Every chance I get, I tell Dominic's story. I talk about GMO's and the pollution in the air and vaccines and how they are changing our children. I talk about how insurance companies discriminate, and how the government screws families.
I figure sometimes the person is receptive and sometimes they're not, but its never a waste of my time to tell our story.
So after that blog I wrote about Jonny a few days ago, the ENTIRE Shandy Clinic staff is now reading my blog (or at least read that one). And I had a conversation with one of their administrators - we shall call him B - on Friday afternoon. We talked actually about how Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Rand Paul all agree that there should be fewer and further apart vaccines. Mind you this is a man who makes his living in a pediatric therapy clinic whose business is booming.
So I followed that conversation up by emailing him this amazing link about WHY the vaccine-autism issue is not going away and why it will be a presidential election issues this time. Go read it. I'll wait. Its a really good article.
I got an email back from B basically wanting to know what he could do to help - could he be a voice with the Moms, could he make a difference, etc. So this blog post today is about what YOU - an adult not directly affected by vaccine injury, autism, or your own special needs child - can do to help.
1. Call your legislators at a state and national level. Have them read that link. Ask the state legislators why they would want to mandate an industry with no liability against injury. Ask the national level ones why, after Senator Posey begged for it, have hearings not been called on the #CDCWhistleblower scandal. Why have they not had hearings on the CDC's internal fraud? Those legislator work for us, and as a community autism parents are EXHAUSTED from day to day living and we just often don't have the energy to keep the pressure on the politicians. We are so grateful that Nation Of Islam has joined us. They are bringing energy we just don't have
2. Be a resource. For B, an administrator at a pediatric therapy clinic, this means maybe create a packet of resources for the newly diagnosed, VERY overwhelmed parent. I would be happy to help you with that. For those of you who don't work in a front line office, being a resource means sharing information (like my blog, like The Thinking Moms Revolution blog, Generation Rescue's website, TACA's website, Autism is Medical's webiste, etc) that helps newly diagnosed parents know they're not alone and gives them some hope.
3. Be supportive. This can be as little as HEARING our stories and letting us know that you HEAR us. This can be adopting an affected family and bringing them dinner or offering to babysit semi regularly so mom and dad can get a break. This can be organizing through a community group (a church, scout troop, ladies quilting group, WHATEVER) a volunteer day to do something for autism families that they wouldn't otherwise be able to get done (a friend of mine just had her flooring replaced by a group like this - she wouldn't have been able to do it without them). It could be organizing a fundraiser to donate to a grant program (TeamTMR has a great one) and then telling people about that grant program, because everything TeamTMR brings in from location specific fundraisers is granted to recipients in that location (nifty, huh). Or maybe it means sponsoring a family to go to a national conference.
4. Share our stories. We tell them to you for a reason - because we are a grass roots, parent led movement trying to affect change. When you share our stories - when you say "I know another mom that happened to" - you make that overwhelmed, lonely, terrified, grieving parent in your waiting room feel a little less alone, and when you said "and that child is now making great progress" - you give them hope. At all stages of the autism journey, hope is the biggest gift you can give.
5. Be an agent of change. Tell that young pregnant woman to do her homework on vaccines. We're not telling people not to vaccinate, we're telling people to educate themselves. To ask the question of why did our generation get 6 vaccines and now kids need nearly 50. Ask themselves why we should trust an industry with no tort protection to do the safety studies. Ask themselves to read the inserts, research the actual diseases the vaccines should prevent and make an educated decision. For example - hepatitis B is a bloodborne and sexually transmitted disease. If mom isn't a carrier there is NO reason a 1 day old baby should be given it. They don't generally sleep around and share needles.
I figure sometimes the person is receptive and sometimes they're not, but its never a waste of my time to tell our story.
So after that blog I wrote about Jonny a few days ago, the ENTIRE Shandy Clinic staff is now reading my blog (or at least read that one). And I had a conversation with one of their administrators - we shall call him B - on Friday afternoon. We talked actually about how Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Rand Paul all agree that there should be fewer and further apart vaccines. Mind you this is a man who makes his living in a pediatric therapy clinic whose business is booming.
So I followed that conversation up by emailing him this amazing link about WHY the vaccine-autism issue is not going away and why it will be a presidential election issues this time. Go read it. I'll wait. Its a really good article.
I got an email back from B basically wanting to know what he could do to help - could he be a voice with the Moms, could he make a difference, etc. So this blog post today is about what YOU - an adult not directly affected by vaccine injury, autism, or your own special needs child - can do to help.
1. Call your legislators at a state and national level. Have them read that link. Ask the state legislators why they would want to mandate an industry with no liability against injury. Ask the national level ones why, after Senator Posey begged for it, have hearings not been called on the #CDCWhistleblower scandal. Why have they not had hearings on the CDC's internal fraud? Those legislator work for us, and as a community autism parents are EXHAUSTED from day to day living and we just often don't have the energy to keep the pressure on the politicians. We are so grateful that Nation Of Islam has joined us. They are bringing energy we just don't have
2. Be a resource. For B, an administrator at a pediatric therapy clinic, this means maybe create a packet of resources for the newly diagnosed, VERY overwhelmed parent. I would be happy to help you with that. For those of you who don't work in a front line office, being a resource means sharing information (like my blog, like The Thinking Moms Revolution blog, Generation Rescue's website, TACA's website, Autism is Medical's webiste, etc) that helps newly diagnosed parents know they're not alone and gives them some hope.
3. Be supportive. This can be as little as HEARING our stories and letting us know that you HEAR us. This can be adopting an affected family and bringing them dinner or offering to babysit semi regularly so mom and dad can get a break. This can be organizing through a community group (a church, scout troop, ladies quilting group, WHATEVER) a volunteer day to do something for autism families that they wouldn't otherwise be able to get done (a friend of mine just had her flooring replaced by a group like this - she wouldn't have been able to do it without them). It could be organizing a fundraiser to donate to a grant program (TeamTMR has a great one) and then telling people about that grant program, because everything TeamTMR brings in from location specific fundraisers is granted to recipients in that location (nifty, huh). Or maybe it means sponsoring a family to go to a national conference.
4. Share our stories. We tell them to you for a reason - because we are a grass roots, parent led movement trying to affect change. When you share our stories - when you say "I know another mom that happened to" - you make that overwhelmed, lonely, terrified, grieving parent in your waiting room feel a little less alone, and when you said "and that child is now making great progress" - you give them hope. At all stages of the autism journey, hope is the biggest gift you can give.
5. Be an agent of change. Tell that young pregnant woman to do her homework on vaccines. We're not telling people not to vaccinate, we're telling people to educate themselves. To ask the question of why did our generation get 6 vaccines and now kids need nearly 50. Ask themselves why we should trust an industry with no tort protection to do the safety studies. Ask themselves to read the inserts, research the actual diseases the vaccines should prevent and make an educated decision. For example - hepatitis B is a bloodborne and sexually transmitted disease. If mom isn't a carrier there is NO reason a 1 day old baby should be given it. They don't generally sleep around and share needles.
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