I've looked into this recently, and alas, many parents are complaining that various vaccines caused Autism in their children. I feel like a lot of this is coming from a generation where knowledge of Autism wasn't commonplace, so they're treating it like an epidemic (if that makes sense).
On the contrary, I've been looking at my Astrological Chart lately, and it describes my personality exactly. It states that I need a break from socializing every now and then, how I'm very passionate about the things I love, and that I have a strange sense of humor that doesn't seem apparent until you really get to know me. These all seem to be Aspie traits, at least in my case - I find it interesting that it's written into my chart.. (If you are interested in reading your own birth chart, then click here. Good explanations of traits assigned based on where the planets fall can be found here.)
Now, Astrology may not necessarily be the most valid form of analyzing oneself, but it is scarily accurate. Your Astrological Chart is determined at birth by where the planets are placed in relaton to your birth location at that specific time. I know this is really a stretch, but if my personality was supposedly determined at my birth, and the Pertussis vaccine was given a year or so later, how much could possibly have been changed?
I'm not going to deny that the vaccine didn't give me any problems, for I had plenty of behavioral issues growing up (though I can't attribute those problems to the vaccine, either...), but my personality has always been the same - I've just had to learn how to utilize it to benefit myself and my surroundings. Also, I think a great deal of Autism Spectrum Conditions are genetic. Some immediate family members display a few traits, and I have a cousin who is also an Aspie, and another cousin with ADHD. This is often the case - many individuals on the spectrum have relatives who share traits as well.
What I really don't like about the vaccine theory is that it solidifies the idea of Autism as a Disorder, rather than a different way of percieving the world. I don't want to see myself as the result of a science experiment gone wrong. If the vaccine had any impact on who I am today,and if perhaps in 50 years we find out that this vaccine actually did cause Autism in thousands of children, then I'd much rather see myself as Peter Parker turning into Spiderman. If society wants to think we're an epidemic that needs to be cured, talents and all, here's what I have to say: these are the things that make us unique, and I'd rather my case be comparable to Spiderman's (issues and all) over the average person any day.
Here is my rant on the subject, hope it made sense.
3 comments:
The vaccine theory found prominence when it was discovered that injecting rodents with mercury could produce similar effects to autism.
They went one further with a flawed hypothesis...
Mercury poisoning creates autistic traits therefore all people displaying autistic traits must have mercury poisoning.
In applying this generalization, they had to account for autistic children who were diagnosed at an early age. What could they have in common? - how could they have been exposed to Mercury.
Finally, they settled on immunization as a cause because in the US, some early (long-discontinued) immunizations actually did contain mercury.
Of course, they ignored the fact that Mercury was NEVER in Australian vaccines - yet we have a high number of autistic children in the country.
BTW: I'm not a big believer in astrology but my chart does seem spot-on and very aspie.
You can see my results here. I'd be interested to find out if you got exactly the same.
Astrological charts will not be identical but will have similar characteristics. Much of mine http://lizziek8.blogspot.com is very right on, and I can bend the rest to fit me...
The best way to see if the information is accurate is to have someone else read it and see if it describes you. Although we do see ourselves better than most NTs, I think, we still have some filters.
I can't take the vaccine theory very seriously. I'm willing to suspend disbelief enough to consider it's a possibility that in some cases it might be a contributing factor to... what? "Autism-like behaviors" I think they call it. I dunno.
But beyond that, as someone who's been described by other people who live with me and certainly spend enough time around me to observe how I act every single day, in order to gauge if there is something "unusual" about me... and I've been described as anything from "Aspie" to "... you're pretty autistic" (their words, not mine) by them, I find it pretty funny that I never received a vaccination for anything (my parents' choice, that was, I'd like to actually change this and get vaccinated someday when I can afford it).
I don't believe in astrology but I enjoy looking at things like that anyway, so I checked it. Some things were accurate, other things were extremely inaccurate (such as claims that I'm "very outgoing" and "always finish a project").
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