Rawstory: Writing on The ScentificParent blog, a chagrined Canadian mom announced that she is leaving the anti-vaxx movement after all of her seven children — four of them completely unvaccinated — have come down with whooping cough.
Writing from quarantine, and surrounded by sick kids, Tara Hills wrote she is “emotionally, a bit raw. Mentally a bit taxed. Physically I’m fine,” before admitting that not only are her own kids sick, but they may have exposed her five-month-old niece who is too young to be fully vaccinated.
What began with a cold brought into her home by her brother-in-law, turned into coughing by her kids leading to full-blown whooping cough in all seven children.
“My youngest three children were coughing so hard they would gag or vomit. I’d never seen anything like this before,” she wrote. ” Watching our youngest struggle with this choking cough, bringing up clear, stringy mucus – I had heard of this before somewhere. My mom said I had it when I was a kid. I snapped into ‘something is WRONG’ mode.”
Jumping onto her computer, she discovered her children’s symptoms matched — almost perfectly — all the symptoms of whooping cough in a household that was woefully under-vaccinated.
“We had vaccinated our first three children on an alternative schedule and our youngest four weren’t vaccinated at all. We stopped because we were scared and didn’t know who to trust,” she explained. ” Was the medical community just paid off puppets of a Big Pharma-Government-Media conspiracy? Were these vaccines even necessary in this day and age? Were we unwittingly doing greater harm than help to our beloved children? So much smoke must mean a fire so we defaulted to the ‘do nothing and hope nothing bad happens’ position.”
Hills explained that she had a hard time overcoming her biases and mistrust of “Big Pharma,” asking herself, “Could all the in-house, independent, peer-reviewed clinical trials, research papers and studies across the globe ALL be flawed, corrupt and untrustworthy?”
Now Hills says that years spent “frozen” out of fear of vaccinating her kids has the whole family frozen: confined to their home by a quarantine.
She said she hopes her mea culpa will make other families who have held back from getting their children vaccinated rethink what they are doing.
“Right now my family is living the consequences of misinformation and fear. I understand that families in our community may be mad at us for putting their kids at risk. I want them to know that we tried our best to protect our kids when we were afraid of vaccination and we are doing our best now, for everyone’s sake, by getting them up to date. We can’t take it back … but we can learn from this and help others the same way we have been helped.”
13 Comments
siftbotThe thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by eric3579.
Sniper007says...Astroturf.
ChaosEngineHoly shit you're right! Her name is Tara Hills... look at this article.
The headline is "Artificial Grass Tara Hills, Synthetic Turf in Tara Hills"
I really don't think further reading is required.
Astroturf.
oritteropoI don't think astroturf is the right word, but something about it sounds fake.
I couldn't work out what though.
We could be mistaken, too, no matter how it sounds.
Astroturf.
ZawashIt's the lines “Could all the in-house, independent, peer-reviewed clinical trials, research papers and studies across the globe ALL be flawed, corrupt and untrustworthy?”
Sounds to me too constructed and "scientifically correct" to come from an uninformed anti-vaxx mom.
I don't think astroturf is the right word, but something about it sounds fake.
I couldn't work out what though.
eric3579Think this is the actual blog she posted. http://thescientificparent.org/learning-the-hard-way-my-journey-from-antivaxx-to-science/
Babymechsays...(edit: idiot post confusing Canada and Kanata shamefacedly removed)
XaielaoSad story because Whooping Cough can lead to serious health issues down the road.
LiquidDriftsays...She might want to look into this thing called 'birth control' while she's at it.
MrFiskChildren ruin everything.
Asmosays...I used to think anti-vaxxers were just morons but she talks about the fear of trusting in a system where certain fringes have exploited FUD to prey upon people who's only thought is the safety of their kids.
And only when the worst occurs, these poor bastards realise that the real danger is contracting the disease, and the FUD is distracting them from it...
Hopefully, this might leads others to reconsider their stance.
articianI don't have kids yet, but I can attest to being someone who thought the anti-vaxination stance had some validity.
Please don't confuse me for a moron though; I understand the benefits of vaccinations and my perspective was solely formed on distrust from the system, and the initial ties to autism.
A short period of research and introspection and it was clear that, aside from the systemic trust issues, the claims were unwarranted.
Makes me feel like an enigma in the human race. It seems like no one else wants to take the time and re-educate themselves on difficult subjects. Also makes me feel pretty all-right, being an actual human who's capable of that, and isn't just some lame astroturf projection.
I used to think anti-vaxxers were just morons but she talks about the fear of trusting in a system where certain fringes have exploited FUD to prey upon people who's only thought is the safety of their kids.
And only when the worst occurs, these poor bastards realise that the real danger is contracting the disease, and the FUD is distracting them from it...
Hopefully, this might leads others to reconsider their stance.
Asmosays...Understood, and to be fair, the fact that the Lancet (one of the most esteemed medical publications on the planet) got suckered in really leaves the door open for laypeople who have very little medical knowledge to accept these things hook, line and sinker.
When you compound that with historical mishaps such as thalidomide, agent orange and asbestos, or even the big health push away from red meat/fats to a mainly carb based diet (hullo diabetes!), a fair amount of skepticism is understandable.
I've moderated my criticism of anti-vaxxers considerably over the years because of that. There will always be hardline true believers, but most people are acting out of a combination of fear of big pharma (not unjustified) and side effects for their kids. Watching a family member drowning on their own mucous tends to bring things in to perspective, if a little late... = (
I don't have kids yet, but I can attest to being someone who thought the anti-vaxination stance had some validity.
Please don't confuse me for a moron though; I understand the benefits of vaccinations and my perspective was solely formed on distrust from the system, and the initial ties to autism.
A short period of research and introspection and it was clear that, aside from the systemic trust issues, the claims were unwarranted.
Makes me feel like an enigma in the human race. It seems like no one else wants to take the time and re-educate themselves on difficult subjects. Also makes me feel pretty all-right, being an actual human who's capable of that, and isn't just some lame astroturf projection.
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