The latest autism vaccine issue/case

It looks like they dug up an autism vaccine case from 2 years ago that actually won in vaccine court. I think that when a very public case wins, with the premise that the vaccine triggered the autism, then that will be a true victory...not so this "brain damage" win from a couple of  years ago. All of the "under the table victories" are confusing and offer no credibility to parents who know that vaccinations contributed to triggering their child's autism.  I think the whole brain swelling thing is interesting since AJ's head size soared off the charts during those vaccination years. I used to think that her brain was just growing faster than her head since she was so smart. I wasn't worried. 

I think that overlying issue is that the fear of not vaccinating our children and spreading disease is greater than the fear of not telling the truth.  It is almost like this is an issue that it is socially acceptable to sweep under the rug "for the greater good."

There are so many things that parents just are not told about when autism or any developmental issue is suddenly rearing its ugly head. A tiny example (not an autism one) is that Owen has been stuttering for more than 6 months now. I haven't thought much about it because he is so smart that he wants to get his words out faster than he can say them. But this past week he has been tripping over his stuttering and it is time to get some speech therapy or take some kind of action I suppose. So I called his pediatrician and instead of referring him to the free state program who will evaluate him for free, she referred him to AJ's expensive therapy place where our insurance would not cover a $400-$800 evaluation. 

I told her that we were going to do the state program and she replied that contacting them is my responsibility and gave me the phone number, which I was fine with. Imagine though if I hadn't known about the state program and I would have simply followed this path of shelling out hundreds of dollars when I didn't need to. I didn't think about it at the time but these small oversights by the people we look to for help, are precisely what get new autism parents confused. It is like they are told to go left when they should have gone right. To add to that the foggy vaccine issue is just so overwhelming. We want to be on our pediatrician's side, believing the "strong proven evidence that vaccinations have nothing to do with autism" and feel good to be with our trusted doctor on the side of science. Then we watch our children regress after each shot and suddenly have to change teams to the side that is all but ridiculed by the press and general public (hence that awful episode of Private Practice). Then new autism parents hear about this GFCF diet and are like, "Oh my God."

 So I am glad that I feel like I finally have my black belt in what to do if your kids needs some help. So why is it so hard to help those new parents who are grasping for information and for this to all make sense? The endless conflicts in autism and developmental delay information is detrimental to the important early intervention that our kids need. Sifting through the different advice is a full time job. Making decisions for your child based on  your own findings is terrifying. In 10 years I hope it will be a much more simple, straight forward process. For now, I will blog about it and be one of those small papers in a sea of conflicting information. But at least I speak the truth from my heart and have nothing to gain otherwise. But shoot, isn't that what all autism parents do?