The Fear of Autism

So if you are anything like me, you read a lot about Autism lately.  Diagnoses are up and it seems to be parents' greatest fear, at least among those afflictions that can't (yet) be found before birth (Did you know that over 90% of Downs babies are never born?).

I found the latest article about the real risk factors they have found (that likely interact with genetic predisposition) to be very interesting.  From The NYT...  

It makes me so angry (and that is putting it mildly) when I hear about people (especially celebrities, who have a dangerous combination of undue influence over the uninformed and being so themselves) touting that they've decided not to vaccinate their children due to their fear of autism.  You may have heard that a particular Chicago athlete and his ex-reality show wife went public recently with their decision not to vaccinate their infant son (and presumably his younger brother, yet to be born) because they are "afraid of autism."  They'd be better off focusing on pregnancy spacing...

 

Now besides the fact that there are no credible studies that vaccines cause autism, there are many that show vaccination can prevent contraction, transmission, and therefore the side effects (including disability, disfigurement, sterility, etc.) and death by preventable diseases.  I'm not here to promote autism as a fabulous thing, I have a sister with intellectual and physically disabilities (caused by Williams Syndrome, a spontaneous gene deletion, which coincidentally is sometimes described at the "opposite of autism" because of extreme sociability) who lives w/my mother at 44, but it doesn't seem to me to be worse than death by preventable disease.  But it seems like there are people who think and therefore act like it is, which makes me sad.  

Part of life and becoming/being a parent is dealing with challenges that you may not have foreseen and wouldn't necessarily choose for yourself/your child.  It also makes me sad that people make choices for their children (or themselves for that matter) that at made from a place of fear, rather than knowledge.