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The Media Continues to Fuel Fear and Ignorance...
- Jan 9, 2009 at 1:48 PM
- By
- Comments (18) Total Views (302) Everyone can see this journal post.
Thursday nights are my television nights. It begins with Ugly Betty
at 8, followed by Grey's Anatomy (YAY!), and now...Private Practice.
For those who have never seen it, it is about a practice of doctors who
offer all-around medicine. They have a Psychiatrist, a Pediatrician, 2
OB/GYNs, a Family Medicine Doc, an Alternative practitioner ( he does
acupuncture, herbal therapy, etc ), and even a male student midwife who
doubles as receptionist.
In the past, Private Practice hasn't
exactly been unbiased in what they show for plot lines. In one episode,
Addison Shepard made it perfectly clear that waterbirths are dangerous,
disgusting, and a wading pool for disease.
Last night, I was beyond horrified and enfuriated with what I saw. It was media scare tactics at its best.
I'm
not saying this in a judgemental way, but let's get serious for a
minute here. The average American woman doesn't bother researching
things like childbirth, breastfeeding vs. formula feeding,
circumcision, or vaccination past what easy-read books like "What To
Expect...", "Girlfriend's Guide...", and their favorite shows have to
offer. Ladies, I hate to tell you, but this is NOT research.
Last
night's episode happened to be about vaccinations. There was a mother
who had been coming to the Practice for years, since her oldest son was
a baby. Apparently after his 2 year shots, he developed Autism. She
blamed it on the vaccinations, as the symptoms appeared immediately
after a round of boosters. She chose to not vaccinate anymore, which
meant not vaccinating her younger sons at all. In this episode, she
comes back from a trip from Switzerland, and it is found that her
younger son has the Measles. The practice flips out, quarantines
everyone until they can get vaccination confirmation on everyone...and
then proceeds to talk horribly about the woman who did not vaccinate.
The
words "Child Abuse" were thrown in. It was debated at the round table
discussion of doctors whether or not the pediatrician should FORCE the
mother to vaccinate the sick child, and the other 2 as well. Only 2 (
reluctantly, I might add ) out of 7 said that it should be the parents'
choice. The other 5 said that it was child abuse, and that the
pediatrician should report the mother to Child Services.
The
child gets worse, and *dies* from the measles. After the child is
pronounced dead, the pediatrician goes out into the waiting room with a
syringe of the measles vaccine, and vaccinates the other child against
the mother's consent.
At first mom cries and screams, saying
she will SUE the doctor, IF the child has any adverse reactions...and
then is lamenting over causing her son to die because she chose not to
vaccinate.
Is this is what people are resorting to? Seriously?
The
average American parent gets their information from sources like this.
They see this, through an emotional episode, then agree with how crazy
and stupid people are for choosing alternatives in the health of their
children.
I admit - I was crying. For a SPLIT SECOND, I second
guessed my choice in not vaccinating. And then I realized that if I,
who have DONE a lot of research on this, was having a split second of
questioning...what are ignorant mothers/parents doing after this
episode? The ones who HAVEN'T done the research?
Let's get one
thing straight....if vaccinations protect against these diseases, why
on earth are the parents of VACCINATED children freaking out here?
Secondly,
the TINY population of children who are NOT vaccinated, are not going
to cause an outbreak of rare disease that's going to kill everyone.
Again, if you're vaccinated and your children are vaccinated...what's
the worry? Those of us "crazies" will all die off, and you won't have
anything to worry about. ;)
And child abuse? Social Services?
Is this what our society is boiling down to? I believe it's MAJOR child
abuse to have parents smoke inside the home where children live and
sleep. Am I calling child services though? I believe it's child abuse
to have alcoholic adults in the homes where children reside.
The media has already succeeded in fueling the fear surrounding childbirth. Are we going to let them do it to vaccinations?
One
of the ways that the government and the media fuels this fear, is by
making the number of deaths in these cases sound huge!
Unfortunately, the death rate among those who contract measles has risen recently in the United States from one in 1,000 cases to 3.2 in 1,000 cases. This higher death rate in people who contract measles seems to be due to infection of very young children who have not received the vaccine and older children and young adults who have not been fully vaccinated.
You
tell me...over how many years have we seen a total of 1,000 cases in
the US? The "outbreak" in 2005 was said to be the largest in
YEARS...and that totaled 66 cases. So we have, what?, roughly 3.2
deaths due to measles in the past decade? Two? Three? And how many of
those were the elderly, or the ones with already weakened immune
systems?
As I said...the media has a way to make everything look so scary. Let's do our own research parents!
Comments:
LOL, are you serious??? I was DYING for a new episode of Grey's!
It's amazing how anti-vax is child abuse.. But you know what I read on here last night? I heard a woman suggest that a new mom not feed her baby at night so she can get more sleep!!! I reported it to Cafemom, and it in no way violates any terms. They see nothing wrong with the response!
I've questioned, and requestioned the whole vax thing.. And still... When I read about the adverse effects of the diseases themselves, it's always the fever/dehydration that is the breaking point.. As a breastfeeding mother, I just feel like a fever can be controlled.. It may be naive, but I guess having had to put it into practice once with the rotavirus which is apparently so terribly deadly as well, I feel rather confident about the issue..
Hehehehe.. Me too!!! But the days just start to all roll into one, here.. And I leave the TV on Treehouse, so I tend to forget that there are adult shows out there that I enjoy watching!
Damned holidays messed me up!
It makes me laugh, because the majority of adults haven't kept up with their boosters either...but the disease-ridden children are the big threat.
lmao asaffell! i say the same thing. great post again! i just can't believe that people have the nerve to talk to me about child services cause i'm choosing NOT to harm my kid, whom by the way has great immunity thanks to her 15mos & counting on the boob =)
All of a sudden I realized what your thought bubble meant because I jumped onto CM and everybody was talking about it. We were having a great vax discussion in the MOT group and then someone came in and said, "Yeah, but on Private Practice last night...". I gave up right then.
Great post as always!
I don't watch the show you guys are talking about but I stumbled across this post and wanted to comment. I vax my son but I really think you guys have some good points here. Especially asaffell. I never even thought about how most adults don't keep up with their boosters. Kudos!
wow.... now if I knew I was taking my child out of the country to a place where measles etc were more common I might rethink the decision, but otherwise that plot nis just a scare tatic. How terrible. But the key factor was that the women left the country, her child did not even catch the disease here, and how many young children get to travel the world? Not many, and I am sure that section of the story flew right over everyone's head. :(
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