2.11.2005

Success! Sort of!

Dr. G didn't kick us out of his practice! He said he's willing to work with us on a modified vaccine schedule! I am doing backflips!

For the time being, anyhow.

I went into Dr. G's place prepared for the worst (i.e., with tears already welling and shaky hands). However I surprised myself by asking straight out if he'd be willing to work with me on a modified vaccine schedule.

He asked me what I meant. I told him that, while researchers are getting closer and closer to figuring out what the cause of autism is, they still don't know, but one of the prevailing theories is that it's a genetic polymorphism or disposition that can be set off by a number of environmental factors. Some people think that vaccines are one of those factors. I'd like to reduce the vaccine risks as much as possible.

I said that Mali was a surprise to us, that we hadn't planned on having another child but that since she's here we want to take every possible precaution to prevent her from lapsing into autism. Most children have a 1 in 166 chance of being autistic, but for her the odds are 1 in 20. It seemed to me that the likelihood of her contracting any of the diseases for which vaccines were developed are much more remote than that.

I then told him that I'm trying to enroll Mali in the UCDavis MYND Institute's Risky Infants program, so we can track her development and see how she's doing with respect to autistic symptoms. I told him that the MYND folks are scientists like him, that they're not in the cuckoo camp.

He said that he'd be willing to go along with whatever the MYND folks recommended in terms of a vaccine schedule. He even said that, regardless, he had no problem spacing out the vaccines, in terms of only giving one shot per visit.

In terms of giving individual doses rather than combo doses (e.g., diphtheria, pertussis, then tetanus rather than a single DPT), he said that his office has not been able to secure individual doses for some time. He said they used to stock them, but that demand was so low that the companies who supply him eventually stopped producing them. Even Stanffford no longer stocks individual vaccines. (Which seems odd to me when the first cry of any vaccine watchdog is "get individual doses and space them out!")

He reminded me that his responsibility was to the "people sitting out in his waiting room." "The herd," I said. "I know." He also said that there have of late been incidences of pertussis (whooping cough) here in Saint Matthew county, although he hasn't had any in his practice. The diseases are rare, but they're not theoretical.

He said we didn't have to make any decisions or get any shots that day. So we're okay until the four month visit, anyhow.

In the mean time, whoops. I am going to have to find other non-cuckoo sources that advocate fewer to no vaccines for kids like Mali. Not out of the woods yet, but at least we're still under Dr. G's care.

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