It's Progress, I Suppose

This morning Dr. Harvey Karp, also known (at least, according to his profile) as "America's most read pediatrician," posted "Cracking the Autism Riddle...." over on The Huffington Post.

Although I don't claim to speak for anyone other than myself, much less the entire autism community, I am certain there are several thousand parents with children on the autism spectrum out there who will agree with me when I say it is very difficult to give any measured amount of credibility to a medical professional such as Dr. Harvey Karp, who has a history of adamant denial of the existence of a link between vaccines and autism. It never ceases to amaze me how so many of these "professionals," who have not done their own laboratory studies, nor have they ever been witness to watching one of their own children regress into himself after receiving a round of vaccines, can sit back and so unbudgingly deny what seems so apparent to many of us who experience the effects of autism in our children on a daily basis.

And don't even get me started on Dr. Karp's fellowship in the American Academy of Pediatrics.

What's that? You don't understand why being a member of the AAP is a bad thing? Well, let's just say that I am sick and tired of the pediatric medical community in this country being fed the same information regarding vaccines that any average Joe is capable of finding if he or she does their homework, yet so many of these overpaid imbeciles swear up and down that vaccines play no part in autism. Many of these pediatricians have this problem that I like to refer to as not knowing what they don't know - a.k.a. Ignorance. I've even had the privilege (that's sarcasm, folks!) of being told by one pediatrician that there are no longer any vaccines that contain thimerosal (and that's mercury, folks!). Hmmm....that's news to me - and apparently to the FDA (see Tables 1 and 3) as well. And the FDA can call it a "trace" all they want, but when we're talking about one of the Earth's most dangerous and volatile substances, it's no comfort to me that it's only a "trace" amount when someone is standing over me or my child's body, ready to take aim with a needle syringe. Seriously....

Until concrete evidence of the cause of autism is found, I'm going with what I've seen in my own child and no doctor will ever be able to convince me otherwise. In the meantime, Karp's article provides a trace amount of hope for me that perhaps some of the allopathic medical community may be coming around to admit that autism indeed is on the rise and not just being better recognized.