E.A. Comiskey's Blog, page 4
January 28, 2015
Stop Calling Me An Idiot! (And Other Things Regarding the Vaccination Debate)
When it comes to the vaccination debate I don’t usually “go there” because I feel like the reality is, we are ALL trying to be informed and make the best decisions for our families in a world full of mis-information brought to us by people more interested in power and money than the health of the general public.
That said, this morning a friend posted this article that struck a chord with me.
There has been A LOT of back and forth over the whole vaccine thing lately. It always catches my eye and I’ve spent far more time than I probably should have reading the thoughts and opinions of everyone and their brother who cares to share. Maybe I just couldn’t resist the urge to throw my two cents in. Welcome to my corner of the blogosphere.
My child is not “officially” allergic to immunizations. He just doesn’t handle them well. As in, he stops breathing. So… yeah. We don’t do that anymore.
My son after being vaccinated.
For this choice we’ve been called “idiots” and worse by the strongly pro-vaccine folks and been viewed with suspicion by everyone from school administrators to ER doctors. It has been said that we are “blindly following the advice of celebrities,” or, “trying to be hip.” Not the case. We actually stopped immunizing on a doctor’s advice after a year of dealing with very serious respiratory issues. Magically, when we stopped the shots our child’s life-threatening “asthma” went away. He hasn’t had a single whistle in his chest in the 2 1/2 years since then.
My son without any shots.
The article I’m referring to made a lot of claims. It said things like, “measles is just a rash,” and, “only people in 3rd world countries die from measles and it’s because of the dehydration.” It also made claims about the rates of autism, as it is linked to brain encephalitis and more.
I couldn’t take those claims at surface value from some random internet guy so I did two things:
First I read an article entitled, “This Is What Measles Really Looks Like.” Turns out it looks like a rash. A nasty rash, to be sure but, yeah. It’s a rash, just like the first guy said. This article also listed statistics and numbers. For instance, it explained that the measles vaccine has been around, basically eradicating measles, since 1963. So, during the big outbreak in the late 1980s/early 1990s they found that…
wait…
what?
I thought it was entirely the fault of Jenny McCarthy and the idiot celebrity followers of the past 10 years that people are getting measles in 2015?
Hmmm…
OK, well, I don’t have any further information on that so I’ll just leave it be for now and move on.
When numbers were collected in the 1990s, (not sure why we’re working with generation-old numbers) statistics showed that about 8% of measles patients got diarrhea which COULD lead to dehydration. 7% got ear infections which COULD lead to deafness.
Uh huh.
OK.
Let’s think about that. There are about 73 million children in America.
During the last BIG measles outbreak approximately 55,000 children got measles. I’m not great at math, so I could be wrong, but I’m calculating that to be well under 1% of the kids in the nation.
Of that overwhelming number of children, 8 out of every 100 got diarrhea. 7 out of every 100 got an ear infection. That percentage did not die from dehydration or go deaf. They got diarrhea and/or ear infections.
My children and I have all had multiple bouts of diarrhea and ear infections over the years. It’s not fun but, so far, we are neither dead nor deaf because, like the author of the original article said, we live in the “first world.”
Do you know who DOESN’T live in the first world? The children in some of the saddest pictures in the article, “What Does Measles Really Look Like.” Look closely at the captions.
While we’re putting numbers in perspective, the recent, horrible, scary, big, overwhelming outbreak of measles involved about 45 people. This is approximately the same number of kids in my daughter’s band class. So, out of all the people in America, your odds of being affected by this outbreak of measles are about the same as your odds of ending up playing trombone in a grange building in farmland, MI. Yes, I realize there are holes in the comparison. Just making a point about the numbers. This is not something that is raging like wildfire through the countryside.
I needed to see something written by a source generally considered credible. (For those who would argue, I beg of you: let’s save that can of worms for another day. I’ve already got my hip-waders on, here.) I went to the CDC website and looked up the risks of the MMR vaccine.
Do you know what they are?
They are pretty much the same as the risks from getting measles. In some cases, the numbers are slightly different but… really… if you’re going on differences that slight… well… maybe you should bet this week’s whole paycheck on the Powerball jackpot. There’s a CHANCE you could win, you know.
As a little side note: While reading the CDC info I noticed that, among those who should NOT get the MMR shot, is anyone who has recently received any other vaccine. Yet, the vaccination schedule lists SEVEN other shots, many of them for multiple viruses, that should be given at about the same age as the MMR. That’s a bit confusing!
What does all this mean?
I can tell you what it means for me and my family.
It means that with or without shots it is VERY unlikely that the average healthy child would DIE from measles (or most of the other diseases that we immunize against). Of course, like any good mom, I don’t want my kids to suffer. I think anyone who takes even a moment to look at the world around us can see that vaccines have been, as a whole, a good thing. I don’t know a single child in an iron lung and I’m immensely glad for that. As the mother of a child who really can’t get vaccinated I am thankful that vaccines have lowered the chances of his exposure to serious disease.
I get it. I am not against all vaccinations.
BUT… when it is said that those who choose not to vaccinate are being selfish or that they are uninformed, following celebrities, or reading de-bunked data… well, that’s simply not true. In fact, most parents I know who choose not to vaccinate have done FAR more research than those who just blindly go along with the schedule. Those who don’t vaccinate generally understand that vaccines do not provide life-long immunity, nor are they 100% effective or 100% safe. They know that some of these viruses are beginning to mutate and that there are legitimate, well-respected researchers who are expressing genuine concern about that issue. They understand that EVERY drug has side effects and we should always weigh the risk of the side effect against the benefit of the drug.
As for calling anyone an “idiot” (or worse): it is not OK in your child’s classroom and it’s not OK in this discussion. For goodness sake! You want to present yourself as a well-informed, critically-thinking adult and the best you can come up with is name calling? Do better. BE better. There is no place for name calling in honest discussion and there is no chance for growth and learning unless we are able to honestly discuss the facts.
The facts:
Fact: Disease sucks. All disease. We all want all disease to be eradicated.
Fact: Modern medicine is helpful and science continues to improve. That’s why doctors no longer bleed their patients to cure them of anemia and most of us are happy when EMTs show up with a truckload of fancy equipment if our hearts begin to fail.
Fact: Modern medicine does not have all the answers and continues to evolve. That’s why my grandparents were urged to eat trans-fats to lower their chance of heart disease, yet my doctor now gives different advice.
Fact: Screaming, shouting, angry, inflamed confrontation rarely (if ever) accomplishes anything positive.
Fact: The next time you meet someone who feels differently than you on a topic you are passionate about, it would be wise to listen to WHY they feel differently. Maybe it won’t change your stance one teeny iota of a bit, but there’s a good chance that your kindness and respect will help make the world a better place.
Here are the links I looked at and referred to throughout this article if you’d like to check any of them out for yourself:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/virginiahughes/what-measles-outbreak-actually-looks-like#.nb24nRyln
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/should-not-vacc.htm#mmr
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Vaccines/MMR/
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/downloads/parent-ver-sch-0-6yrs.pdf
Are you, too, seeking to save the earth, promote world peace and raise productive citizens without expending too much effort?
Why not follow LazyHippieMama on WordPress, by email or Facebook to get all the updates.
If we work on our goals together, they may be a little easier to achieve!
If you enjoyed my blog, it would mean a lot to me if you’d toss me a vote by clicking the Top Mommy Blog banner. Thanks!
January 15, 2015
The Book That I Never Get Tired Of Reading (Nablopomo Day 15)
*This post is Day Fifteen of the January Nablopomo 30-day blogging challenge hosted by BlogHer.
I simply couldn’t pass up a prompt asking which book I would choose if I had to read just one, year after year.
I read a lot. Books and magazines, websites, fiction and non-fiction, any genre, any time-period. Right now I’m reading The Fifteen Invaluable Laws of Growth, The Power of Positive Thinking, Jitterbug Perfume, Treasure Island and, if you count book studies/devotionals, Jesus Calling and Fingerprints of God. I don’t really watch TV. Who has time for that?!
When it comes to favorites, though, I love great fiction that sucks me in and challenges the way I see the world. If it challenges my spirituality that’s even better. How can I ever have true faith if no one ever questions what I believe, right? If a book teaches me something new about history or current events, geography or science that’s… like the hat trick of book scoring in my world. Anne Rice, Jan Karon, Stephen King, Dan Brown, Barbara Kingsolver and James Mitchner have all written books that have shaped the way I view life and the way I live it. I can only hope to write something a fraction as powerful and insightful and beautiful as some of the prose those amazing authors have published!
I have shelves and boxes full of favorites books that I just can’t seem to part with. They’re like dear friends. How can I send them away?
Having said all of that, there is one book that I love more than all the others. If I was forced to pick just one book to read over and over again it would be One Door Away From Heaven by Dean Koontz.
Click on the picture to buy the book. It’s not an affiliate link or anything. I just think everyone should read this book.
It’s a fun and exciting read. In typical Koontz style it’s a bit creepy and a bit mysterious. There’s an awesomely lovable dog and a hopeful ending. It’s a fun read. It’s funny. It’s exciting. It’s a page turner. But there are thousands of fun, page-turners out there. This one is special. It makes me wonder how big our world really is. It makes me curious about what’s behind the public face of the people I encounter. It taught me about a school of thought that I had not heard of before reading it and, in learning that such a philosophy existed I became motivated to educate myself further and I feel like I’m a better person for knowing what I now know. Maybe my family is a bit safer because of my knowledge as well. At least, I like to think so. The book encourages me and fills me with hope. It makes me want to be a little bit of a badass with a really big heart. I’ll always be more like Donella on the outside, but perhaps a Spelkenfeld lives in my heart. Again, I like to think so. (Trust me, if you read the book, that sentence will make sense.)
There is a character in the book who is fairly cracked, mentally, that keeps reading the same book over and over to be sure that she gets every tiny tidbit of meaning out of it. I am aware that I’m confessing to doing the same thing but I like to think I’m only a little mentally cracked. I mean, that’s… like… the ONLY book she reads. As I’ve said, that’s not the case with me. Plus I rarely ingest massive amounts of hallucinogenic drugs and tequila on the same day. JUST KIDDING, MOM!
How about you? If you had to read just one book, year after year, what would you choose?
Are you, too, seeking to save the earth, promote world peace and raise productive citizens without expending too much effort?
Why not follow LazyHippieMama on WordPress, by email or Facebook to get all the updates.
If we work on our goals together, they may be a little easier to achieve!
If you enjoyed my blog, it would mean a lot to me if you’d toss me a vote by clicking the Top Mommy Blog banner. Thanks!
January 14, 2015
Wordless Wednesday: Growing Up (Nablopomo Day 14)
*This post is Day Fourteen of the January Nablopomo 30-day blogging challenge hosted by BlogHer.
Are you, too, seeking to save the earth, promote world peace and raise productive citizens without expending too much effort?
Why not follow LazyHippieMama on WordPress, by email or Facebook to get all the updates.
If we work on our goals together, they may be a little easier to achieve!
If you enjoyed my blog, it would mean a lot to me if you’d toss me a vote by clicking the Top Mommy Blog banner. Thanks!
January 13, 2015
Lazy Hippie Mama: In Haiku (Nablopomo Day 13)
*This post is Day Thirteen of the January Nablopomo 30-day blogging challenge hosted by BlogHer.
Sweet Hippie Daughter saw this on the “One Hundred Dollars a Month” Facebook page and has found it endlessly amusing for the past week or so.
I was trying to think of something a little different for the blog today, having to do with the prompts centering on habits. I decided that since I’ve been in the habit of writing in prose for all this time, perhaps I would take inspiration from “A Winter Haiku.”
Here is the story of me, as portrayed in four verses of Haiku. Hope it gives you a little smile.
I seek to live green.
Sometimes it’s a lot of work.
Then I get lazy.
I seek to be thin.
Lazy eating makes me fat.
I can’t reach my toes.
I seek perfection,
in body, mind and spirit.
I am not there yet.
I am content now,
Knowing that growth continues.
Love this life of mine!
Live on the wild side! Share the story of you haiku in the comments!
Are you, too, seeking to save the earth, promote world peace and raise productive citizens without expending too much effort?
Why not follow LazyHippieMama on WordPress, by email or Facebook to get all the updates.
If we work on our goals together, they may be a little easier to achieve!
If you enjoyed my blog, it would mean a lot to me if you’d toss me a vote by clicking the Top Mommy Blog banner. Thanks!
