A Bit of Sanity in an Anti-Intellectual Country
When I was a kid, I spent a ridiculous amount of time at my neighbors’ house. It might surprise the people who know me if I told them that these neighbors were devout Catholics. They had a stay-at-home-mom, a dad in a 9-5 job, and so many freaking kids.
These people were absolutely some of the kindest and most devoted and loving people I’ve ever met. So of course it has been really hard to watch them struggle to raise a (completely dependent) daughter with a very severe form of autism. I was vaguely aware of a lot of things about her, that she would get very anxious in public places, that she needed a lot of attention, that she couldn’t talk, and needed a special sort of computer and went to a special sort of school. Another thing I knew and took for granted was that her autism was caused by vaccines.
So you can imagine how my first-hand experience caused my ears to perk up when I first began collecting evidence about this hypothesis, and the more I read about it, the more I know it was false. I think these gives me a sense of unease, because I have no idea how to protect my future children.
Anyway, there is a really great article about the whole issue on Salon.com, which covers a lot of the hype and how it does not always chalk up to an understanding.