State: VA
Country: USA
Member since: Jun 10, 2008
Last logged in: Mar 09, 2010
I'm the proud mom of 2 boyz! Yes, "boyz," because for me, the alternate spelling with a "z" describes their wild, crazy & fun nature! There's never a dull moment in my life with these two alongside me!
My oldest, 15, has Autism (dx:PDDNOS). It's been 12 years of sheer hell while fighting for a correct dx., advocating, finding the right educational setting, enduring the social/psychological abuse from other parents/kids, who were part of my son's school day, and defending him from these and some "teachers" (if I can really call them that), who totally abused my son in his initial school settings. For four years I was made to feel like I was the problem--a difficult, intrusive mom, making "unrealistic" requests, asking for "unrealistic accommodations" of teachers/educational specialists, school psychologists and administrators. My strong, direct, adamant, no-holes-barred fight to defend my son and his "rights" for a fair and safe educational setting that would meet his needs and make him feel loved, appreciated and safe, finally ended with an appropriate school placement in 2004. It's amazing to me that we have to call it his "rights" because for me, this is how all children should be treated--with love, care, concern, respect, decency. Society has lost its respect for children!
My younger boy, 12, is a FANTASTIC brother! He has defended, played with, taught, assisted his brother in so many ways, he will never fully understand how much I love him for playing such an important role in his brother's life. I'm fortunate that both get along so well. Now, grant it, he does get angry and frustrated with his older brother at times. But I try to teach him the why behind his brother's behavior, his condition, and why treating disabled people with kindness, love and respect is crucial. I want him to grow into a compassionate adult, capable of reaching out to others who need an extra lift in this crazy world. I consider it my God-given responsibility to ensure he grow up to be a compassionate person that can turn around and serve in his community.
My suggestion to parents new to the World of Autism is this: READ, READ, READ! Get your hands on every book, article, online resource you possibly can. DO NOT depend on "professionals" to do this for you. Only YOU can be your child's advocate and know what tx. will be the most effective and successful. And don't let other parents and their ideas "get in your way." Yeah, that's right! You heard correctly. We can get in each other's way from time to time. Not all the same methods, treatments or procedures work for every autistic individual. You have to find out what works FOR YOU! To share these experiences here is encouraging, enlightening and wonderful. Remember to be true to yourself & your gut instinct for your child(ren). In the end, your life is what you make of it. Here's to making the most outta all our circumstances.
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by momof2boyz on 02.03.10 - public - 84 visits
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Associated Press
LONDON — A major British medical journal on Tuesday retracted a flawed study linking the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism and bowel disease.
The retraction by The Lancet comes a day after a competing medical journal, BMJ, issued an embargoed commentary calling for The Lancet to formally retract the study. The commentary was to have been published on Wednesday.
The BMJ commentary said once the study by British surgeon and medical researcher Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues appeared in 1998 in The Lancet, "the arguments were considered by many to be proven and the ghastly social drama of the demon vaccine took on a life of its own."
Since the controversial paper was published, British parents abandoned the vaccine in droves, leading to a resurgence of measles. Subsequent studies have found no proof that the vaccine is connected to autism, though some parents are still wary of the shot.
In Britain, vaccination rates for measles have never recovered and there are outbreaks of the disease every year.
Ten of Wakefield's 13 co-authors renounced the study's conclusions several years ago and The Lancet has previously said it should never have published the research.
"We fully retract this paper from the published record," Lancet editors said in a statement Tuesday.
Last week, Britain's General Medical Council ruled that Wakefield had shown a "callous disregard" for the children used in his study and acted unethically. Wakefield and the two colleagues who have not renounced the study face being stripped of their right to practice medicine in Britain.
For the study, Wakefield took blood samples from children at his son's birthday party, paying them 5 pounds each ($8) for their contributions and later joking about the incident.
Comments(10)
mercurymom
Posted on Sat, 6 Feb 2010
Thank you. Yes is was all vaccines. Have you ever read any of the pages on line of kids with vaccine damages or deaths? It happens so much more often than people seem to know. Loosing John was pure hell and to make it worse every Md gave us only gloom and doom ranging from "put him in a home now and forget it" to "take lots of photos in you town, ways to remember him when he is gone" to "Go have another, you can't save this one." One Md told me John was vaccine damaged..then in the next breath refused to help me file for compensation saying it would look bad on his office when word got out that a child in his care go damaged by shots. Long hours of research led us to places that helped him...but I can assure you..we got no help from the people who did this to him. John is disabled, cannot speak, cannot cry out if he needs to, he has had 3 strokes, has seizures, he was forever changed from the person he started out to be. And my story is not unique...not at all. As for aspies, it's on the spectrum and I am understand why ..but it is so different. There have always been aspies, some more extreme than others but they have always been and always will be. even still, aspies in some cases respond to biomed and diet changes along with educational programs they can learn to live quite normal typical lives. Yes, the biggest issues are understanding social skills, facial and body language reading, understanding speech tone, ect. Many go undiagnosed and suffer through school. Still, I would take 15 kids on the aspie spectrum over one child like John. in recent years aspie has been on the rise...often in families with no history of having an aspie relative. These kids are the ones that respond better to biomed..though my son does better when he is on supplements and gfcf. At 24 he knows how to monitor his moods and "aspie" rants and how to look back to see if he had a dietary infraction as casein makes him super aspie...his words..not mine. As in your case, was your son not vaxed at birth with hep B? it was mandatory by the year he was born. Just wondering because you said videos before vaccines...that would be the first 6 weeks of life excluding vaxed at birth unless you delayed shots. Did you see lack of eye contact, not liking to be held, feeding issues? those are indeed warning signs. Sad people are not taught to know this and start intervention day one. Maybe some day...just maybe.
momof2boyz
Posted on Sat, 6 Feb 2010
Mercurymom, your story is heart-wrenching to read. I hear the pain in your voice as I read. There is nothing more I can add or take away from you. Your experience is your experience, similar to mine in that we share a common thread yet, I cannot say that I ever saw something so drastic in my child change. I often wonder if I simply missed it because he was my first-born and I didn't know any better. When I look back at old home videos, the "signs" & "symptoms" are there, even prior to vaccinations. Aspies are individuals with autism, though, aren't they? Even though they are extremely high-functioning & are able to go on to college, they lack in the social/language skills areas, don't they? The "label" that psychiatrists give our kids are simply meant to better describe where on the spectrum our kids lie and what characteristics they possess. Or am I mistaken? Wow! You're story is frightening to me. I can't imagine how you must feel having watched him start life out so abundant & progressive only to have everything be turned upside down on its head. So, you don't think there's any relationship to your other kids & his condition? That it was all vaccines? I mean, I have to agree, the chemicals/preservatives in the vaccines ARE poisonous! No doubt!
mercurymom
Posted on Thu, 4 Feb 2010
Hi, please understand Momof2 bozys, that I too would like vaccines..but I believe we need a safe schedule, not all at once, and we need to screen out the kids with genetic dispositions to develop issues. IF vaccines were 110% safe, there were be on side effects listed with the CDC, no warnings, and no compensation for vaccine damage. I am one of the Mom's who did not have a child with a delay...I had a normal bright little boy who was actually ahead developmentally. He spoke in complete sentences, he ask "What is that" and pointed to objects. He knew colors and numbers and sang the Barney song...he knew the names of animals and the sounds they made. He was social, funny, and the center of attention everywhere he went. People were drawn to him, and he took them in and interacted. In three short months...he lost every single thing...including his physical skills, eye contact, speech, and was so sick from malnutrition he almost died. He is mulit vaccine damaged. The only thing that is recognized by the state as a vaccine damage for him was the DPaT, as it causes a loss of physical skills and CP in some children. Yes the CDC said my son was damaged by the DPaT. The MMR, which blew his gut to bits and left him with live measles in his gut, was dismissed. The heavy metals which mercury and aluminum disrupts the mylen, and kill neurons causes the connects in the brain to wither and die, was also dismissed. There is no history of such an issues in my family on either side...there is no genetic connection for such a disability in our family...my son is the ONLY one in all the kids numbering over 500 that are cousins, second cousins to him on either side. There is no History of anyone ever regressing from normal to profoundly disabled in our combined genetic background. So I can't say it is in my family to be autistic and what's more, autism was only one side of the multi disabilities he was left with. Today autism is not an issue for him, but he is still disabled. As for genetic autism if you will, my older son is an aspie, his fathers family is riddled with aspies...but this in my book, is ssssooo different than full blown autism. Aspies, go to school and college and have jobs..can support themselves...my baby will never have a job, and should have been a high school senior this year. He can't hold a pencil to write his name. Yet at 2, he wrote a perfect J on his bedroom door before I stopped him from writing his name. Oh how I wish to God I had let him finish it...that J is all I have of his handwriting today. Go in peace...you have to deal with heredity..I have to deal with making the wrong choice over vaccines and disabling a normal child. You learn to cope, you learn to except and you move on. I am still working on it...I know what I did to my son...and I have to live with it every single day of my life.
shannonj
Posted on Thu, 4 Feb 2010
Another good read: http://www.autismone.org/content/second-looking-case-dr-andrew-j-wakefield-william-long-mdiv-phd-jd
momof2boyz
Posted on Thu, 4 Feb 2010
Shannon, thanks for your feedback. I know that there are parents here who truly believe because of what they have seen. Hence the reason I mentioned that I can only speak for my child and no one else. I believe the day will come when we will have more medical advancement and technology to better diagnose autism the same way we did Down's, Fragile X and many others. We just don't have all the science and research from the labs ready to be published. Much more work must be done. We have yet to discover if there is a true chromosomal defect. Early studies are indicating that scientists have found a possible link in the DNA of autistic individuals that may explain why they're born with this developmental disability. I have just watched, mostly from the sidelines, for the past 13 years as parents argue and fight back and forth over who's right and who's wrong, looking for someone or something to "blame;" in a sense, to hold some organization responsible (i.e. Rx Companies). Medicines have their place and value in society. Man has been entrusted with much wisdom and intelligence to study, research and develop meds to improve the lives of humans. Both you and I know as Christians, this is just one more "disease" we are forced to contend with in an already very sick world full of kids with cancer, diabetes, strokes, seizures, you name it. I would like to see a more positive, open and BALANCED dialog on the subject matter of bio-medical interventions vs. traditional medical intervention. The debate has become a circus within the autism community forcing parents to take sides, pitting mothers against one another rather than showing true support for each other. That's why I've been so pleased with the forums and dialogs that I've found here at Foggyrock and I'm hoping that they continue in a positive and educational direction. I truly do not want to be perceived as an insensitive mom by other women, someone that's very easy for others to criticize. It's hard to write a blog or an online comment because others cannot hear the intonation and inflection in the human voice.
shannonj
Posted on Thu, 4 Feb 2010
Hi there- I respect your opinion, but also recognize that because autism is a spectrum and because it is diagnosed, not with medical tests, but with a list of behaviors, there are bound to be many routes that lead to "autism". I know there are families here that watched their child deteriorate within hours or days of a vaccine--and that is pretty compelling and impossible to ignore.
momof2boyz
Posted on Thu, 4 Feb 2010
Well, I posted this article because I'm the rare mom that actually BELIEVES it's better to vaccinate than NOT. If there were such a link, how come we're not seeing the kids who are NOT VACCINATED cured? I mean truly cured! Their symptoms may decrease, their health may improve but this doesn't prove that it cures Autism. Remember - Autism is a brain disorder. It's a mis-wiring of the brain. It's not a chemical imbalance, although our kids might also have chemical imbalances along with autism. You can't cure something that malformed in the womb while the baby was developing. . . hence the term developmental delay. I don't want to be a downer or rain on anybody's parade. I'm not trying to sound insensitive or discouraging, just realistic. I know for a fact that my son's autism is HEREDITARY. I can't speak for all the others. But when I read the science behind autism, I don't think we can cure it anymore than we can cure Down Syndrome or Fragile X. Unfortunately, I see it as a permanent disability for life. It's discouraging! And it's taken me 13 years of torture, self blame, trial & error to get to where I am today.
mercurymom
Posted on Wed, 3 Feb 2010
http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/01/wakefields-science-proven-valid-again-in-new-study-that-replicates-findings.html Hey, I know that Mom and she is great! No, as long as a drug is in the mix, there will never ever be a day the drug companies are held responsible..as a Mom who has a child with a damaged gut..I know very well what the MMR did do to my child.
joeybearsmom
Posted on Wed, 3 Feb 2010
I agree with you and I was pleased to see that the CNN Medical Correspondent, Eliz. Cohen got a good what for from an autism mom today live regarding the retraction of the article. I highly doubt as long as WE live we will see drug manufacturers admit any causation between autism and vaccines. Think of the monetary lash back. i
mercurymom
Posted on Wed, 3 Feb 2010
it is critical to note...that Wakefields study has been replicated 5 times...each time showing his facts to be true. this is a witch hunt that will not stop... http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/01/30/mmr-doc-s-just-guilty-of-caring-115875-22005783/
