I used to believe that vaccines played a role in my brother's autismuntil becoming a mother changed my mind.
I was 12 when my cousins came to visit in August 1992: old enough to realize something was wrong with my 3-year-old brother. The other six kids in our apartment that weekme, my sister, and my four cousinsdidnt flap our hands in front of our faces for hours or say Eeeee instead of words. Until then Id convinced myself that my brother was just slow, like my parents said, and that, like my dad, hed be a late talker. But my cousins looked at my brother as if he had six heads, and by the middle of their visit, I did too. He wouldnt be diagnosed with autism for another two years because there werent many doctors in our area who knew what it was. And even after he was diagnosed, we spent weekends driving the hour and a half between Milwaukee and our hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, in search of doctors who knew how to treat it.
My parents search for treatment, and possibly a cure, for my brother sent us not just from city to city but through theory after theory. They eliminated sugar, dairy, and gluten from my brothers diet and added alternative vitamins like kava kava and valerian in an attempt to get him to sit still for more than a second or two. After I tried his vitamins out of curiosity I understood why he grimaced as he swallowed them: They tasted like a sour mix of grass and dirt.
Music therapy, where my brother wore a special set of headphones so he could listen to what sounded like static for an hour a day, was supposed to cut down on his hand-flapping and help him talk more. While my brothers behavioral therapists taught him some language and the ability to follow basic commands like sit down, hands in lap, and come here, Im not sure what any of the rest of these treatment methods accomplished. But the community my parents builtof autism doctors, therapists, and fellow parents of autistic kidsseemed to discover a treatment or cure every five minutes, even if most of them were discredited in the sixth minute. In the late 90s, this community turned against vaccines.
Andrew Wakefield famously discovered a link between the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine and autism in 1998 that has since been discredited, but from 1998 until 2004, when 10 of the papers 12 authors retracted the study, his findings were, at least in some circles, considered credible science. My family and I were thrilled about Wakefields discovery. If vaccines were the problem, autism could be prevented, even if it couldnt be cured. I wanted to have kids someday and I knew that autism tended to run in families. So I was thrilled to think that if I didnt give my future kid an MMR shot, he or she would never develop autism. Wakefield only discussed MMR, but I grew suspicious of all vaccines. If one vaccine was dangerous, werent they all?
Wakefield lost his medical license in 2010 when Britains medical-licensing council found that his study was dishonest and that hed mistreated developmentally challenged children in the course of his research.
Yet instead of feeling relieved that I could rule vaccines out as a potential cause of autism, I felt cheated. I couldnt accept the truth: In the 15 years since my brothers diagnosis, no one had figured out what causes autism, so there was nothing I could do to prevent having an autistic child. I held on to my opposition, figuring I should avoid vaccinating my future kid just in case. I wanted to believe that I could control whether my future kid would be autistic or not. I had witnessed my parents, their friends with autistic kids, and my brothers doctors navigate a labyrinth of shifting medical-insurance coverages and autism-treatment fads, hoping to improve their kids social and language skills enough to let them hold a job or live in a group home. I knew I didnt want to have a kid who couldnt talk if I could avoid it.
I married a man who was firmly pro-vaccine. He understood my fear of giving birth to an autistic kid, but thought my anti-vaccine position was nuts. Every time we argued about vaccination I decided my gut feelings and need for control outweighed the studies and news articles he cited to convince me vaccines didnt cause autism. I figured I could put off a final decision on vaccination until we actually had a child.
The Psychology of Anti-Vaxers: How Story Trumps Science
In 2013, I got pregnant. A steady diet of baby books and advice from doctors and worried Internet mothers helped me develop a level of concern for my baby that went far beyond whether hed be autistic or not. Late in my pregnancy my doctor offered me a whooping-cough booster shot that would vaccinate my baby against the disease. When I balked, she told me that a recent whooping-cough outbreak had killed 10 infants in California. I was still skeptical, and told her I needed to think about it. I went home and found heartbreaking news online about the babies that died of whooping cough in 2010. Nine of the 10 were less than eight weeks oldmuch too young to get vaccinated. Reading about these babies deaths made my unborn baby seem realer by the minute. He was a kicking, rib-grabbing, vibrant little guy. I didnt want him to die at such a young age. I began to seriously question my anti-vaccine stance.
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I Used to Be an Anti-Vaxer