Week 7 Prompt

The “Evidence of Harm” book as well as Jenny McCarthy’s crusade to connect autism to vaccines indirectly affected me because I am a parent of young children living in an area that doesn’t believe in vaccinating their children.  It is due to a lot of reasons as to why they refuse vaccines with one being the fear of causing their children to ‘become’ autistic.   Well, when this book came out, I was involved in activities with other parents in the community.  Personally, I believe in vaccines but I respect parents’ choice in not doing it.  I was inundated with parents either arguing about the subject and/or trying to pull me into their drama.  I had empathy for the parents that were scared that their child would get autism as well as for the parents who felt relief that they finally found the cause (and they weren’t personally to blame).  I just didn’t want to do mental battle on the subject with them.  When it was discredited, it didn’t change the minds of those that were convinced the author (and McCarthy) is right and parents did stop vaccinating their children or only doing some of the vaccines (at least in my personal circle).