Last night on CNN, the topic on Larry King Live was Autism. Among the panel of guests were Jason McElwain and Doug Flutie who both shared their perspectives on coping with Autism. A big part of the show turned to the public debate of the impact of childhood vaccines on children later diagnosed with Autism.

I am often asked what Julie and I think about this issue as parents of a child with Autism. It’s impossible to be objective on this subject and I’ll never be close to being a medical or neurological expert, so I just lay out exactly what happened with us.

Up until the age of 18 months John’s social and language skills appeared to be developing close to a typical schedule – he had about a 20 word vocabulary including ‘Mama’, ‘Dada’, ‘hi’, ‘bye’, ‘bus’, ‘plane’, and many others. We can also distinctly remember several occasions of John interacting socially and verbally with those around him. Julie’s most vivid memories of this are at the supermarket checkout line where he would always greet the cashier with an enthusiatic “Hi!” and depart saying “Bye, Bye!” with the diction of a grade schooler. I can remember him standing on our outdoor deck and pointing to the sky and saying “plane” as one flew overhead. We also have video of John at somewhere around 14 months where he’s playing in the tub verbally responding to Mommy’s cues. We rarely play this video because it’s so tough to watch John doing things that he cannot do today – there are no words, and social interaction is absent. Doug Flutie, who went through a similar regression with his son, mirrored our sentiments on Larry King. (Paraphrasing) “It’s like we were getting a glimpse of Dougie’s true personality and it was suddenly taken away”.

John’s communicative abilities began to fade at about 19 months, exactly at the time of his MMR vaccine. Immediately after the vaccine John also exhibited physical signs of an adverse reaction – his cheeks were constantly red, and his face appeared bloated for many days. On top of this his (ex) pediatrician administered the vaccine while John was still recovering from an ear infection and still on antibiotics, which we’ve come to learn is not the best practice to say the least.

So, of course as parents it is this experience that has pretty much defined our position, which is we believe that the MMR contributed to John’s condition. Does this mean that Julie and I have hired an army of lawyers to combat the drug companies because we think John would be typical if not for these events? No. Does it mean that I’ve quit my job and become an expert on childhood vaccines to prove our case? No. Our energy is devoted to making sure John gets the best treatment and therapy for his future.

But, you can damn well bet for sure that John’s 2 and a half year old brother Will has yet to receive this vaccine, and will only do so in separate trials at a much more developed age than 18 months. But that’s just our own (and only) way of letting our past experience regarding this topic affect our decisions going forward.

Last Modified : February 28th, 2008 Filed under : autism, john Navigate : Previous post / Next post