UnDefinitive said:
I believe it is BetteTheRed that is suggesting that people without MD status are not to be taken seriously ...
That is not what I take away from her comment. What I take away from her comment is that people offering medical advice who are not medical professionals should have that advice taken as a grain of salt primarily because medicine is not their area of expertise. Since it is not their area of expertise one can also expect that their experience in the field will also lag behind those who make their profession in the field.
UnDefinitive said:
we are all equal here are we not?
Yes and no.
We are equal as individuals. Your one voice is no greater or smaller than my one voice.
Our experiences will start to put distance between us with respect to certain issues. I am the parent of a child on the Autism Spectrum of Disorders. That experience gives me an advantage in discussions about Autism. You will have experience that I don't in other matters, that experience gives you an advantage in discussion about those other matters. Our experiences may lag behind those who have actually made a profession in either issue. I do not pretend to know more about Autism than doctors who have actually studied the issue. I would put my knowledge of Autism up against Dr. Wakefield's because while he was trained as a doctor, he was not trained in any discipline related to the study of Autism. I wouldn't challenge him on anything related to digestive tract issues because that is precisely what he studied.
After that it comes down to the difference of opinion between parents of children on the Autism spectrum of disorders who attribute the onset of Autism to vaccinations and parents of children on the Autism spectrum of disorders who do not attribute the onset of Autism to vaccinations.
Most of both category are not doctors. While both have similar experiences with the chronology of onset both do not have a grasp on what is happening. Parents who attribute the onset of Autism to vaccinations are not simply wrong they are desperately and tragically wrong. They have no reason to believe the connection between vaccinations and Autism so why do they?
Because they are stuck in the blame game. Their child was normal and now their child is damaged. Somebody is responsible for that and if it isn't somebody other than the parent then it must be the parents themselves. So, believing that they wouldn't do anything so irresponsible they find a monster who is. It has nothing to do with the actual issue of Autism it has everything to do with pointing the finger and holding someone accountable.
At present there are no cures for Autism. None.
There are multiple ways in which the symptoms of Autism may be managed.
Those in the higher functioning end of the spectrum experience the most benefit from those various behavioural helps. Technology is helping us assist those who operate in the lower functioning end of the spectrum and to be perfectly candid. Those we pity in the lower functioning end of the spectrum may read and understand us far better than we imagined (search Amanda Baggs) and if that is the case many of us should be ashamed. Of course if we treated this particular communication disorder as if people simply didn't speak our language rather than people being developmentally delayed we'd probably be further along socially than we currently are.
Current actual research had identified certain genetic markers. My family has participated in that research it required no colonoscopies or lumbar punctures. Simple blood tests and cheek swabs have been enough. My children were involved in a sibling study which again looked at developmental progress among multi pregnancy families in which one or more children have been diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder.
My son is one of the 57% of individuals in the Autism Spectrum of Disorders who does not also have a digestive tract disorder so we have no experience with the whole diet issue. I stay out of those discussions until somebody makes the foolish claim that diet cured their child's Autism. The diet may have helped with some of their child's behaviours but their child isn't going to ditch that Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis just because you find a new bread for their sandwiches.
With respect to vaccinations and their efficiency. We only question that out of our relative affluence and the fact that these vaccinations have actually been doing the job they were designed to do. Familiarity breeds contempt and our relative affluence breeds contemptability. Here, where people are not dropping like flies to preventable diseases the ignorant believe that they have a right to their particular ignorance and that their right trumps societies right to protection.
There are solid, sound medical reasons why certain individuals cannot or should not be vaccinated. Apart from those solid and sound medical reasons for exemption from a vaccine regime there are no reasons why individuals should opt out apart from ignorance.
Again the presence of awards and damages does not prove that vaccinations are inherently dangerous and the numbers provided by those various bodies demonstrates that I have a greater chance of winning a lottery than I do being injured by any particular vaccination.
I don't particularly care how many sites you can dig up on the internet claiming that the MMR vaccine causes Autism. None of those sites demonstrates a functional awareness of what Autism actually is. All of them do, sadly, demonstrate the desperation of parents to point the blame for their child's diagnosis somewhere so that they can lay hold of victim status.
That isn't healthy and will not address their new reality.