Some Recent Advocacy Efforts

Fellow bloggers Kim Wombles, Thelma, and Louise have started an effort to form a new autism organization, one which actually looks pretty good... if still young. I hold out great hopes for their efforts.

Edit: I somehow managed to miss Kathleen's involvement with the project. She deserves a mention as well. Again -- good luck!

At the same time, the anti-disease group PKIDs has released a pretty spectacular set of videos on the horrific costs that the decision not to vaccinate can impose on families. Sullivan of LBRB has blogged on them here, complete with embedded video.

In his post, however, Sullivan wrote the following:

For any who wish to comment that this has nothing to do with autism, I agree. Unfortunately, the autism community is one of the biggest sources of misinformation about vaccines and vaccine preventable diseases. If I can help PKIDs a bit with this post, I see that as a good thing.

I have to somewhat disagree. Ideally, he is right -- this shouldn't have anything to do with autism. His comment that the autism community is one of the biggest sources of misinformation about vaccines and vaccine preventable illnesses, however, hits the nail on the head.

The instant vaccines entered the autism discussion, the two became connected. Despite the fact that the connection is purely artificial, a product of quackery and delusion, it is very real... and very horrifying.

Watch those videos. I'm particularly fond of the Hib, Hepatitis, and pneumococcal disease videos, but the others are generally pretty good as well.

This is what groups like DAN and Generation Rescue are telling people to risk rather than accept a percieved risk of having their kids turn out like us. This is what they are telling people is better than autism when they advise parents not to vaccinate their children.

Frankly, I find that phenominally insulting.

Edit: Corrected a typo ("However" was missing an e).