(To see a photo of me in my ultra-chic surgical mask to keep baby Mena from getting the flu that I developed after going without sleep for five days after being denied an embed in Iraq -- and of me at the Shattuck Avenue Marine recruiting center. I support the Marines! I just don't support them being used and abused by globalization profiteers -- please go to my blog.)
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I was driving along Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley the other day when I spotted a giant billboard that read, "Another child is diagnosed with autism every 20 minutes." My jaw just dropped.
Further down on Shattuck, I drove past the Marine recruiting center where Code Pink is protesting the war on Iraq. Approximately one million Iraqis as well as almost 5,000 American troops have died in "Bush's War," a hecka lot of pointless bloodshed. Oops, my bad. It wasn't pointless. There was a point to "Bush's War" -- to make money for the oil and weapons industry at the expense of our brave troops, the American taxpayer and the people of Iraq.
We've got death in Iraq on a small scale. "Small scale? No way!" Approximately 5,000 American troops have died. And also approximately one million Iraqis are dead. Over a million dead people? That may seem at first like a really large number -- until you compare it with death on a much larger scale.
Millions and millions and millions of people both here in America and all over the world have taken to the streets to protest "Bush's War" -- as well they should. It is destroying our economy, our democracy and the ability of our military to respond adequately in case of a real attack on our country.
However, it still aggravates me thoroughly that once every 20 minutes, an American baby's entire existence is threatened and nobody even seems to notice. Billboards claiming that "Another child is diagnosed with autism once every 20 minutes" can actually appear on the streets of America and no one even notices this? And if this horrendous rate of decimation applies only to America's children, then what would the death and disaster rate soar to if one were to include the rest of the world's population in one's calculations?
Once every 20 minutes an innocent baby is doomed to a whole lifetime of misery and an early death? And yet there are no massive protests? Don't you find the contrast between the huge amounts of protests against "Bush's War" and the almost total lack of protest against autism a bit lopsided and strange?
When I was a child, autism was unheard of. Now it is an epidemic claiming untold numbers of lives. What caused the change?
And if America lost 3,000 people on 9-11 and Bush used that as an excuse to attack Iraq, then if we are losing the capabilities of one American child EVERY 20 MINUTES, why doesn't he attack the cause of autism too? It's a far greater danger. Why isn't Bush striking back here as well?
"We can't do anything because no one knows the causes of autism, Jane." Yeah but anybody with half a brain can use a little common sense and come up with the causes of "Bush's War" -- all those WMD lies -- but nothing has been done about that either. Bush and Cheney still aren't in jail. But I digress.
For years now, thousands of mothers and pediatricians have claimed that autism was caused by mercury in vaccines given to babies. So the pharmaceutical companies stopped putting mercury in most of their vaccines, several years ago. But it still took them a long time -- and probably a couple of court orders -- to figure out that you don't just shoot up babies with mercury (even though mercury did increase the profit margins on vaccines).
So. There hasn't been any mercury in most vaccines for a while. However. The billboard I saw that read, "Another child is diagnosed with autism every 20 minutes" was up in public view last week -- not last decade. And a pediatrician recently told me that babies still develop autism around the age of 18 months -- not when they are freshly newborn, come out of the womb healthy, respond nicely to stimulus and register 9 or 10 on the Apgar scale. These babies do not develope autism before they have their first vaccinations. No. They develop autism only after they have had most of their shots.
So. Am I saying that the shots themselves are the cause of autism? That's a pretty heavy-duty statement to make. So I decided to do some research.
First off, I talked with a friend who had raised three healthy children who register in the "genius" category. What did she do right? "I had a wise old pediatrician once," said the friend, "and he told me not to vaccinate my kids until they were at least one year old."
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