Lyle in the car seat at 3 months old. He was always alert and attentive until his Hib vaccine reaction at 15 months.
Editor’s Note: This post is written by a 38-year-old California mom who prefers to remain anonymous to protect her family’s privacy. I have interviewed her and reviewed the court documents that provide evidence that what she has written is true.
My Son’s Sensory Processing Disorder Was Caused By the Hib Vaccine
My son was vaccinated on schedule.
Lyle was born via C-section.
The day he was born he had a hepatitis B vaccine and a vitamin K shot.
A week later he was circumcised.
Like most babies in America, he was vaccinated at 2 months, 4 months, and 6 months, exactly according to the CDC schedule.
The day of his 6-month shots he ran a fever of 103 and broke out in a rash.
I called the doctor and asked her about the rash and fever.
I was a worried new mom—panicked that my beautiful baby had such a high fever.
The doctor was unconcerned.
I distinctly remember her telling me that it was his immune system working after being vaccinated and that if he was uncomfortable to give him Tylenol.
[Click here to read more about infant Tylenol]
She said to call the office back if the fever lasted more than 3 days.
I still felt worried.
Even though the doctor seemed to think this was normal, my healthy baby was now lethargic and burning up with fever.
He could barely lift his head.
His eyes were glassy.
I went to set up his online medical portal and, looking through his medical records, I noticed that Lyle always had a fever within days of vaccination.
I mentioned my concern about the fevers to my husband and we talked about delaying his vaccines.
We never intended to not vaccinate, but we thought if he was having a fever after each vaccine then maybe his system was too immature to handle so many shots at once.
At his 9-month visit the doctor recommended the flu shot.
She was surprised we declined.
We explained that we were going to wait.
She seemed miffed at us about wanting to wait and asked why. We mentioned our son’s fevers. She immediately told us that fever was a normal response to vaccines.
We also mentioned our concern that certain vaccines contain cells grown from aborted fetal tissue, something I had uncovered on-line.
“UGH!” The doctor cried. “I hate misinformation! That is a complete lie. The things people make up!”
Many doctors are not aware that several vaccines on the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule are made with cells grown from aborted fetuses.
We thought the doctor, who we had always liked, would agree with us—that it would be safer for our baby to delay vaccines.
But instead she reacted with anger and impatience.
It was after her strong emotional reaction that we started doing even more research on vaccines.
I found out that the children of my friends who were on a different healthcare plan were receiving fewer vaccines than my son.
For some reason this bothered me.
Did my doctor’s office urge more vaccines because we were on an HMO insurance plan and my friend’s children were getting less just because they were on a PPO plan?
At the same time, we wanted to make sure our son was protected against infectious diseases and that he got all the vaccines he needed.
We did more research, mostly reading the information for parents at the CDC website.
We decided that our son would get the flu shot at 12 months and then the wait until he was 2 years old for the DTaP, Hib, and MMR vaccines.
He got vaccinated with the flu shot at 12 months.
He had a fever within 24 hours.
Again we were reassured that this was normal.
In April 2013 I took my son to his 15-month well baby visit.
He tested normal on all markers. My favorite thing at this age was that he was learning to sing. We sang together every night as part of his bedtime routine. I would snuggle him close to my chest in the rocking chair.
My husband and I are both musicians and hearing him sing “ABC” and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” in his little baby voice along with me brought tears of joy to my eyes.
At that 15-month well baby visit the doctor kept pressing both the pertussis (whooping cough) and the Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type B) vaccines.
She mentioned getting those vaccines at least five times in that one visit.
She would not let it go.
She suggested we do the Hib vaccine then and the DTaP at a separate visit.
I finally agreed.
My son was vaccinated for Hib that day.
A week later he spiked a fever of 105, which lasted for 8 days.
Lyle didn’t sing again for 3 years
Along with the fever, he became extremely lethargic.
My toddler, who had been walking on his own for about 5 months, now spent his days lying in my arms.
He had no appetite, and would only drink milk through a bottle.
He spent his nights thrashing in bed, screaming and arching his back.
I called the doctor in the middle of the night the first night of the fever.
She recommended alternating between Tylenol and Advil, which we did.
[Click here to learn about safe alternatives to Tylenol.]
The medicine did not seem to give him any relief.
The next day we brought him to the doctor.
The on-call doctor said he possibly had a viral illness and to call the office if the fever lasted more than 3 days.
The fever lasted for another 6 days (8 days total).
After that Hib vaccine, our whole world changed.
A few months after Lyle had a bad reaction to the Hib vaccine, he started getting rashes. He gets impetigo numerous times a year since that injury.
Lyle would no longer respond to his name.
He started having long staring spells.
He still spoke but only repeated words instead of responding to our questions.
Our days were filled with tantrums, which involved extreme head banging, mostly on the floor to the point that he would get big bruises.
He became obsessed with anything with wheels and would sit there for hours in one spot on the floor playing with trains.
Once a social toddler, Lyle stopped responding to his friends and seemed to physically not be aware of his surroundings.
He would crash into walls or tables and bang things—like his toys— on the walls, tables, and floor.
At his 18-month well baby visit I mentioned all of this to the doctor and she said that he seemed normal!
I remember calling his name to show her that he didn’t make eye contact.
She repeated that it was normal for an 18-month-old to tune out his parent’s voice.
At that visit, like at every visit, they measured his head circumference. When I looked back at his records, I realized that my son’s head circumference grew 34 % between his 15-month appointment and his 18-month visit, which is anything but normal.
We lived this way for a year (head banging, wall crashing, lights flickering, wheels spinning, and toys banging).
Lyle also stopped eating any food except macaroni and cheese.
I decided to stop seeing that doctor because she was not able to offer any support for any of the issues we were facing with Lyle.
It was like she was in denial.
We had followed her advice, ignored our instincts as parents, and now our son’s health was in jeopardy. But this doctor’s only comment was that he was normal.
We enrolled Lyle in a local Special Education program as a mainstream student.
Being a mainstream student meant that he was there to volunteer his play in the Special Ed preschool class to help the children with developmental delays.
He went there two half days a week for about 2 hours.
After the first week of school, the Special Ed teacher approached me and asked if Lyle always banged things and crashed into things like she had observed him doing.
I said yes.
I told her that our old pediatrician said it was “normal.”
Every week the teacher would pull me aside and ask me questions about Lyle.
I felt like she was picking on me, and on him, for just being a high-energy kid.
In January the following year we found another pediatrician.
This doctor noticed right away that our son had some developmental concerns and recommended that Lyle get evaluated by our local regional center.
I mentioned this to the Special Ed teacher.
Looking relieved that I had finally figured out what she had been hinting at for some time, she enthusiastically agreed.
Lyle was not normal.
The pediatrician who had dismissed our concern about the fevers, rash, and lethargy after his infant vaccines and had basically bullied us into getting the Hib vaccine when we thought it would be safer to wait had been wrong the entire time.
Lyle was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) at 26 months of age.
He started Occupational Therapy around this time also.
It was challenging to get him to therapy due to his extreme behavior issues. At that time he was almost always sick with a low-grade fever.
When he was 3 years old, we had him evaluated by a pediatric neurologist who confirmed his SPD diagnoses and also diagnosed him with ADHD.
She spent extensive time looking over his medical records and asked detailed questions about his behavior, fevers, and when/if we had noticed any significant changes.
After extensive blood tests and brain scans, this pediatric neurologist, who had trained at Harvard University and Oxford, determined that our son had experienced something called encephalopathy (brain swelling) and suffered from mitochondrial dysfunction.
She said that the unusual change in his head circumference between 15 and 18 months was another sign of swelling.
She told us the encephalopathy was caused by the high fever he had following his Hib vaccine at 15 months.
Having this incredibly smart, well-trained, kind, attentive, and thorough pediatric neurologist confirm that Lyle had been brain damaged by vaccines filled me sadness, rage, and relief.
I felt heartbroken that I hadn’t been smart enough to know better or strong enough to follow my instincts.
I felt angry at myself that I had let this happen to my son.
I also felt vindicated—I had known for a long time that Lyle’s behavior wasn’t “normal,” and that there was something wrong after he had the Hib vaccine.
The neurologist wrote us a medical exemption and told us it was not safe for Lyle to ever have another vaccine.
She also told us that an infant should never be given Tylenol before or after vaccines, and that the Tylenol may have contributed to his brain swelling. Acetaminophen, the main ingredient in baby Tylenol, depletes the body of glutathione, which is a natural chemical that helps the body remove toxins. Without glutathione the body cannot effectively detoxify harmful substances.
So when we called the pediatrician in the middle of the night and she told us to give our son Tylenol, she was basically serving a death sentence to his brain.
We decided to reach out to a vaccine injury attorney. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has paid out over $3.5 billion to families whose loved ones have been injured by vaccines.
In America vaccine manufacturers cannot be sued if their products harm children.
Instead a “no-fault court,” paid for by a consumer tax on every vaccine given, was set up to help families like ours.
Our bills were piling up and insurance was not covering most of the therapies we were trying to help Lyle with his Sensory Processing Disorder.
After about a year of researching, the attorney agreed to take Lyle’s case. He filed a petition against Health and Human Services on behalf of our son.
After about 8 months we received word from our son’s vaccine injury attorney that the Special Master (that is, the judge) in the case determined that our son could only have sustained a compensable vaccine injury if he had documentation of regression within 2 months of getting the Hib vaccine.
Since his well baby visit wasn’t until 3 months after he had the Hib vaccine and the doctor did not document the noticeable developmental delays that my husband and I pointed out to her, we only had the documentation of the high fever that lasted for 8 days followed by the documented regression about 6 months later.
We also had a note from the teacher at the school that our son showed sensory issues (about 5 months after the Hib vaccine).
But the judge—who presumably knows more about brain encephalitis than a Harvard-educated pediatric neurologist who submitted written testimony and clinic data on Lyle’s behalf, determined that our son did not have a vaccine reaction because there wasn’t any documented regression within 2 months of the Hib vaccine.
The Special Master also determined that my son’s symptoms of Sensory Processing Disorder were too similar to autism.
Since the Vaccine Court (as it is popularly called) will not award damages for autism, the judge demanded that our case be withdrawn.
He threatened our attorneys, who have an excellent track record of helping families (mostly because they only take on the most air-tight cases), that he would fine them if they did not withdraw the case.
The attorneys believe that the judge was afraid of setting a precedent.
If our son were awarded damages for what his doctors would verify was a vaccine reaction, then the court would be flooded with parents whose children also got Sensory Processing Disorders after the Hib vaccine.
Why a Special Master has the right to determine that there may only be a 2-month deadline for documented regression is inexplicable. Most cases typically accept 6 months as a standard time frame.
Most nights I can’t sleep
I replay this story over and over in my head and imagine what would have happened if I never vaccinated my son, if the pediatrician paid attention to his developmental delays following the vaccines and documented them, if I had noticed the infant reactions and not continued vaccinating on such an aggressive schedule, if my doctor had been paying attention to the scientific literature and not recommended Tylenol when my baby was spiking fevers…
Would Lyle be able to sit and learn like a typical 5 year old?
Would Lyle be able to eat normally? (Because of his SPD he can only chew soft food.)
Would Lyle have grown up singing and dancing and making friends instead of banging his head, banging his toys, and unable to relate to other children his age?
Would our family be spending more than $15,000 a year out of pocket for his complicated medical needs?
What would have happened if the Special Master in the vaccine injury case listened to the 2 doctors who testified about my son’s vaccine injury?
How does that judge sleep at night throwing out case after case after case?
Does he really believe my son’s SPD was not caused by vaccines or does he care more about precedence than he does about people?
Lyle is supposed to start kindergarten this year.
The encephalitis causes him unspeakably painful headaches.
He has behavioral issues throughout the day.
Is there a school that can handle and treat my child with the kindness and attention that he deserves?
I sit here on the floor playing with trains with my son.
After 3 years of silence he tries to sing again. The words do not flow like they used to. But he sits here and tries and he sings.
I know a lot of parents who are still waiting to hear their children speak after a vaccine injury, and I feel grateful for how far he has come.
But I also feel angry.
I hear stories daily of children who lose developmental skills after being vaccinated yet doctors, public health officials, and mainstream journalists—duped by the lie that vaccine injury is not real—refuse to pay attention.
I’m angry that parents like me continue to be told the lie that vaccines are safe and effective, that vaccine injury is rare, and that it is our responsibility to the community to immunize our children.
I’m angry that the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program doesn’t even pretend to be fair, and that they bully parents into withdrawing their legitimate cases because they are too afraid that if vaccines are found to be causing Sensory Processing Disorders the floodgates will open.
I’m angry for every parent whose child has a Sensory Processing Disorder caused by vaccines.
It happened to our family. I don’t want it to happen to yours.
I cannot have any more children due to a medical issue.
If I could, I would do everything differently.
No circumcision.
And, most importantly, no vaccines.
Lyle is five years old now. He recently had an EEG because the doctors think that he might be having seizures from his Hib vaccine injury.
Published: February 15, 2017.
Last update: February 17, 2020
I’m so sorry to hear your story! Please consider buying and reading the book medical medium where he talks about autism and these kind of issues being related to heavy-metal toxicity in the brain. I wonder if you could detoxify your son of those heavy metals if his condition might not improve? I’m sure as a mother you would be willing to try anything! Praying for your family!
So sorry to read of your child’s experiences. You realize your child could have had encephalitis from any of a vast number of infectious, toxic, or other causes? Hope he had/has a complete recovery. Sadly antivaxxing misinformation posted online can cause hundreds or thousands of parents to forego vaccinations and expose their children to infectious diseases that can cause severe damage (and encephalitis.) Headbanging is common in babies and toddlers when they are stressed, sick, teething, frightened, separated from parents, need attention, etc, my child had it at that age when I was stuck on a computer for a while. Yes I took it seriously too of course, rearranged lifestyle, relieved his stress. God bless.
If you were to go to Circle of Mama’s or #realnotrare or any one of 100’s of fb sites, web pages, you’d see how prevalent this is. We used to get 5-7 childhood vax. Now we get 75+. It’s too much. Gid didn’t design infants to need immediate shots and “vitamin K” drops in their eyes the instant they are born. Pls read DISSOLVING ILLUSIONS, A SHOT in the DARK, watch VAXXED, VAXXED 2, read The Real ANTHONY FAUCI by RFK, Jr. Visit Yhe Children’s Health Defense. Find Sr. Suzanne Humphries online and listen to
her YouTube on Vitamin K and others. You will flip.And then you’ll see that this mama knows she’s right about these awful vax
Thank you for your excellent job telling Lyle’s story. Many less observant parents imagine that their child’s chronic brain dysfunction is genetic or happenstance. I am sincerely grateful to every parent wise enough to question the establishment and see what is in front of them, and you are one of those. May many more children be rescued because of Lyle’s story.
Thank you for sharing this. My son was injured when he was given a combination of Hib and pneumococcal vaccines at 3 months of age in 2008. It was a real challenge to find any information on reactions to these specific vaccines, but I did the best I could. His decline continued for about a month and included the staring episodes and lack of name recognition that you noted. This was a terrible time when, as you note, nothing but nothing could soothe him. An extreme approach to diet hearkening to an elimination diet for someone with major food allergies turned the tide within 24 hours. The next year was a long journey to improved health. Certainly, to this day, I often wonder if some of his physical and emotional expressions can be traced back to what was a huge mistake on my part as his mother. Thank you again for your caring, researching, and fighting on this issue.
Please know you aren’t alone. There are many parents who trusted the so-called medical professionals to know their job. My son’s injury wasn’t even documented at all even though we were clearly able to relate his symptoms to his vaccines!
I left two pediatricians until I found one who would respect our decision not to vaccinate.
I recommend that your son should be tested for MTHFR, because this could reveal why he responded to vaccines the way he did and it could help guide your treatment plan. MTHFR effects the body’s detox pathway and if he has mutated genes related to methylation, it causes continued problems that need to be addressed in a specific way. MTHFR.net written by Dr. Ben Lynch is an excellent resource for this disorder.
I also suggest making sure he has good magnesium levels as this can make vaccine damaged children’s treatment more complicated. Most of us are deficient in this mineral.
Also check out Andy Coulter’s chelation therapy protocol.
It’s likely that a combination of these protocols will be required to help him really improve.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I have a child who was also injured by this vaccine. He had many of these same symptoms, but thank God, his didn’t go that far. When he was around a year and a half old, he completely shut down. No smiling or talking, very wobbly legs, and began head banging. He was diagnosed with Sensory Integration Disorder. After 3 years of occupational, speech, and physical therapy, he was able to go into regular kindergarten. He is now 17 and in 11th grade. He still struggles with certain things, but is doing better than ever expected. I’ve never looked into kelation treatments, but I will now. Thanks for the info. And to the woman and her son, I’m sending hugs. My heart goes out to them.
you cant trust almost anyone in medicine anymore nor the gov to compensate or help you either. damm them all to hell for what they are doing.
Is there any way i could get the name of the pediatric neurologist that confirmed the SPD diagnosis? I believe the same has happened to my daughter but because she had medical issues since birth, no one will believe me. Please help
Thank you so much for telling your story, and to Jennifer for helping you tell it. It is just outrageous that our vaccine program takes a totally defensive stance against vaccine injuries instead of studying these toddlers to better understand who is susceptible, what are the mechanisms of injury, what is the best prevention and treatment. Your pediatrician should have been educated on signs of adverse reactions and responded appropriately. We are constantly told that everyone must get vaccinated for the sake of those who can’t get vaccinated, yet there is no interest in understanding who can’t get vaccinated. And as more and more vaccines are added to the schedule, the % of babies adversely affected grows. I hope you find treatments that help your son. Wishing you and your family all the very best!
$$$$$$$$$$$$thats why they don’t. They create customers for all the med systems specialists and drs for$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Thank you for this piece. The truth needs to be out there. Not enough people know they were vaccine injured. The side effects are not common knowledge. I am sorry for the circumstance you are in and I pray that it gets better with your son. I know that many turn to detox and such. Please consider joining an anti-vax support group. They are wonderful.
I was hepatitis B carrier, and I found it out 3 years ago when I need some medical test for applying for a job. It scares me a lot, and I have been so hopeless since I heard it, I feel like I’m an outcast and different from others. I cry all night, I can’t think properly, I’m so down. Even my doctor advised that I cannot transmit the virus using same utensils, saliva, etc., except if I have sexual intercourse. I’m still sick, no one in my family has this disease. And I don’t know where I got it. I have taken blood tests many times and my liver is okay, and I never feel pain in my body, but I can’t sleep well every night since I have known my situation.I came on the internet to see if I will be able to get any Information as to curing this disease, on my search i saw various testimony about (Abumere herbal centre) who cure Hepatitis and all manners of diseases,i contact them, and I got Hepatitis b medicine, after the period of days given to me by the MED LAB, i was completely cure, CONTACT THEM IF YOU ARE diagnosed OF HEPATITIS B VIRUS or any other sickness, email. abumereherbalcentre@gmail.com
I’m sorry you went through hell with vaccines. Doctors are only after money and are too prideful to admit vaccines cause injury. Well baby checks are obedience tests for mothers.
Fortunately you had a neurologist that wrote an exemption for your son. Continued vaccination would surely kill him. It would be no great surprise if Lyle has one or both of the MTHFR genes. Getting a test result is not going to reverse the damage unfortunately.
Every time I watch Vaxxed vaccine injury stories and the mother tests her child for the MTHFR gene c677t or a1298c, the test is positive. Shouldn’t a positive test for the genes in question be a automatic exemption to all vaccinations? No, that would make too much sense! Horror stories such as yours make me want to throw my laptop out the window.
Medical exemptions from vaccines (regarding schools where vaccines for childhood diseases are required etc.) exist everywhere I know if. Ie if you have had a recorded adverse reaction or have a known condition, etc. Every place I’ve ever lived also allowed religious exemptions etc. (Don’t get me wrong we did/do vaccinate.) Of course I’m not talking about pandemics when a student who can’t vaccinate might in some cases have to do online learning etc, though generally parents just have to sign waivers that they are assuming all risks and won’t hold the school accountable when their child catches something.
Medical exemptions from vaccines (regarding public schools where vaccines for childhood diseases are required etc.) exist everywhere I know if. Ie precious adverse reaction, genetic conditions, etc. Every place I’ve ever lived also allowed religious exemptions etc. (Don’t get me wrong we did/do vaccinate.) Of course I’m not talking about pandemics when a student who can’t vaccinate might in some cases have to do online learning etc, though generally parents just have to sign waivers that they are assuming all risks and won’t hold the school liable when their child catches something.
My child to suffers from injury after her 2 month old vaccines. She started seizing, lost her hearing, gained an infection around her heart, and developed a sensory disorder. Please try homeopathic treatment as there is so much they can do to help reverse vaccine injury.
I’m sorry you’ve been through this. You’re not alone, which I’m not sure is much comfort.
We, too have a vaccin injured son with sensory issues. He is sensitive to loud noises and is slow to adapt to non-brown foods. However, the most costly of his sensory issues are his anger regulatory problems. This has been disruptive for all of us, as I now see homeschooling as being the only affordable option I’m comfortable with (public schools in our area are not great). I’m home alone all day with all three children with no viable outlet in sight. The maternal “wear and tear” is high, as I have little relief or support from relatives nearby. It affects our family dynamics considerably. The sheer joy and indescribably pleasure of being a mom to a smiley baby has given way to sorrow and resentment. The grief of that contrast is beyond words. I worry constantly about his future. His neurology and psychology are prone to addiction in the future. What if he doesn’t manage this anger problem? Will he find a spouse who would put up with it? Will he be more likely to commit a violent crime? Etc.
I am beyond angry at the medical establishment for failing us and families like ours. I pray as this seems to be the only outlet for the injustice of our situation.
Look up the Medical Medium and his Heavy Metal Detox Smoothie recipe to clear the mercury & aluminum from the midline of the brain! We have until about age 18 to get the metals out before it closes up.
Andrea, I can relate to the smiley baby part. Our son was just that…the happiest baby alive. We just recently learned that he has SPD and believe the vaccs played a huge part in it. For a long time we could not understand what was going on with him, why he went from smiley baby to throwing wild temper tantrums, especially when we transitioned to the car, why he hated to be touched, why he could not stand loud noises and ran away or screamed, why he was clumsy, why he hated any social events, etc. He is four and we have gotten our hands on the book, Almost Autism by Maria Hong. She cured her two sons with SPD, but also discusses Autism, Asbergers, ADHD, and a number of other disorders in the book that can be cured! It was not easy for her, but she did it and her insight is invaluable. We are attempting to implement her suggestions and have already noticed a change in our son just by changing his diet. I refuse to accept defeat, and like you, my worry for his future has made me determined to do all I can now to heal the wounds the medical establishment continues to scar us with. I have learned that as the mother I know what is best for my child since I see the pain, the torment, the frustration in my child regularly. Be your child’s advocate!
I am certainly my child’s advocate. B-12, D3, Fish oil, probiotic supplements. Naturopathic biodrainage, acupuncture, and castor oil heat packs. Occupational therapy, swimming, soccer and gymnastics at all times. Diet change is next.
I am never giving up on this kid. I broke him–the world did, too–and I’m sure as hell not going to give up on him until he’s fixed.
I was expressing the length and breadth and depth of exhaustion, concern, and worry that now plagues my world. Life is hard enough as it is when you’re normal. I just threw a bunch more obstacles in my kid’s path when it was my job to remove as many as possible. I asked questions but not enough. I researched but not enough. I was swayed when I should have stood my ground. But I’m not alone. The medical establishment is ultimately holds the greatest weight.
Hi! DO NOT USE FISH OIL! It is highly concentrated MERCURY-so you are only adding to the problem. Use Algae /plant based omega oil capsules from a health food store. Look up Medical Medium heavy metal detox smoothie recipe.
Please read how resin components (succinates and maleinates) used as preservatives in vaccines cross-link (solidify) in contact with lactic acid in tissues thus damaging brains and other organs and how to remove these harmful deposits from tissues:
https://medical-lies.blogspot.com/2019/04/poisonous-vaccines-mechanism-of.html
I just want to say, it is hard to say no to the doctors. They tried to pressure me to get flu and whooping cough shots when I was pregnant. I didn’t know vaccines were dangerous exactly, but it felt wrong and I didn’t want any potentially toxic things, since, hey – didn’t they say I’m not even supposed to eat tuna fish pregnant? I said no to those shots at several visits. Once a doctor chased me down the hall after a visit trying to offer it to me. Another time, a doctor got rude with my husband and I about it. My antennae went up, I researched, and refused. Hep B for my newborn, we didn’t get but had to refuse – four times. Then, at every single well-baby visit, we refused. The movie Vaxxed came out. I watched it. I researched thousands of hours of research, deeper and deeper, discerning the propaganda. It was terrifying to become aware of the lies, the propaganda, the conflict of interest. I discussed it with my husband. We agreed not to get her shots. Something I never imagined we’d do. I always felt bad refusing. I began to ask my husband to take vacation days from work to come with me to her well-baby visits so we would be “two against one” if the doctors pressured me. (He did, and nicely deflected the doctor’s suggestions to vaccinate, in his friendly and likeable manner). All the while, I hated being an outlier, a rebel, and I felt like the “bad parent” for refusing. I even felt anxiety, “What if they get me in trouble?” None of the other moms knew my child was unvaccinated. I of course also worried about what if my child DID catch an awful disease, so I spent much time researching ALL the vaccine-preventable child illnesses, symptoms, risks, statistics, medical treatments, just in case my child ever caught a vaccine-preventable disease. As time passed, I started noticing all the damaged babies around me, how they were all getting sick a lot and slower to develop and my daughter was thriving. Babies born at the same time, then toddlers, then young children… not talking right, not walking right, rashes and infections, and then the sensory processing disorders, the autism diagnoses, the speech delays and the occupational therapies in all the baby groups and such that we joined. I felt – almost – left out, as the moms all discussed their toddlers’ and childrens’ various therapies. I felt almost embarrased by my daughter’s clear speech, perfect development and exquisite good health. All the problems they had, she had none. As time passed, I never missed a well-visit or check-up (my daughter has never needed any other kind of doctor visits because she is never very ill). I went to the check-ups because I figured if **it ever hits the fan and people call CPS on non-vaccinating parents for “neglect” I can prove she went to every doctor check-up on time for all her childhood so I can show I am not “anti-doctor”. “Cover your ass” as they say, right? Now we have reached a point where my doctor understands that I do my research, I know the diseases, I know the risks, and I bring my child for check-ups. She knows I’m not into “quackery” and she knows that “for now” we are not vaccinating. She even finally admitted at my daughter’s 3 year check up, that “there are risks to vaccinating and risks to not vaccinating” and she acknowledged that at least I look into the risks of vaccine preventable illnesses, know the symptoms, and would bring my child for medical treatment if necessary. She knows that, while I prefer home remedies, I would not try to treat an illness that legitimately required antibiotics or medical care with chicken soup and herbs! So what I’m trying to say is, from the point of view of a mother of a NON-vaccine-injured child, I understand the pressure. There were times I wish I believed the propaganda so I could just be normal and vaccinate my kid and not have to fend off the doctors, not be “different” not be that “jerk anti-vax parent” the media derides, not keep secrets from friends and family about my child’s medical status… I also worry if my child wants to join a group or a club or girlscouts she may not be able to because she’s not vaccinated. And now I’m due to have our second child in 12 weeks… I’ll have to bring her to the myriad of doctor visits, too, I’ll have to refuse her shots, too! The truth is, I hate it. I HATE being a closet “non-vaccinator” and without my husband’s support it would be even harder. I’m not the mom preaching in the streets and protesting the mandates. I am ashamed to admit I am too cowed for that, too embarrassed, to afraid to be stigmatized. So even if I was brave enough to stand up to the doctors, I was never brave enough to admit that I did it. I hate it – the media shaming, the lies, the humiliation of parents who don’t vaccinate… the smugness of the news and of vaccinating parents… the bullying of doctors… I know if people knew our daughter is not vaccinated, people who like us – would not be our friends anymore. This is “the other side” Please know that your stories have not fallen on deaf ears. I listened to my gut, my heart, and to your stories, which gave me the courage to say no. For all that, to this day, as any mother would, I worry. If my child got a vaccine-preventable illness and seriously got ill (or worse), I would NEVER forgive myself. But if my child was vaccine injured, likewise, I would never forgive myself!. It all comes down to our huge responsibility to protect a precious human life. To those parents who say they feel terrible because they went against their own judgement, or their gut, and now feel guilt because their child is injured, I understand WHY you did, because this is what it’s like when you refuse: I was tempted many times. It is no fun being an outlier. Watching state legislations aimed at taking away exemptions… watching media propaganda campaigns… going for doctor check-ups and knowing you are different. Staying silent, being afraid of what people would think because you didn’t “say yes”. That is the other side of the coin. I am glad we made our choice, but the situation for so many children is tragic. I worry for these generations of young people. This is how many of us feel when we DON’T listen to the doctors.
If anyone has an actual adverse reaction from a vaccine it is not the doctor who is liable. No “ass covering” motive would exist for the doctor. However if the doctor failed to offer childhood vaccines and a child got brain or heart or kidney damage from a preventable infectious disease there could be liability for the doctor.
Forgot to say: physical injury of course can also cause encephalitis.
https://www.google.com/search?q=most+common+causes+of+encephalitis&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
The blistering on the poor little guy’s lip — herpes and varicella infections are common causes of encephalitis. https://www.google.com/search?q=most+common+causes+of+encephalitis&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari