As your friend, I am so with you on the “Mommy Guilt” train - because I think we never forget the feeling of carrying our children for nine months, constantly feeding them, protecting them, and generally creating them (through a painstaking and thankless consumption of water, salad greens, proteins, and most importantly… Ben&Jerrys!) So even after they leave the uterus, we have a hard time cutting the cord, and we feel responsible for every cry, every frown, every sniffle.

As a pediatrician, I wish your little boy’s doctor had done a better job warning you to EXPECT that nighttime fussiness, and made your “choice” of vaccines - which the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends as the backbone of current medical care - less controversial. Vaccines have to stimulate the immune system enough to work (ie protect against diseases like Diphtheria, Pertussis, and H.influenza - which used to kill babies!) but it’s pretty exciting that they can do this with about the same impact as a cold virus.
There has never been any scientific evidence to link vaccines with autism. Zero. DO NOT LOSE SLEEP OVER WHETHER TO VACCINATE.
I read Jenny McCarthy’s book - so that I could understand why I was spending so much time trying to talk parents into vaccines - it should be like selling mittens to an EskimoS - not ice. And I felt a little ill that she should become such an influence on the health of my patients and their parents.
People who think they understand more about disease and medicine from anonymous and unlicensed opinions on a Google search than a doctor (ie someone who has been to 4 yrs of college, 4 yrs of medical school, and 3 years of residency - well they are have already caused a resurgence in diseases that are fatal in infants and completely preventable. Just in the US, we have seen measles (Indiana 2005), whooping cough (with one infant death in West Virginia 2004), and polio (Minnesota 2005) when communities stop vaccinating.
I’d much rather my son had a few sleepless nights than any of those diseases.

The problem with trying to prove if Mercury in vaccines as being a cause of Autism is, there is only one way to prove it or disprove it: take some healthy babies and inject them with Mercury and see what happens…..you get my drift. Maybe in Nazi Germany.

As for Jenny McCarthy, well she’s Jenny McCarthy. Is she helps raise awareness then that’s OK. Most people know she’s not a brain surgeon.

And for “Mommy Guilt.” I hope that no parents of autistic children buy into that. There’s no reason for it. It’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault. I happen to be a person of the Christian faith. As such I believe that God never makes mistakes. I don’t know why my child has to have Autism. Let alone why another person’s child has to have Cancer. But I do know one thing, I have met a lot of great people on this journey of mine whom I never would have met if my child wasn’t on the spectrum.

By the way, my mom works with Autistic children in Berkley (MI) schools, and she pointed out one other *very* important thing: If vaccines were, in fact, the cause of Autism, we’d see rates *much* higher than what they are. Yes, they’re extremely high, and, yes, they’ve elevated only recently. But, thimerosal has been included in vaccines a very defined period of time. If you take a Freakonomics look at it (that is, statistically), there’s not a strong-enough co-relation between thimerosal in vaccines and incidences of diagnosed Autism. The curves are very different.

You are a very smart woman, and you have proven that yet again.

Congrats on the blog, btw! It’s excellent!

PS. Infant Tylenol becomes your best friend during immunization day

We refuse to take advice from anyone who once had a sketch-comedy series on MTV.

In fact, we came to the same conclusion you did, V-Dub…we are the parents, and there are no comedians, actresses or talk-show hosts who have been through the same experience that we are going through…

And then it dawned on me…the connection between mom-guilt and celeb testimonials on TV. Seriously. Why do I care what jewelry, clothing, perfume, etc. Britney Spears or David Beckham like….they live COMPLETELY different lives from me. So why do I need a parenting guilt trip from Jenny Freakin’ McCarthy or Brooke Shields?

Oh, and let’s not forget that Oprah also launced James Frey’s career (he of “A Million Little Pieces”), and let the entire nation believe in and empathize with a complete fraud for almost two years.