The secret's out

TH came to me last night and asked, "Is my mouth bleeding?"

Indeed, it was. All over everything. Dubya, it seems, in a moment of late-evening exuberance, had executed a gymnastic maneuver on the lower bunk of their bed, landing with his butt right about TH's chin. TH happened to be holding his DS about 10 inches above said chin. DS slammed straight into mouth and literally sliced off a crescent-shaped piece of TH's gum over his right incisor. Sorry. I know that was gross to read.

Most kids would probably have screamed, either from pain or anger or surprise or all three. TH? Got up, came downstairs, and asked me that question, calmly, even as blood pretty much poured from his mouth. "Did that hurt?" I asked. "No," he said. "Does it hurt now?" I persisted. "No," he said. "I didn't feel anything." But the blood kept coming.

A sterilized pair of scissors, some ice in a clean rag, and a bit of rinsing later (I threw away the gum slice), we sat in the home office and chatted, at his request. It's the fourth night in a row of such requests. I posted recently that when TH does this, among other signs, there's something going on. Something that will emerge with time, usually during one of these chats.

Some of it emerged a couple of nights ago, secrets so secret that I won't be revealing them here. But last night's information was more of a universally common experience for some children, especially some on the spectrum, so I'm sharing them. I also do so with the firm and unshakeable knowledge that not one of the things quoted below (except possibly the first one, but we all are) is true.

Children at school--not all, certainly, but a damned good-sized cooperative of them--say the following things to TH, usually in those unstructured, adult-distant situations of school, like recess, at the water fountain, in the after-school car line:

"You're weird."

"I hate you."

"You stink."

"You're disgusting."

"You're gross."

"You're ugly."

After informing me about this, with a completely flat affect, bloodied rag to his lip, TH went on to say that he figures that when it comes to popularity, his BFF is somewhere near the top of the list, while he, TH, is somewhere near the bottom. I think he got this idea of a ranking system from Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

"Does that make you feel bad when they say things like that to you?" I asked him.

"No." Flat affect. The only thing I can detect that lets me know that answer is more equivocal than it sounds is that his eyes move around a bit more.

"It doesn't bother you? What do you feel when they do that?"

"Nothing."

There were no springing tears when he said that, no watery eyes, no readily apparent efforts to suppress emotion. But I know my son. I saw those eyes get on the move with each denial. And I know what the last week has been like as he tried to regulate and process and effervesce away all of the feelings that these experiences unlock for him. And even though he claims to have felt nothing, just as he did about his mouth wound, I know that inside, his psyche is bleeding all over the place. Whose wouldn't be?

Sugar bombs

I know that "studies indicate" that sugar doesn't affect a child's behavior (they're obviously not including my children in these studies, and probably not yours, either). Regardless of what those folks find, we've seen clearly that sugar--of the refined or high-fructose corn syrup variety--sets off sugar bombs in our household that release so much energy, I fully expect to see only three tiny dense white dwarves left behind once it's over.

Oh, you're thinking critically. You idiot of a DMFP. Why are you feeding your children sugar? And I respond to that, It's not me. It's Grandma. Not the Grandma who raised me, who wouldn't let sugar come near us, fed us yeast and lecithin by the spoonful, stuffed us with probably near-deadly amounts of vitamin A, and used carob instead of chocolate (reinforcing the adage, which I think I just made up, that when it comes to chocolate, there is no substitute). Nope. This would be Grandma-in-law (to me), the one who bought Pop Tarts and sugar bomb cereals for her kids and who still cooks meals the old-fashioned way that everyone secretly likes but that no one is allowed to use today and still hold up their heads as Good Mothers. Of course, I'm the one with all the health problems, while Mr. DMFP (a.k.a. The Viking) remains in startlingly fine condition given our advancing years. Must be all those Pop Tarts.

So they spent yesterday afternoon with Grandma Sugar. And when they got home, we could...tell. The damage, per the two older kids? About six lemonades. A fudgesicle. Chocolate chip cookies. And, according to TH, "about 10 soda crackers." Sigh. I'm not making it up when I say that last night, Dubya literally but accidentally ripped a towel rack out of the bathroom wall. He was hanging on it. Pretending to be a monkey.

Thus, it came as no surprise that well before dawn this morning, Little came to me, waking me from a weird dream involving a move from our house with the world's largest moving van. Such a lovely dream. I hope we were moving to Colorado. "My stomach hurts," he complained. Of course, that had me hustling him toward the toilet before my eyes opened, sure that hurling was going to follow close on the heels of that last syllable.

But no. He just needed to "potty." Way off schedule. I won't get into the details (you're welcome), but let's just say he was sugar 'flicted for much of the early morning. The thing is, when Little gets on a sugar high, he's hysterical. If you combine sugar and chocolate, you get a three-year-old with a bad case of the hiccups, drunkenly belting out the parts of Yellow Submarine that make sense to him: "We all...HIC!...live in a...HIC...yewwow submawine, yewwow submawine," followed by a quick interjection of, "HIC!..I am the walwus! Coocoocachoo! HIC!" We've been listening to the remastered Beatles a lot lately. Can you tell?

Funny as that is, we don't care for the effects of sugar or sugar+chocolate on our children and limit both. No matter what the experts say about it, the effects are obvious. I know sugar makes me feel like crap, and it turns my children into almost unrecognizable rumpusing chimpanzees. What is your experience with it?

Sigh. R-word still OK if "modern slang"

There is a blog called...get ready...Retarded in Love. (link has been removed). It's written by a very very young person who thinks she can order her life Just. So. She's got a to-do list that includes getting pregnant on schedule and having, presumably, perfect and lovely healthy children. Dust off hands. All done.

Some of you may be aware that a few of us contacted the blog's author, Michelle, about the title of her blog. Here is what I commented to her:

It would be thoughtful of you to change the title of your blog...yes, this probably comes across as uptight oldness or just plain uptight, but people who actually are labeled as retarded cannot defend themselves when someone uses this term for amusement. While the word itself should not be used as a label, it is still, and we all know exactly what it means. It's painful to people who love someone who is intellectually disabled to see a word like this used for humor by someone who is patently not intellectually disabled. If you must use a term that refers to cognitive deficiency as a result of being overwhelmed by love or made a fool of by love, I suggest "Stupid, " as in "Stupid in Love." God knows that's enough of a norm to avoid being offensive.

I thought that was pretty damned diplo-freaking-matic of me given that what I really wanted to say was, You stupid little young person, get that offensive word out of the name of your blog. It's an idiotic blog title anyway. (Yes, this coming from someone who has "daisymayfattypants" as her URL. Hey, it's my dog. And who's going to be offended by that?).

Ah...callow youth. Here is the self-assured young woman's response:

I realize my blog has come up as a topic on Twitter. I am going to give you the same response I just gave to my last e-mailer.

As long as I've had my blog, I'm sure you know you're not the first person to e-mail me something along these lines.

In my previous experience in debates with others, it comes down to this: agree to disagree. Here's why.

I am not calling any person retarded. In fact, if anything, I am only calling myself retarded. I am not even calling an animal, object, or idea retarded. I am using the word "retarded" in the way of modern slang, without directing it at anyone with the intention of harming feelings. So, the way I see it, it's just others choosing to be offended by my title - it is not being offered that way.

There are plenty of "normal" blog titles I could choose to be offended by, but I choose not to be so sensitive. It's really up to my visitors how far they want to take the meaning behind my title - and if they don't like it, they certainly don't have to come back, or support my blog in any way.

She's decided that this is an "agree to disagree" situation. She chooses "not to be so sensitive." I guess that's pretty easy for her given that she's presumably *not* someone who's actually been labeled as retarded.

Well, I don't agree to that. She defends the word "retarded" as "modern slang." Ah, the old "modern slang" excuse. She probably thinks that's novel, that no one's ever pulled that old chestnut out of their pockets before. I'm pretty sure that the n-word gets that defense, too, but you know what? It's not acceptable to use in a blog name, and it's still damned offensive. Without equivocation, she's in a completely indefensible position, modern slang or not. Hilariously, she thinks that a word that has been in use in this very context (i.e., "retarded in love") is "modern" slang...not realizing, evidently, that even really old people in their 40s like me grew up hearing it used in exactly this way.

So, nope. I don't agree to disagree. I continue to disagree. I urge anyone else who feels the same to do the same.

Oh, and Michelle, you infant, you child, if you read this, good luck with that to-do list. Life evidently has quite a few lessons to teach you. If you're blessed with a special needs child, perhaps you'll gain a better understanding, and--dare I say it--sensitivity about the "modern slang" you choose to toss around so casually.

Autism moms: Are you girly-girls?

I have a reason for asking this question. For several years, I posted on a community message board using a gender-neutral handle. I didn't do it on purpose...it was just the handle I chose. Most women who posted on that site did use handles that indicated their sex, with terms like "babe" or "girl" or "Mrs" or the occasional "Ms" in them. And for a long time--in fact, until I myself revealed my sex--people assumed that I was male. They never figured out based on what I wrote or the way I wrote that I was (still am!) female.

Lately, as readers here know, I've been pondering the women thing. Women who slam women. Women who call other women bullies. And in some of the comments on my "Bullying" post, a few commenters suggested that perhaps the women in question felt bullied because I didn't, as a woman myself, validate their emotion with appropriately womanly or maternal verve.

This and other similar experiences in the real world have led me down a path of thought, and I'd like others' input. As some of you likely know, Baron Cohen et al. have hypothesized that autism may be related to androgenizing in utero. That it's a kind of hyperandrogenized state of being, cold, hard Spock-like thinking and all. As many of us know, analytical thinking and cold hard rationality aren't only the province of men, but they are certainly considered to be largely masculine traits. I won't get into my observations of how men show emotion, too, or how level-headedness can be more contextual than a personality trait.

But I do have a few things to note. I have a low low voice. As in, I still am mistaken on the phone for being male. I've got those weird finger length ratios that indicate that I'm a tad...masculinized. I've got a muscularly analytical brain, and when someone cries around me, I don't think about giving hugs, I try to find them a tissue, even though I may sympathize strongly with their emotion.

This is not to give the impression that I'm a refrigerator mother--heaven forfend--I passionately love the people I love and have no problems expressing that. But I do not seem to view everything through a prism of emotion as many women around me do, and I think it may be one reason we often don't seem to understand one another well. In fact, it often leaves me feeling somewhat disconnected in groups of women. I don't see conflict as bullying or offensive. I view most situations of crisis or concern as problems requiring a solution, rather than an emotional response (although I'm fully capable of saving that up for later, post crisis). Also...I really really hate shopping.

So...any other autism mothers out there who are, um, a bit masculinized? Let me be clear: I'm all woman, people. Just perhaps a little...different. Are you?

Reading the signs

Like a lot of kids, autistic or not, TH is not very good at articulating his feelings. In fact, he may not even be aware that he's having these feelings, yet he shows that they're there in many ways. We always know that something, something is on his mind when he silently materializes downstairs in the evenings, well after his bedtime, just to sit by me and hum or coo. We know there's really something going on when he wants me to come upstairs later and lie down to talk to him. And now we've got a new sign: he wants to come sleep next to me.

And he did. Last night (or this morning, really), we had two big things happen. First of all, our oldest child, who normally sleeps like he's under general anesthesia, actually came into the bathroom at 4:45 a.m. and peed in the toilet. The last time that child was awake at that hour, it was about hurling, not micturating. In fact, it was such a strikingly unusual event that both of his parents woke up and came to the bathroom, concerned that it was one of the first signs of an impending apocalypse.

The second thing he did that he has not done in...I don't know how long...was to come sleep next to me. This child is the most restless sleeper I've ever known. He never stops moving. Our other two, who've slept next to me more frequently, are quiet, still sleepers, so still you'd hardly know they're there. Not TH. He fidgets and twitches and shifts. Every few minutes, I get an elbow in the ribs or twitchy little fingers bumping my arm or a full body wiggle. I didn't really care because I'm tired enough these days to at least doze pretty well through all of that.

This comes across as big stuff. What's on his mind? We'll learn, but I don't know when. For TH, these emotions, their names and their causes, have to percolate for some time before they bubble up, usually in the dark, after his bedtime, when I'm lying next to him having one of our nighttime chats. Invariably, in the midst of one of our typically discursive conversations, he'll suddenly out with it, usually some anxiety bomb so surprising that I'm glad he can't see my facial expression in the dark. So, we wait, patiently.

Meanwhile, he remains classic TH in many ways. This morning when he woke up in our bedroom, he found that his dad had laid out his school clothes on our bed. TH usually has his clothes laid out in his own room, where he dresses every morning. Unable to handle this slight change in routine, he insisted on taking his clothes from our bed and putting them on the floor in his own room, where he then proceeded to get dressed. As per the usual routine.

TH is angry?

If you know TH or have read enough about him here, you know that anger isn't an emotion he expresses a lot or even very clearly. His version of anger is to squinch up his face in a grimace for about 2 seconds. Then, the feeling appears to pass immediately, and he moves on.

So, it's coming as a surprise to us this last week or two that he's expressed anger in two ways, talking to us about his anger at a specific aide at his school and actually getting physically angry with his BFF in gym class.

Don't get me wrong. He's gotten annoyed with his younger brother Dubya and sneaked in a minor blow or two. Like any two brothers who are close in age and who spend almost every hour together, that's gonna happen. But we've never seen him express this level of anger, especially about the aide.

And the causes seem minor to us. Since school started, he's been reporting frequently that at lunch, he "forgets" to eat because he's so busy talking to people near him. He's a huge talker, doing it almost compulsively, especially in surroundings with lots of sensory input, like big cafeterias full of noisy chattering children, food smells, and endless movement. That sets him off, so he talkstalkstalks. Concerned that our overgrown oldest wasn't getting enough midday nutrition, we asked his behavioral specialist if someone could just check on him and remind him to eat.

The aide charged with this duty has been, perhaps, a tad overzealous. TH gets in the car almost every day complaining that she's "bothered" him, made him eat some food he doesn't like (like sweet potatoes or melons, and I'm right there with him...ugh). Normally, he'd brush off something like this, but he really really really doesn't like being harassed at lunch. As he exclaimed to me yesterday in his usual 80-dB voice, "Lunch is my only time to talk! And she keeps bothering me! Telling me to eat foods I don't LIKE!" The aide apparently has also extended her dominion over his activities to the playground and a couple of other venues, and TH's antipathy about the situation is so strong that he takes anything she says as an offense.

I don't encourage this kind of blanket response to a person, and I also am not going to run to his "rescue." I've told him that he should tell his behavioral specialist--who knows him VERY well--about his feelings and see if that leads to any changes. The only problem is, I think this aide may also be the person who helps him open his milk cartons at lunch. He's also been telling me that these are hard to open and when he can't do it, he just sits there, without his milk. But there's always that delightfully cold water fountain, I suppose.

The other incident with his BFF is more disturbing. They were having a disagreement in gym class about strength. BFF did something, and TH, as he put it, "pushed him down, and he cried a little." And then TH said, "Sometimes, I just lose control of myself like that." It's odd that he'd say that, because I've never known him to lose control of himself in anger. In excitement? Yes. In fear? Yes. Anxiety? Yes. Anger? Um...no.

We're not sure how the BFF ultimately responded to what TH describes as his repeated apologies. He was obviously quite worried about the effect of his behavior on his BFF. But he's never clear on describing other people's feelings or responses to him, which makes understanding the conclusion of episodes like these frustratingly difficult. Is the relationship over? Are their plans to form a rock band on hold? Will they no longer be roommates in college?

Overreacting parent that I am, I'm now angsting myself about a couple of things. Is this some beginning of early preadolescent expressions of anger? Will my cheerful, quick-to-get-over-it, funny, happy 8-year-old boy turn into some kind of hormonal, angry spawn I don't recognize any more?

Or...is he finally feeling and expressing something that many children have recognized in themselves their whole lives?

Out of all of the technological advances we've seen even in our own lifetimes, why o' why is it that no one has invented a decent crystal ball? The Magic 8 Ball keeps giving me conflicting responses, and I can't figure out how to interpret "Outlook good."

Bullying?

TH may be experiencing a little bit of bullying again at school. There are signs. Yesterday, he got in the car, made some vague allusions to children saying "violent" things to him, and then proceeded to be off the hook for the rest of the day: vocalizing, nonstop movement, flapping, completely out of focus. Homework was quite an adventure.

He experiences bullying for the usual reasons, and he experiences the usual kinds of bullying. Sometimes, it's kids who "trick" him into doing something that he thinks he's doing for its inherent humor but that really is just making a fool out of him. Other times, it's more direct--taunting, threats, that kind of stuff.

So...and now this is about me...given my hyperawareness of bullying and my utter distaste for sadism of any kind, I'm a tad bemused by accusations of bullying I and others have been receiving over on a couple of BlogHer or BlogHer-related posts about vaccines. It's weird to me to be accused of bullying, and I honestly don't even understand how women interacting virtually, with me on one side and a handful on the other, can call anything about this situation "bullying." And how on God's green earth could I, by myself, or other posters, by themselves, be bullying them? I don't know. Where I come from, exchanges involving disagreement are just that: exchanges. Discussions. Conversations. I'm there contributing factual information (sure, I'm blunt, but not personal at all), making the occasional ironic aside. How does that perspective on my part or the part of anyone else cross the line into...bullying?

Curious about the accuracy of the accusations, I turned to Google U to find out what the expert and dictionary definitions of bullying are. I know it when I see it, but...what is it, really? Wikipedia tells us that, "Bullying is repeated acts over time that involves a real or perceived imbalance of power with the more powerful child or group attacking those who are less powerful." Um...nope. That doesn't fit.

An education site quotes Tattum and Tattum (1992; no idea who they are) as follows: "Bullying is the wilful, conscious desire to hurt another and put him/her under stress." Nope. That's not it, either. Hurting people is not my thing. Not even people I almost hate, and certainly not people I don't even know. This site goes on to say that "bullying occurs when there is an imbalance of power." Hmmm. Our powers all appear to be the same. We all seem to be cognitively functional, able to type, form sentences, argue, use the Internets.

Realpsychology.com defines bully thusly: "an intentional act of aggression, based on an imbalance of power, that is meant to harm a victim either physically or psychologically. Bullies usually operate alone or in small groups and choose to victimize individuals who they perceive as vulnerable." Again...no one involved here seems to be a vulnerable population. No one seems to be at some kind of disadvantage. In other words, we all seem to be fully capable. And on my part, at least, there is certainly a complete lack of intention. Yes, we are women arguing, something I've already addressed recently. But bullying? Oh, hell no.

Bullying, in my opinion, isn't a word to throw around lightly. It's serious. It demeans, it degrades, it demoralizes. It's power wielded sadistically against a weaker target, something any one of us has the capacity to do and the choice not to do. It's what happens to my son on the playground or at school or in the swimming pool or at birthday parties, targeted for his vulnerabilities in ways that give sadistic pleasure to the perpetrators. I know bullying when I see it, and sisters, this online exchange over vaccines ain't it.

The Mercola "Facts" poster

OK...there's a huge Mercola article alleging that the H1N1 pandemic is a "massive" illusion (created by, presumably, very large magicians with great big scary magic wands). I'm pondering tackling the entire article, but meanwhile, I think it'd be OK if I took on the "fact" sheet they offer to anyone who'd like to print it and hang it up in their communities. See below each "fact" (there's really only one true--in intent and content--fact on there) and my parsing of it. I'd aver that if this list of 10 "facts" has something squirrelly about it, that lengthy tome accompanying it might have a wee bit o' the rodent about it, too. We could start with their obvious incapacity to understand the definition of "pandemic."

Also...what is up with the creepy alien hand on that "fact" sheet? Is that what getting a vaccine does to you? It makes your hands transparent and boneless?

Anyway...

1. "Fact": Multidose vials of seasonal and injectable H1N1 swine flu vaccines contain MERCURY (all caps theirs), which is a "known neurotoxin."

Observations: The actual compound of the preservative in question is called thimerosal. It consists in part (about half) of a kind of mercury called ethylmercury. Millions of doses of the seasonal vaccine are made available that do not have thimerosal. If you're concerned about the multidose formulation, ask about single-dose formulations. Or get the nasal vaccine, which is not made using thimerosal. And "mercury" is not a monolithic term describing any and all forms of mercury. Routes of exposure, chemical composition, and concentrations all play a role in whether or not it will cause harm. Water is a great example. Ingested, it's OK...unless you ingest too much. Inhaled, it'll kill you. Topical exposure is OK...unless you're exposed over a very long term. Oh, and molecular content matters, too. The difference between ethylmercury and methylmercury is a matter of a couple of atoms. No biggie? Well, the difference between H2O (good old water) and D2O (heavy water) is a matter of a neutron...yet heavy water is highly toxic in any number of ways in sufficient concentrations. In biochemical reactions, a small change can make a huge difference.

2. "Fact": Some "swine flu" (quotes mine) vaccines contain formaldehyde and exposure to formaldehyde has been shown to increase the risk of developing certain CANCERS (all caps theirs).

Observations: This old chestnut? Still? Formaldehyde is a carcinogen. So is estrogen. Oh, and enjoy this little read about the naturally occurring carcinogens in our diet. Or google "aflatoxins" and then stop eating peanut butter. The issue is, once again, that it's the dose that makes the poison. Oh, and the fact that the body actually makes formaldehyde, too, more than you ever receive in a vaccine. Bottom line: the amount of formaldehyde in vaccines ain't gonna give you cancer any more than that peanut butter sandwich will.

3. "Fact": It is unknown whether or not it is safe to give the "swine flu" vaccine to all pregnant women, children, and adults especially if they are chronically ill or sick at the time of the vaccine.

Observations: First of all, look at this list of clinical trials. And then check out the results of this trial. Looks like (a) we've got trials people establishing the safety and (b) we've got trials specific to pregnant women with real numbers and real results, not made-up "facts." This "fact" is also misleading because no one claims that it is safe to give any vaccine to "all" individuals in a given population, and there are clear clinical guidelines for determining who should receive a vaccine and who can have a nasal vs. jab vaccination.

4. "Fact": After the "swine flu" vaccinations of 1976, there was an increased risk of developing Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS).

Observations: Yes, that's true. But 1976 was 33 years ago, and this vaccine is emphatically not that vaccine. Once again, this "fact" is simply meant to imply an assertion on the part of public health experts that has not actually been made. The "swine flu" vaccination of 1976 is simply not relevant here.

5. "Fact": Guillian-Barre and "brain inflammation" has (sic) been reported after seasonal flu vaccination.

Observations: From the CDC, "In most studies, no association was found, but two studies suggested that approximately 1 additional person out of 1 million people may be at risk for GBS associated with the seasonal influenza vaccine." Two studies of several. One in a million, literally. Better odds than those for being hospitalized or dying from the flu, that. For a great parsing of the relevance of GBS in the context of flu vaccines, read this.

6. H1N1 vaccines have not been evaluated for their ability to cause cancer, impair fertility, or damage genes.

Observations: This is another misleading statement, meant to imply that someone has totally dropped the ball here in a huge rush or that these are things that vaccines might do to you. Neither of these is the case. The Strategic Advisory Group of Experts to WHO has found that studies in experimental animals (human studies would need to be longitudinal) with all forms of influenza vaccines have found no effects on fertility and no harm to pregnancy or to the fetus. The contents of these vaccines are well tested over decades for their carcinogenic and mutagenic properties at relevant doses. For a review of the relevance of concentration, exposure routes, and timing of exposure, please see 2, above. You don't develop cancer from an acute, very low-dose exposure to any of the ingredients of influenza vaccines and more than you do from eating that peanut butter sandwich.

7. "Fact": It is not known whether the H1N1 vaccine can harm the fetus of a pregnant woman.

Observations: See 5, above, and 3. And remember that what is known is (a) having influenza while pregnant is not a good thing for the mother or the fetus, and (b) this particular influenza preferentially severely affects pregnant women. Mercola argues that these women are also obese or that many are, and that this somehow negates the need for pregnant women to have the vaccine. I'll be walking on that one in another post.

8. "Fact": One manufacturer product insert for the H1N1 vaccine states that immune response was evaluated only in 31 children between the ages of 6-26 months.

Observations: Obviously intended to scare the hell out of anyone--and I'm still struggling to figure out what their dog is in this hunt (beyond the obvious fact that they have something--books! books! books!--to sell). See above, 3, for the list of clinical trials. For updates on the results of these trials, read here. There is no trial or safety-testing vacuum here.

9. "Fact": The live virus nasal spray H1N1 vaccine is not recommended for pregnant women or for children under age 2 or anyone with a history of asthma.

Observations: Doh! They were soooo close. Of course, they're still trying to freak people out, so they mention ONLY children, pregnant women, and asthma. The well-disseminated clinical guidelines for this nasal vaccine--which are no different from those for seasonal flu vaccine--are actually more detailed than this and include, in addition to the above heart-string-plucking populations, people 50 or older (so hard to use them for fearmongering), people who are at high risk for complications from flu (e.g., chronic heart or lung conditions, kidney failure, diabetes, immunosuppression), children under age 5 years with a history of wheezing, anyone who's had GBS recently, and anyone who's allergic to chicken eggs. (finally corrected HTML error there. Sorry).

10. "Fact": The H1N1 strain has not been associated with more deaths than previous seasonal flu strains.

Observations: It's funny how you can use pregnant women and children to scare people and then avoid mentioning them at all for a different purpose. The fact is, more pregnant women and more children are dying from this flu. More otherwise apparently healthy people. Seasonal flu has a certain predictability about it in terms of whom it kills that makes us complacent even as tens of thousands of people die from it yearly. But H1N1? It defies those predictions and targets healthy groups. That and its potential to go virulent are what have public health experts urging vaccination.

People are free, of course, to read the Mercola "fact" sheet and be manipulated and to try to use it to manipulate others. Or, they're free to get into the messy details and really examine the true facts--facts about biochemistry, about bioavailability, about carcinogenicity, about what words truly mean, about sins of omission and commission, about accuracy in language and in science--and draw conclusions accordingly.

Other links (added as they arise):

A news release confirming risk to pregnant women (11/3)

H1N1 expected to cause more deaths in northern winter; 5,712 dead so far worldwide (11/5)

A mom reconsiders. USA Today (11/6)

From HuffPo: A question of harm (11/7; thanks to Liz Ditz via Twitter)

My blog post, copied and pasted in its entirety (don't remember giving permission for that), at Democratic Underground (11/9). Some seem unable to understand the meaning of "sins of omission and commission."

A WaPo blogger weighs in on the confusion (11/9)

And so does MSNBC (11/9)

I can't leave out LBRB's takedown of AoA and the latest on H1N1 in the UK (11/9)

No more Aspergers? Poor Hans.

Forget the vaccine-misogyny thing! They're about to take away my baby's label!

The New York Times reports that the proposed DSM-V (shudder. deep breath. sigh.) will roll Asperger's into autism spectrum disorder, period, and render the diagnosis of "Asperger's" obsolete.

Nooooooo!

I'm kidding. TH is going to be excited as all get out when I tell him that the dreaded "ass burgers," as he spells it and thinks it's said, may vanish from the lexicon. Temple Grandin, it seems, would like to see it stay.

From my perspective, it doesn't change much, and I think it's a good idea to stop trying to parse arbitrary divisions. People tend to latch onto these and "accuse" Aspies in particular of not being "real" autistics. TH is autistic. Born that way. Seems headed to stay that way. As one strugging DSM-V-er describes it in the piece, the committee intends to define autism based on core elements common to all types: impaired social communication and repetitive behaviors or fixated interests. She goes on to say that in autism "everybody is a snowflake," and praises the analogy as "perfect."

We love our little snowflake (really, he's quite pale), impaired social communication, repetitive behaviors, fixated interests, and all. When he refers to himself, it's sometimes as "autistic," but most often, it's "just a kid." And that's what really matters, regardless of what the DSM-V decides to call him.

Vaccines, feminism, autism, motherhood

In discussions across the Web, a theme that emerges repeatedly is, "Should a mother have her child vaccinated?" Yes, "balanced" media outlets say "parent," but the reality is that this discussion occurs primarily among mothers. A peek, for example, at the comments on this post over at BlogHer gives you an idea of how the discussions percolate, with the mother having the final decision (and leaves me wondering, "How does one keep 'x-rays to a minimum,' exactly?). Interestingly, in my excursions through commentary on the Internets, I encounter quite a bit of "Dad says yes vs. Mom says no" stories.

And vaccination, it would seem, is a very maternal concern. We are often (usually? almost always?) the ones who take the little ones to the doctor, oversee the jab(s), nod our heads, initial the papers, expose them to the risks. Yes, there are risks. But as I've noted repeatedly on this blog, the benefits of vaccinations--personally and for society--far far outweigh the risks. By values of many orders of magnitude.

Thus, the womanly associations are intertwined with choosing or not choosing to vaccinate a child, and a maternal scrum invariably results from any news story about it, especially in the unsupportable climate of fear over the innocuous (pardon the pun) H1N1 vaccine. I've noted in my travels through the world of vaccine commentary that it's just fine for a woman and a mother to state that she's not having her child vaccinated, but if a woman clearly states that she is or argues on the side of rationality, well...that's tantamount to child abuse. And brings on accusations of exactly that.

Nowhere do the shrieking misogynist hordes come out torches flaring more than they do on anti-vax autism sites. While it's perfectly acceptable on those sites to claim maternal protectiveness of your child and deride vaccines as poison, doing otherwise means it's torch-and-pitchfork time. Even as antivax mothers claim the right to parent as they choose (and it's certainly their right), women who choose otherwise from them are child abusers who don't take care of their children, don't know the first thing about keeping children safe, don't have a clue what it means to be a "good mother." I've personally been told that because I vaccinate my children, I must also be a mother who never sends her children outside and never breastfed and who stuffs her children with all manner of processed, non-organic foods, all dyed red. I'm a woman who just doesn't get what it means to really really care about my children. That, of course, reduces me from 100% true womanhood to some lesser being, not quite woman enough to be a good mother.

In the interests of honesty, I've never gone to a site and masqueraded as a father who is for vaccination. But my guess is that such an experiment in sex attitudes would yield a very different response from the howling hooligans of the antivax crowd. I envision a "there, there, you're a dad, let me explain this to you carefully because you don't really know how to parent and you don't understand the nuances of child safety the way mothers do." And I've noted without this experiment that when a poster with a male persona expresses information based in science about vaccines, that poster is less likely (this is a qualitation, not a quantification) to be vilified as a terrible parent who crosses the border into child abuse with every jab. Naturally, that parent is also less likely to be accused of never having breastfed his child.

In a special group are the mothers who, based on gut instinct or rational decisionmaking or both, decided to vaccinate their children and who have children who are autistic. We are a unique bunch, once upon a time blamed for our children's autism because we were refrigerators, reduced to cooling appliances capable of performing a service but lacking in the necessary emotions to accompany it. Our inability to emote and exhibit warmth, according to adherents of this idea, led to our designation as Refrigerator Mothers. Where were the fathers in all of this?

I guess they just didn't matter. There, there.

And now we have an expansion of the anti-woman toxic talk. It's not enough to abuse women who choose to vaccinate their children. It's not enough to denigrate or ignore completely the role of fathers in this discussion, or to dismiss them because as men, naturally they lack the necessary emotion to really understand keeping their child safe. It's not enough to target autism mothers as responsible for their child's autism, once as Refrigerator Mom, now as Mom Who Chose Vaccination. Nope. We get to shoot the female messengers, too.

I posted here a few months ago a story by Jonathan Rabinovitz published in Stanford Medicine. It's a great piece that clearly lays out aspects of the autism-vaccine tale. There was not a place for comments, but Rabinovitz posts frequently on a related blog. A review of the comments on his posts on this blog yields nothing much in the way of sexist commentary. Instead, you can find fairly restrained questions and answers, in an atmosphere of relative calm. Unless you check out the blog post about Amy Wallace's story in Wired. Note the comment. This post was written by Stephanie Pappas, who is, presumably, female. In the comment, a certain well-known autism parent blogger notes, "Good one sided (sic) cheerleading!"

That female-related comment is just the beginning. While the notoriously misogynist Age of Autism--and they're proof to anyone who's wondering that yes, women can be misogynists, too--doesn't appear to have a single post about Rabinovitz's piece, it lost no time in attacking Amy Wallace, the woman who wrote the Wired piece. AoA mouthpiece and misogynist extraordinaire J.B. Handley went so far as to use rape imagery (Paul Offit as perp, Wallace as victim) in his excoriation of a woman who dared to write a pro-vaccine piece before he hastily retracted that symbolism and replaced it with a lesser example of his rampant hatred of all things female. And Wallace has received many comments laden with anti-woman terms, calling her a whore and a prostitute, among other treasured epithets. (Wallace posts much of what she receives--good and bad--on her Twitter feed, which you can read here).

Thus, it seems that women have much to bear, especially if we choose to vaccinate our children or choose to use rational argument and science to defend vaccination, or both. We're child abusers, prostitutes, whores, large cooling appliances, cheerleaders, rape victims. As I watch this misogyny manifest itself in ways large and small, subtle and overt, I find myself reminded repeatedly of the great line attributed to Elizabeth I: "Had I, my lords, been born crested not cloven, you had not treated me thus." Of course, she uttered those words more than 400 years ago. It would seem that as far as we women have come, we still have a long way to go, baby.