ve always been pro-vaccine personally. I don’t think you can study history and not feel that vaccines are pretty much the greatest thing ever. I think people today are simply unaware of just how high infant mortality rates were until fairly recently. You can’t read anything about childbearing prior to the last 50 years and be unaware of it.

AH:  I’ve never been anti-vaccine, so there wasn’t a point at which I changed my mind about them.  The tipping point for me getting involved in this issue was encountering the incredibly anti-science propaganda used by the anti-vaccine movement, and realizing that I could address it on a large scale.

MWV:  Do you believe that parents would blame vaccines for autism, ADHD, learning disabilities, and other issues if the anti-vaccine movement were less prominent?

SH:  I think that makes sense. The vaccine equals autism still gets a lot of play in the media today unfortunately.

AH:  I absolutely do.  The anti-vaccine movement is luckily very small, but they are incredibly vocal, and the media has done a great disservice by providing them a platform in the name of a false “balance.”  The overwhelming scientific consensus, based on the research, is that vaccines are safe and effective, and continuing to cover the anti-vaccine movement as if it were of equal strength creates a false controversy

MWV: Which anti-vaccine figure do you believe has done the most damage to public health?

SH:  Andrew Wakefield hands down. He has constantly lied to the public and still continues to do so. He was the driving force behind the first allegation that vaccines and autism are linked. He continues to push that meme forward even though even he must know by now that he’s wrong.

AH:  For me, it’s a toss-up between Andrew Wakefield and Jenny McCarthy.  Mr. Wakefield is either delusional (if he continues to believe in a link between vaccines and autism), or a psychopath (if he knows that there isn’t, and continues to mislead distraught parents). McCarthy, on the other hand, uses her celebrity to provide this charlatan a public voice, and that is almost as damaging as Wakefield’s lies.

MWV:  Since YBBS has been published, has anything about the anti-vaccine movement and the pro-vaccine push back surprised you?

AH:  One anti-vaccine advocate created a hate page against me on Facebook, before the book was even published (the page was removed). I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, but that was a bit unexpected.

MWV:  What piece of advice would you give to pediatricians and pro-vaccine parents in their dealings with vaccine hesitant parents?

SH:  I think it depends on how deep that goes. If someone is extremely anti-vaccine I personally think there’s little you can do to change her mind. There’s a hardcore of parents out there who will never believe that vaccines are anything but a great-big-giant-lie-promoted-by-the-pHARMashills. You can’t reach them. You can only avoid them.

We didn’t aim to. Some walls you can’t break down.

Then you have people who are a little on the fence about this. They may want to avoid a few vaccines or stretch out a schedule. Those people I think can and should be reached. The best way to do that, at least in my opinion, is to carefully point out the problems with avoiding such vaccines or demonstrating that a prolonged schedule does not reduce the risk of a vaccine reaction and does increase the possibility of getting a vaccine preventable disease.

Give them good information that treats them like smart human beings and they will listen to you.

AH:  Try to determine what kind of hesitation they have.  If they are committed anti-vaccine activists, there probably won’t be anything that you can say to them to change their minds.  The ability of the dedicated anti-vaccine advocate to dismiss all science that doesn’t support their beliefs is indefatigable.

However, if they are truly hesitant, because they’ve “heard some stuff” about vaccines, then I think spending the time to find out the source of that hesitation can bring about the opportunity to address their concerns.  You might not be able to address their concerns adequately the first time you have that conversation, but I believe that continuing to address it can be successful.  I’ve had several experiences with parents who were initially anti-vaccine, but later realized their fears were unfounded based on ongoing discussions.

Of course, each pediatrician is going to have to decide how much time they have to spend doing this kind of education.  The health care system in this country doesn’t allow for a huge amount of time for each patient, unfortunately!  That’s why it’s so critical that we not just expect this education to come from pediatricians.  The rest of us need to get more involved in addressing and debunking the anti-vaccine propaganda, and holding the media accountable for providing the anti-vaccine lies a platform.

MWV: Do you have any plans for follow-up books?

SH:  We are in discussion about a new book that would address other parenting related issues such as breastfeeding in a similar manner. Once I can get my sixteen month old to get on a more regular sleeping schedule I’d like to think about crafting a new book proposal. That’s probably next year’s project.

AH:  We are discussing ideas about a follow-up, addressing things like birth issues, breastfeeding, attachment parenting, homeschooling, and other aspects of raising children.

Interview by Karen Ernst, mother, teacher, and co-founder of Moms Who Vax.

Moms Who Vax: There's an Anti-Vaccine Movement?

By Katie Ellis

It's no secret that I have always been science-minded.  My entire life, I wanted to become a doctor.  I took AP science courses in high school, entered college majoring in biology/pre-medicine, and enjoy reading scientific journal articles "for fun." It was no surprise, therefore, that, as a microbiologist whose work focuses on vaccines, I never questioned vaccinating my children.  I knew how great of an achievement vaccines were for the history of science, and the profound enhancements they have made to public health.

Katie Ellis, mother of two

My son was born in 2009, and he was vaccinated per the CDC and AAP recommended schedule.  I knew I was making an informed, intelligent choice to protect him from deadly childhood diseases. I had heard all of the hype with the Andrew Wakefield fraud incident, but knew that it was nonsense, and never doubted my vaccination choices. At this point, I was obviously pro-vaccine, but had never given a thought to advocating for the use of such vaccines.

Soon after this, Dr. Paul Offit spoke at my place of employment.  The topic of his talk was the anti-vaccine movement, which intrigued me – I didn't know there was a big enough group of people against vaccines to form a movement.  After hearing Dr. Offit speak, I felt a multitude of emotions. I felt fascination, for Dr. Offit was such a dynamic speaker who clearly had vast amounts of knowledge about vaccines and infectious diseases.  I felt anger, that parents in this country had access to life-saving technology and were not utilizing it.  More than that, parents were not vaccinating due to fear, uncertainty and doubt spread by Playboy models, geologists and other parents who have graduated from the "University of Google."  Mostly, though, I felt a spark of passion to become an advocate for the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

This spark was further stoked when I became pregnant with my daughter. I began to read about outbreaks of whooping cough that occurred in California, in which ten babies (not yet old enough to be fully vaccinated) perished. I read about the anti-vaccine movement, and how it grew by scaring new parents with absolute lies.  I started to peruse pro-vaccine blogs, such as Shot of Prevention, and Facebook pages, such as Vaccinate Your Baby and Nurses Who Vaccinate.  Amazed by the depth of knowledge of the active pro-vaccine advocates on those pages, I was deeply inspired – and my passion grew.

When my godmother was diagnosed with whooping cough and sent to the hospital for two weeks, just months before my daughter was due, it was the final straw.  Right before her diagnosis, my family – including my godmother – had all been gathered at the hospital.  We were visiting my grandmother, who was sick with uterine cancer.  Not only was my grandmother at extreme risk, but so was my unborn child and I.  I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to fully protect my child when she was born and was too young to be vaccinated.  Thus, my passion grew to the point that I began posting comments on pro-vaccine blogs and pages.  As I posted more, the more I learned, the angrier I became, and the more passionate I became.  I now have confidence to post on anti-vaccine pages and blogs and new articles; I feel comfortable writing letters to members of Congress.  I am a greatly passionate vaccine advocate, and very proud of it.

Katie Ellis is a mother of two, who works full time as a microbiologist specializing in vaccines. She loves spending time with her family, running, baking, and being active.

An Attachment Parenting Mom on Watching "The Greater Good"

By Jennifer Westmoreland Bouchard

I went down the anti-vax rabbit hole the other night. I have to admit that I learned a lot. This not-so-fantastic voyage was prompted by the fact that several friends and acquaintances had recommended I watch “The Greater Good,” described to me as a dispassionate, fair-and-balanced documentary that offers a glimpse into the complex vaccine debate.

The people who recommended this film to me largely share my parenting philosophies. For all intents and purposes, I consider myself a practitioner of attachment parenting (AP). I exclusively breastfeed my four-month-old daughter, we practice elimination communication, I wear her as much as she’ll let me, and I am extremely careful about the products I allow her to use. 

But I’ve noticed an anti-vaccine trend in attachment parenting groups (I partially attribute this to Dr. Sears’ delayed vaccine schedule), to such an extent that I always feel compelled to add that I am pro-vax whenever I’m in a conversation about AP. So, yes, I've become the AP parent who vaccinates according to the routine vaccinations scheduled outlined by the CDC. Why? Because my daughter deserves better than to be put at risk for serious illness as a result of baseless claims and anecdotal evidence. Because my community deserves better than to be subjected to an epidemic, to travel back in time to a much more dangerous time in human history, a time before safe, effective vaccines were available to a majority of the U.S. population.

I’ll be honest: I knew going in that “The Greater Good” was going to be about as fair and balanced as Fox News and as dispassionate as… well, a one-sided conversation about vaccines. I decided to approach my viewing as a sociological study, as a way to begin to understand why there are still those out there who believe the myriad falsehoods and leaps of logic that run rampant in anti-vax side of the vaccine debate.

Five minutes into the film, I wasn’t sure if I could make it through the whole thing, but I pushed ahead in the name of research. In short, the film was everything I thought it would be and more. Creative (read: deceptive) editing and splicing of sound bytes, vague science, anecdotal "evidence," everything you'd expect from a film with full support from Joe Mercola (for information on Joe Mercola, visit Science-Based Medicine's post about his appearance on Dr. Oz's show). The only reasonable parts of the film were the sections featuring Dr. Paul Offit. (I guess these few scenes were the filmmakers attempt at fair and balanced), who says something logical, then the film cuts to a figure such as notorious anti-vax crusader Barbara Loe Fisher who contradicts what he said, and then it cuts to a heart-wrenching anecdote about a child whose illness was “caused by vaccines.” There were, of course, no anecdotes about unvaccinated children whose lives had been ruined by preventable diseases.

Needless to say, I would never recommend this film to anyone. It’s simply a rehashing of all of the old anti-vax chestnuts (yes, the same ones that have been debunked by the medical community over and over). However, I’m glad I watched it. It helped me understand where anti-vaxxers get their information, and how these notions of false causality become hardened truths in their minds.

Though I’m tempted to give it a go, I’m not going to pick apart the film point-by-point. This has already been done by those much more knowledgeable about vaccine debate than I. For starters, try this piece in the Vaccine Times that dissects the film’s trailer: . Or Gorski’s remarkable dissection of the entire film at Science-Based Medicine. 

Never did I imagine that vaccinating my daughter would be perceived as a political or philosophical statement. Never did I imagine that my pediatrician would noticeably relax, relieved when I told her that we were committed to following a routine vaccination schedule. It saddens and angers me that the anti-vaccine voices have become so loud, and that more and more people are being duped into refusing vaccines for their children. Good parents question the safety of everything. It’s what we do. Questioning is important, yes. But it’s even more important to base those questions on hard scientific evidence, on correct information.

We live in a climate where everyone can get a “degree in vaccination studies” at the “University of Google.” As I remind my college students each semester as we come to final paper time, Internet research is fine, just make sure you consult quality sources. Be analytical, be tough, be unrelenting when it comes to the veracity of the information you’re reading. It is my job as a Mom Who Vaxs to be a quality (re)source, to continue to educate myself not only on the science that supports benefits of vaccines, but also on the rhetoric of the anti-vaxxers (so that I can debunk it for those who are still “on the fence” about vaccinations, or anti-vaxxers who are willing to question their views). This is my best hope for helping to make our society safer for our kids, safer for all of us.

Jen Westmoreland Bouchard is a writer, teacher, translator, and mother.

 

From Anti-Vax to Pro-Vax: One Mom's Story

By Chrissy Ruis

When my oldest child was born in 2005, we faithfully followed the immunization schedule, knowing nothing of the controversy until a several months later, when I discovered internet forums. I have always been into natural health and foods, so when I first learned about all of the scary-sounding ingredients in vaccines, I was alarmed. And then when my son (eight months old at the time) came down with a mild case of pertussis, I was angry that he got all of his shots “for nothing.”

I dove deep into the anti-vax scene, visiting countless websites, reading all of the books I could get my hands on. I read the package inserts, medical journals, and the CDC’s Pink Book, until I convinced myself that I was making an informed choice not to vaccinate. After all, I wasn’t vaccinated and I was perfectly healthy; my father didn’t believe in vaccinations, but he never really told me why. I became an active poster on some parenting forums, taking every opportunity to share my “research”; I even created my own vaccine information web page.

A couple of years later, when I was pregnant with my second child, my husband and I became very concerned with our son’s development; he was lagging behind and just seemed so…different from other toddlers. Our pediatrician was of an older generation and didn’t seem all that concerned, but it just kept nagging at me. My husband and I agreed to give it a little more time to see if he grew out of  “it,” not really knowing for sure what “it” was until soon after, on a mid-October afternoon.

Let me preface by saying I never watch talk shows, which is why it is so odd that, while waiting for my husband to finish getting ready to for an afternoon at the park, I happened to watch Oprah. Her guest that day was Jenny McCarthy, whom I only knew from the ’90’s dating show on MTV, Singled Out. Why was she on Oprah? Turns out, she was promoting her new book, Louder Than Words. The moment came where she began describing her son’s characteristic and it hit me “That’s it: autism!!” Sure, Bobby had relatively normal speech for his 2.75 years, but it was just something about the way he spoke. Everything else was spot-on: the repetitive behavior, the spinning objects, the lack of interaction, the sensory issues; it all fit. He was due for his next well-visit in another month, so I brought it up then with the pediatrician. Like I said, he was an older doctor (in practice longer than I had been alive), and was quite up front with his lack of knowledge about autism… which meant we were pretty much on our own to figure out how to proceed.

Just after his third birthday, Bobby was evaluated, given a diagnosis of autism, and enrolled in a full-day ABA program. At first I was relieved because my worries had finally been validated. Then I was angry and convinced that my child had been damaged by the vaccines he had gotten before we stopped after twelve months. Obviously, I had no intention of poisoning my newborn daughter, too.

Naturally, as the two worlds intersect, I got caught up in the biomedical movement, convinced I would “heal” Bobby by “detoxifying” him. The poor kid was on a restrictive diet, given countless supplements, clay baths. Epson salt rubs, you name it. He did make a lot of progress, to the point where he was one of the highest-functioning kids in his school. Arrogantly, I believed it was because I was so dedicated to biomedical treatments. Once he aged-out of his school, I decided to home school Bobby, as our school district had very few accommodations for him. I continued with biomedical treatments, except we were doing a lot less because money was a lot tighter than before. Home schooling was good at first, but gradually it began to take its toll; I was worn out and exhausted dealing with Bobby’s behaviors 24/7.

Then, last December brought the birth of our third child. We had a very serious health scare when I passed group b streptococcus to him during labor. I got the recommended IV antibiotics, but got to the hospital too late to get the full four-hour course before he was born. Obviously, it wasn’t vaccine-related, but it did cause me to re-evaluate my ideas about health care… including vaccines. When I’d go to the NICU to nurse my new baby, I’d look around at these tiny babies, some of them no bigger than a Barbie doll… and I was in awe of how science has advanced to where micro-preemies now actually have a shot at life.

How a simple antibiotic spared my baby from becoming very sick, or even dying.

Then it hit me that the same could be said for vaccines. I quickly tried to push that thought away, but I couldn’t escape that little epiphany. But how could I suddenly consider vaccinating? My oldest child hadn’t been vaccinated since twelve months, and my three-year-old had never been vaccinated. I still couldn’t think of vaccines as being anything but “toxins,” but I suddenly felt driven to look more closely at the pro-vaccine side.

Seth Mnookin’s book, The Panic Virus, had just been released; it sounded interesting, so I gave it a read. Wow. It made me seriously consider at least selectively vaccinating. He cites Dr. Paul Offit quite a bit, so I grudgingly decided to read his books, too. I devoured the books in one week, and during that time, every anti-vax argument I had began to crumble away.

I realized I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was. Mnookin and Offit’s books completely deconstruct every aspect of the anti-vax and biomedical movements, until there is just no leg for them to stand on.

Realizing how wrong I had been, how easily I could have allowed my children to become seriously ill, and how much money I wasted on biomedical scam…I was so angry with myself. Unfortunately, with everything else going on in my struggle to balance my children’s needs, home schooling, and coping with a severely colicky newborn, I cracked. Literally. I had a mental breakdown and needed to be medicated. Money was tight, so the only way we could afford the co-pays for my medication and therapy sessions was to cut out Bobby’s supplements and the specialty foods to keep him on his diet. I was terrified that he would regress and lose all of his progress, but guess what happened: nothing! He got neither better nor worse, which means we had been throwing money down the drain for nearly three years.

Next came the moment of truth: bringing my kids to be vaccinated. First up was my three-year-old. It was traumatic for her, but we got her up-to-date. I had originally planned on a much delayed schedule for my new baby, but I realized there was just no logical reason to delay, so we went ahead with the recommended schedule. They are both fine and developing typically. With Bobby, I hadn’t planned on getting him any vaccines, but once we decided to send him to public school (we moved to a new district with a better special ed department), I knew I didn’t want to send him without any protection, lest he bring home preventable diseases to the new baby. He got the few he needed to be up-to-date for school and despite my dreadful fears, guess what happened: nothing! He didn’t regress, and if anything, he actually had a developmental leap in his social skills (coincidentally, of course!).

Maybe, just maybe, vaccines had absolutely nothing to do with his autism; he never had a regression or anything, just developmental delays that, two more babies later, I can recognize.

I became very angry at the whole anti-vax movement. Angry at the subtle sleight-of-hand and the exploitation of concerned parents. Angry for the desperate parents of autistic children, who are being scammed like I was. Angry at myself for encouraging so many others to stop vaccinating. I’m slowly making amends, though. I am vocal about my change in beliefs and can (and do!) debate circles around any anti-vaxxer.  The kids are all up-to-date on their vaccines, and are as happy and healthy as ever.

I even got my first vaccinations, too.


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