Re: what there is to fear about antivax misinformation and other infectious foolishness

A response by a pediatrician to dangerous antivax nonsense, including Jenny McCarthy's talk show tour:

"When I heard Ms. McCarthy tell Oprah and Larry King that vaccines caused her son's autism, I had a flashback to a cold winter's night, 13 years ago. I was the senior pediatric resident on call in the Intensive Care Unit...

Cradled in the arms of her parents, a seven-year old girl was brought to the emergency room at Children's Hospital Boston.

The girl had come down with chickenpox a couple of days ago-she had a fever and hundreds of itchy skin lesions. Tonight, she had taken a turn for the worse. Her fever shot up to 106 and she became confused, lethargic . . . she was unresponsive and limp in her mother's arms.

The ER doctors suspected that her open sores allowed Strep bacteria to get under her skin and rage through her bloodstream. And now, she was in "multiple system organ failure"- every square inch of her body was shutting down all at once.

IV's were placed into her veins to start fluids, Antibiotics , and medications to stabilize her heart and blood pressure. She was placed on a ventilator machine to breathe. Then she was brought to the Intensive Care Unit.

By the time I met my patient, she had tubes coming out of every opening and weeping skin lesions all over her body. I was used to blood and gore, but it was hard to look at her and not cry. Imagine how her parents felt when they saw their once beautiful little girl in this grotesque state, struggling to survive.

My attending physician told me to grab dinner. This child would need me for the rest of the night.

I returned to the ICU to find that my patient had gone into cardiac arrest and died.

I watched, helplessly, as the nurses placed the little girl into a body bag...

Fast forward five months: the first chickenpox vaccine was approved. That day, I vowed never to let a child on my watch suffer from a disease that was preventable by vaccination.

That's a story that doesn't grab headlines or guest shots on Larry King. Vaccines are one of mankind's greatest scientific achievements. This year alone, vaccines prevented 14 million infections, $40 billion in medical costs, and most importantly, 33,000 deaths.

Yet vaccines are victims of their own success. Today's parents are unfamiliar with the diseases they prevent, but these diseases are alive and well in the U.S.-I have personally seen children suffer from them.

It's easy for some to attack vaccines as the "cause" for this or that disorder. Call it the New McCarthyism: who cares about 100 years of scientific research? Vaccines are evil . . . because the Internet says they are.
When a well-meaning parent like Jenny McCarthy blames vaccines for her child's autism, placing the fear of God into every parent who has a baby, it's not only irresponsible-it's dangerous. Why? It’s simple math: vaccines are less effective when large numbers of parents opt out. And the more who opt out, the less protected ALL our children are...

Why blame vaccines? Parents go through stages of grief when their child is diagnosed with a disorder like autism. We all want to blame someone for our suffering. It somehow feels better when it is someone else's fault. Was there "something" we could have done as parents to prevent this? That's understandable...I agree with McCarthy on one point. Doctors need to do a better job of guiding families through the maze of autism treatments. But, it's not an elaborate cover up when doctors don't support certain "alternative" therapies. Some treatments McCarthy advocates are downright dangerous
and unwarranted-like chelation. That's already claimed one autistic child's life. Doctors worry that families will fall prey to unscrupulous folks selling snake oil in the hopes of curing their child.

As a pediatrician, I also want to desperately know why autism happens and how to treat it. But, let's put our energy into funding autism research and treatment . . . and not demonizing our vaccination program."


http://www.cispimmunize.org/fam/aribrownletter.html


As to the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons opposing mandatory vaccination - this is a fringe group that puts nutty politics ahead of patients' health:


http://whitecoatunderground.com/2007/11/19/who-is-the-aaps/


Good information about vaccination (as opposed to cut-and-pasted goofiness from antivax sites is available from:


http://www.cdc.org


and


http://www.cispimmunize.org


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