Mercury, Vaccines and SIDS, Oh My!

This post relates to three articles I read on Monday, but didn't have the energy to blog about Monday.

First: Mercury. My favorite Roman god and neurotoxic heavy metal. Mercury has been found in high fructose corn syrup.

Let's see, I was already not a fan of HFCS before this story, and did my best to keep it out of the boys' diets, but am not so good with my own diet. After reading this, I'm tossing the Hershey's syrup I was adding to my lattes every now and then. I think I've got some AhLaska in the fridge to use instead.

Also HFCS related, the Corn Refiners Association, the ones responsible for that corn syrup propaganda you may have seen in print and TV ads, is probably not very happy about this news. I just went to "Sweet Surprise," their website. Yes, really. The name makes me want to barf. The "sweet surprise," (apart from the way corn syrup messes with your metabolism and isn't processed by the body the way natural sweeteners are, instead having to go through the liver like other toxins and not allowing the body to be satiated the way it would with natural foods) may be the potent neurotoxin! However those corn folks want us to know: "This study appears to be based on outdated information of dubious significance." Appears? Dubious? My, get all scientific on us, why don't you! Do you have anything to say to back up your, er, opinions? OK. Well, I'll "appear" to keep far away from your toxic crap. I will have to get over my Dr Pepper thing at restaurants, and if I want a soda, stick to the Mexican Coke at home. (It's at Costco in glass bottles - the Coca Cola made with sugar, the way it used to be before subsidized corn took over the country.)

Check out this parody of those horrible corn syrup ads. Really funny, and even more pertinent with this mercury news. There are a lot more that are equally funny on youtube, as well.

Second: Vaccines. This study claims that the mercury-based thimerosal used in vaccines isn't harmful. Oh wait, according to this article, "once used in many vaccines". Yeah, it's still in many vaccines. Try again. The first thing I thought about when reading about this study, was why did the US CDC fund a study of vaccines in children in Italy? How about studying children in say, oh, the United States? Then I thought, giving them the benefit of the doubt, well, if the Italians had already done the first part of the study in the 90s, the CDC was trying to save doing the work again, plus there's that ten years head start the Italians had.

But, I thought more about it, and more issues came to mind. Do you think Italy's children have a similar genetic background to children in the US? Don't you think the children of the "Great American Melting Pot" might have a bit more diversity? Also, were children in the US being given the same vaccines, on the same schedules, as Italian children? Or, were say, the money-making pharmaceutical companies in the US already pushing more vaccines, more frequently in the US than Italy? I don't know, but I bet US children got more vaccines (and thimerosal) than they're Italian counterparts. Also, were the children who would be more likely to have adverse effects from thimerosal excluded from this study? For instance, sick children or those with weak immune systems? Let's see: "thousands of healthy Italian babies". I guess that's a yes.

While looking for a link to this study, I found this fascinating blog post.
Read this link. I have to read it more carefully, but so far it only reinforced my initial feelings that this study was specially designed so the results could be twisted around to good effect by the CDC.

Third: SIDS This article from Monday is about the number of infant suffocation deaths rising. Apparently there's a difference between suffocation and SIDS, though they are both placed under the heading of SUIDs, or sudden unexpected infant deaths. A bit confusing. What's odd is that suffocation deaths are "most common among black boy babies younger than 4 months". That really doesn't make sense to me. Why would black boy babies be more likely to die accidentally from suffocation? And though suffocation is not the same as SIDS, it seems the two were used interchangeably for many years. The article itself didn't really get me too worked up, it was the "discussion" of the article I found, that involved lots of bashing of co-sleeping as being the dangerous cause of infant deaths, versus the many parents who co-slept with their babies, as the majority of the world has done since the dawn of man. If you couldn't guess, I co-slept with Hutton and Harrison. I don't think it's dangerous, as I wasn't drinking or taking drugs, legal or illegal, while doing so. I didn't put pillows or blankets near them. Often, they would start in my bed, then I'd move them to a bassinet beside the bed. I still can wake up from a deep sleep if I hear one of the boys cough in their bedroom downstairs, and when Fergus, my dog baby, was alive I often had a sixth sense, and would jump out of bed in the middle of the night to find him circling around, about to pee on the floor (which is why he moved downstairs to sleep in his final months, so he'd be closer to the door, and make accident cleanup easier). Anyway, I think it's important to distinguish between accidental suffocation and SIDS, though I don't think anyone is willing to study the "real" cause of SIDS. Is there a relation between SIDS and vaccination? How about toxic crib mattresses and children's flame-retardant doused pajamas? Oh, for more on that, read this. I will leave antimony for another day (though it was very high on my and Hutton's hair tests).

Oh...Wow

Just logged on to Hubby's company's health website to check on the insurance situation with Hutton's ABA, to see if I need to resend any forms for reimbursement (yes, that's long and hard to follow!) and saw this:

News for You

New Children's Vaccines Added

A CDC panel has approved a new two-dose rotavirus vaccine for infants, a five-disease vaccine for infants, and a four-disease booster vaccine for children.

Oh, wow. How did they know I was so into the latest in children's vaccines? Wow! A five-disease vaccine for infants! Sounds sooo safe. Too bad I don't have any infants anymore. But, sign me up for that four-disease booster! Taking both the boys in for it...when hell freezes over.

And just what went into this CDC panel's approval process? Did Paul Offit, a patent holder on the Rotatec vaccine play any part? I'm sure that wouldn't be the case. No conflicts of interest in our beautiful, happy world of pharmaceuticals!

That Was a Long Bath!

As Stacy pointed out, in her comment on my last post, in er, June, I had taken a mighty long bath. Yeah, er. I did take a long bath. It didn't actually last over a month, though. I did some other things, too!

Let's see. School ended. The boys and I flew to Orlando to meet up with Hubby, who was at a conference there, and the in-laws drove down. We spent a week at Disney World, which was fun, but tiring. The hotel pool was great, and after spending the morning and early afternoon at various parks, we'd head to the pool. Hutton didn't nap, but the rest of us took turns taking naps, or we wouldn't have survived! Back at home, it took my over six hours to upload all of my 300 pictures. And my MIL has another 500 or so from her and FIL's camera to send me. Whew!

The boys are now in swim lessons every morning for two weeks. I don't know if they're actually learning anything, but at least they both like going! Hubby finally finished our deck -- he started it last summer, and just had "finishing" work to do on it when he put all the tools away last September. Now, I just have to plant some things around the edges to cover the more "craptacular" areas, as Hubby called them. There's lots of scrap wood, too, that's taunting me, saying things like, "You really want to turn us into something, but you know that won't happen! Just suck it up and throw us away! You're not going to make planters! You're way to scared of power tools!" The scrap wood is right. Well, I have no fear of the power drill/screwdriver, but saws...nope, not happening. Hubby is probably done with all projects for the rest of time. Our washer and dryer were both acting up, so he had to fix those for me, too.

Let's see. What else has happened? Four of my college friends are or were pregnant this year. I am finishing the third knitted blanket, for unborn baby #3, and have a ring sling 90% finished for already born baby #2. (I finished one sling for baby #2 already, but for some reason, was feeling industrious at the fabric store. You know how that goes -- my eyes are bigger than the room on my dining room sewing table. We're having a baby shower in two weeks for baby #4, the same weekend most of us will get together for a wedding. Jen, no pressure to start getting pregnant immediately or anything! The wedding is in Aptos, CA, about an hour from my late father and stepmother's house, so the family and I will go visit with stepmom and stepsister and meet the stepnephew (is that even a word?) who was born just a few days after my last visit last summer.

Two of the baby-mamas have solicited me for vaccination advice, too, which is nice, that they actually look to me for advice. Apparently, they think my study habits have changed since college, and believe I've actually researched these things! Kidding! I have spent so many hours reading about vaccines in the past three years, I feel I should have a degree.

And speaking of vaccines, Amanda Peet, the, er, actress, recently said in "Cookie" magazine that parents who don't vaccinate their children are parasites. Aww! So sweet! Mandy did her research, see. Or rather, was reassured by Paul Offit. The same Paul Offit is a co-patent holder for RotaTeq, the rotavirus vaccine manufactured by Merck. Hmm, no conflict of interest there! Don't bother reading about the cons of vaccines, Mandy! We parents of vaccine-injured children, er, I mean, parasites, are all just crazies who didn't really see our children regress before our eyes after vaccines. Don't look behind the curtain.

It seems whenever I'm ready to move on, get past "the whole vaccine thing" something like this comes up. But, I think it has helped me. Today I grieved for a bit. Something I have kept bottled for a while, so it was good to get it out. I was lying in bed, thinking of all the signs Hutton showed me his first two years of life, clues that his vaccines were harming him, but I was too ignorant to see. New mom syndrome. Believe the doctor. First came the colic. In hindsight, I see it as food allergies to my milk, probably brought on by his first vaccines, at birth and at two months. If I had known then, I would have tried eliminating various things from my diet to see if it helped (most notably cow's milk, which Hutton still reacts to). But, I didn't. I trusted my doctor that colic was just "one of those things" that happens to some babies. Nothing much happened for a while. Then came the ear infections. Again, these were when I started introducing food into Hutton's diet, and were his way of saying, "hey slow down!" I didn't listen. Again, just one of those things some kids get. Of course, he also got more vaccines at the time.

The one that really haunts me though, is the appointment at 15 months. Hutton was due for shots at his "well baby checkup." But he wasn't really well at his appointment. He had an ear infection, plus eczema all over his face, thanks to the cow's milk he had started drinking because I'd just weaned him. It didn't take me long to figure out the cow's milk was the cause of the eczema, and eliminate it from his diet, but it took me longer to figure out that eczema is an autoimmune issue, and I never, in a gazillion years, should have let the pediatrician give Hutton his vaccines that day, when he was sick. But, again, I didn't know these things at the time, and apparently neither did Hutton's pediatrician, or at least, he didn't believe they could harm Hutton. I will give the guy the benefit of the doubt. I really hope he wouldn't knowingly give my child vaccines if he thought they'd harm him.

But, just googling "eczema" right now, the first page I clicked on mentioned halfway down: "Eczema is an auto-immune response to a perceived invader. And there is more and more evidence that food intolerance (as well as food allergy) effects the immune system. Gluten intolerance, Yeast and milk protein (casein) in particular are all strongly linked to auto-immune reactions like skin irritation." Today, Hutton is on a gluten- and milk-free diet and is taking yeast medications, as he's had chronic yeast since the antibiotics he took so many years ago for those ear infections. It makes me want to scream. I would, but Harrison is sitting next to me on the couch. I so wish I had not been so trusting and carefree, but had actually read some differing opinions. Ignorance is bliss. But what do I know? I'm just a parasite. Man, I'm hungry. My host needs to eat.