The alarmist title was a joke, really, but I keep seeing the anti-vaccine movement in the news.
I'm lucky to not be one of those parents who are asking why their child has something like autism, but I do have ADHD, which is a neuro-developmental disorder in the same spectrum, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone, because I assure you, if left untreated, it is very debilitating and can severely impair your ability to succeed. But I'm pretty certain I got that from my father, and it is believed my grandfather had it as well. I also come from a family of smokers and grew up in a tobacco state, and my brain was developing before all of these smoking bans, in the midst of a chemical believed to cause ADHD. My why has been answered.
I've said before that I have all of my vaccines and then some, but you still see things I've been vaccinated for have huge outbreaks, like the measles, for instance. The thing with that is that the majority of people who had those vaccines had them after 12 months of age. This points out that the immune system in people shares a lot of commonalities, but at the same time, each person can be different. Sure, vaccines might cause autism in some kids, but there's no solid proof, and just because a court decides to award money in a case involving it, doesn't mean the courts are right.
We have a lot of idiots in politics and the legal system in general. My state added the sleep drug, Ambien, to a list of controlled medications doctors can at any time test for to make sure their patients are taking it (and not taking illegal and non-prescribed drugs.) The only problem with this is that the standard urine test they demand cannot detect Ambien, so it shouldn't have even been on the list. I'm sure there are other medications as well that shouldn't be on there. I'm an advocate for questioning everything, especially the solid walls of science and medicine, and honestly, it's the only way advances are ever made. But being skeptical and absolutely against are not the same thing. Doctors don't know why your children have autism. That's the best truth you're going to get. If they knew it was the vaccines, or even suspected it was the vaccines, with this much media focused on it, the heavy increase in diagnoses, etc., you better believe there would be too many whistle-blowers out there being assassinated by our shadow government. To make it simple, avoid all articles that have the name Andrew Wakefield attached to them; he's a quack and started this whole mess.