The Parent Bloggers Network

It’s fairly easy to provoke an argument among parents, since so many hold such strong views on a variety of parenting choices.  “Some topics of discussion can really get parents riled up - cloth vs. disposable diapers, circumcise or not, breast vs. bottle, cry it out vs. co-sleeping, on and on and on. And another topic that can get heated is that of vaccinations. Do you vaccinate on schedule according to doctors, do you refuse them altogether, or do you pick and choose?”

Most parenting choices don’t require scientific evidence to make an informed decision.  In most cases, we simply do what works for us.  But when it comes to vaccination, our actions have a greater span of influence than we may realize.  When parents choose not to vaccinate, “what the well-intentioned parents and guardians fail to realize, largely because most of them did not live prior to the vaccinations we take for granted, is that what may seem just minor illnesses remain potent dangers and are still possibly deadly.”  In fact, “when some parents and guardians stop vaccinating their children, we all become more susceptible to viruses again – it is called a reduction in the herd immunity which is actually strengthened when a majority of the population is resistant – they act as a barrier, stopping the disease from attacking even the most vulnerable.”

That is, if enough people forego vaccinations, we ALL - vaccinated or not - are at greater risk to contract these diseases.  That’s why vaccination is a public health issue.  As one blogger paraphrased Offit: “When vaccines work, nothing happens. People take them for granted.”

Not only is it amazing “…to learn that many of the vaccines we give children today were invented relatively recently,” but also to realize “…that they were created, at the time, in laboratory conditions [we] can’t fathom, and tested before regulations made products safer and red tape made the process a little slower is simply mind boggling.”  It was certainly an “uphill battle Hilleman sometimes faced to get adequate funding and facilities.”

However, some of Hilleman’s methods are deserving of criticism.  “Many vaccines at the time were tested on institutionalized mentally retarded children.  Hilleman rationalized it by pointing out that retarded children, who were confined to institutions, were at greater risk during outbreaks of diseases…”  That “not even Hilleman’s use of retarded children as lab rats gets more than a sentence of critical scrutiny” was especially disturbing to one blogger.  But another blogger concluded instead that “There are some perceivably ugly bits to this story, and they are not shied away from, but are stated and humanized without sensationalizing.”  And another blogger, discussing the testing done on volunteers (as opposed to those in institutions or his own children), concluded that “it says a lot about him that they would be willing to allow him to inject a live strain of a dreaded disease into their bodies - clearly he gained a lot of trust based on his work.”

As in the first half of our blogger reviews, the alleged MMR-autism link was a common topic.  This blogger summarized the book’s take extremely well:

“In clear, simple, and direct language, he details the scientific studies that have been undertaken to address the hugely troubling and important question of whether vaccinations cause autism. A complicating factor in answering this question is that the MMR vaccine (thought by some to be the bad guy with respect to autism) is typically administered at around the same time that the first symptoms of autism tend to appear (between the ages of one and two). Thus when a parent searches for antecedents to his or her child’s autistic behavior, the MMR vaccine readily comes to mind, because it was most likely administered close to symptom onset.

Offit reviews a number of studies examining the autism-vaccination link and concludes that there is no evidence of a connection between the two. The rates of autism in children who receive the MMR vaccine are no higher than those in children who do not receive the vaccine; it’s that pure and simple.”

Meanwhile, another blogger recalled her own personal experience with rotavirus - specifically, when her toddler son was infected:

“When the author mentioned a new vaccine for rotavirus, I had a flashback of my son at 20-months laying on the couch too weak to move and too sick to even care. For five days, he couldn’t even keep down a few swallows of water. He lost more than six pounds in a 12-day period. My husband was out of town. I was alone and overwhelmed with fear for my little boy. I’m grateful that now other children won’t have to endure such misery. And many parents won’t have to either.”

Thanks to the rotavirus vaccine - invented in part by the author of Vaccinated, Paul Offit.

Many valid reasons to delay vaccinations do exist - a family history of sensitivity leads the list.  But considering how much time we parents spend researching other choices, it only makes sense to fully explore the science behind vaccinations before opting not to follow the course.  As one blogger concluded her review: “Before you decided to not vaccinate… I encourage you to read this book.  Before I read this book, I thought vaccinating was a good idea.  After reading it, I KNOW it’s a good idea.”

Thanks to all of our parent bloggers who read and reviewed Vaccinated!  If you’d like to purchase a copy yourself, click here!

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I knew “Garage Sale America” author Bruce Littlefield was enthusiastic about garage saling.  What I didn’t know was just how enthusiastic our parent bloggers are too.  But after reading the first set of reviews, I have to admit that I might have a new way to keep myself and my kids occupied on Friday mornings.

(Yes, Fridays.  Biggest day for garage sales around here.  I thought it was strange too.)

How can I not be inspired after reading blogger tales such as these?

• “Then there was that time when [my husband] scored a rare Fire King jadite breakfast bowl at a church rummage sale for a quarter. He knew I loved green glass, but what he didn’t know was that his score is worth $125 on the eBay market.” 
• “Once I found an antique Heywood-Wakefield child’s rocking chair in one of these stores, not what I was looking for but a good find nonetheless. I balked at the price tag and decided to pass and I’ve been kicking myself in the tuckus ever since.”
• “So there I am, reading Garage Sale America all these years later, and on the eighth page in, a colorful set of mixing bowls in a photo catches my eye. I look closer, and I realize that those are MY mixing bowls! Not only that, but in the photo is a advertising brochure that identifies them as a set of New! Pyrex Bowls in the colors of Spring Flowers…only $2.50 each!”

As the owner of those mixing bowls put it, “There are unbelievable treasures to be found at garage sales, if you just know where to look.”

Garage Sale America “takes you through Littlefield’s home, his adventures garage-saling and the people he meets along the way. There are helpful tips and hints sprinkled through out the book, along with spotlights on garage salers, artists, and collectors. I enjoyed not only seeing what Littlefield scored at the world’s largest garage sale, but also how he blended the items into his home decor.”  Another blogger adds that the book is: “Part primer for erstwhile garage-salers and shoppers, part cultural analysis of an intriguing popular phenomenon, Garage Sale America taps into why people like me (and the neighbors I drag out of bed on a Friday morning to ride shotgun) get all of a twitter about a decent garage sale.”

Even for those who are trying to curtail their garage saling habit (”Despite my promise to avoid old shit, I still like to look for that gem, that rare find that will make my house less cheap subdivision and more shabby chic.”) or those who’ve tried unsuccessfully to acquire it (”I haven’t got an eighth of [Littlefield's] panache, and have never been successful at garage saling, but this book was an interesting read and inspiring to boot.”), Garage Sale America was a hit.  Littlefield “goes into great detail discussing collectibles found and ways people have made fortunes with cheap purchases, and made me see vintage in a whole new light.”  He even corroborated one blogger’s supposedly crazy friend’s way of identifying Bakelite:

“Is this Bakelite?

I don’t know, rub it. Does it smell like burning hair?

Wha? Rub it and what?

I thought she was kidding, really and truly. I had filed the incident away in the My Best Friend Is NUTS folder until I came across this tip in [the book]. Upon finding the helpful hints for identifying Bakelite, I had to pick up the phone and let her know she wasn’t so crazy after all.”

One of our avid garage salers hails from England, where “Car Boot sales, the slightly glum British equivalent of the Garage Sale, involve early wet mornings surrounded by lots of other families who have lugged their knick knacks to a school playing field. I should know, as I seem to remember sitting in front of our open trunk and watching my brother’s eyes glisten as his various Star Wars figures get carted off.”  She goes on to praise America’s garage sales, noting that: ”There is something about a Saturday morning Garage Saling in the midwest that is infinitely more fun and quintessentially American.”

And another blogger reminisced about her own trek along the World’s Longest Yard Sale:  “I actually shopped about 150 miles of the 450-mile-long U.S. 127 Sale in 2004. For work, no less. I was the creative brain behind a partnership between Suave and the Style Network’s The Look for Less, so I got to watch four women compete for the title of America’s Smartest Shopper (by creating outfits exclusively from yard sale finds) and I was given a huge pile of cash to spend on prizes for a related sweepstakes. It was an unbelievable event: mile after mile and table after table of stuff, priced from a nickel up to $5000. Old baby clothes, farmhouse furniture, guns, tools and vintage cars. Everything was for sale and every car held shoppers. I don’t think traffic ever picked up beyond 30 miles per hour.”  What a great work assignment!

What really caught my attention were the blogger comments regarding design.  I can shop all day long, but that doesn’t mean I know what to do with my finds.  One blogger reminds us that “Littlefield is, after all, a designer, and the book has a section on interior design with these cheap treasures. As a matter of fact, Littlefield has furnished his own house almost completely with items he’s purchased at yard sales. It’s a helluva lot more interesting than Pottery Barn.”  And another blogger agrees: “After reading Garage Sale America’s section on design, I am going to try to keep my eyes peeled for unexpected items can be worked into our decor.”

I love the idea of treasure-hunting and pulling disparate pieces into a cohesive style, and I have to admit that these blogger reviews have really piqued my interest in both “Garage Sale America” and the activity of garage saling itself.  Check out the second half of our blogger reviews coming up, along with the final round-up here at PBN!

6/25 Her Bad Mother, Ruth Dynamite
6/26 Formula Fed and Flexible Parenting
6/27 Mama Tulip
6/28 Buzz Review Blog
6/29 Karianna, Sarah’s Dandelions
7/2 Quarter Rest
7/3 Round-Up Review at PBN

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More than any other review excerpt thus far, this quote best summarizes what makes Vaccinated such a compelling read:

“Maurice Hilleman may be the most important person you’ve never heard of. World over, millions of lives have been saved by this man, and the living, breathing people he saved, going about business as usual, don’t even know it.”

Vaccinated covers not only the vaccines created by Hilleman himself - measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, pneumococcus, meningococcus, and Hib - but also “the history of all vaccines, including the work of other scientists. It describes how vaccines were invented and what methods were used to make each of them,” which makes it all the more interesting “since all manner of history, science, and sociology were thrown in as well.”

Hilleman won neither fame nor fortune for his work (nor were those his goals), and vaccinology remains much the same today.  “Vaccines are manufactured by very few pharmaceutical companies at the present time because their production is not a high income venture. They use extreme caution and care in creation of these serums which protect our lives and those of our families. Many of the vaccinologists put in long hours of dedicated work for little recognition and no intention of gaining anything except the greater good for mankind.”

Vaccines are still a relatively new phenomena.  “In the 1950s there were only four vaccines at a cost of about $4. We now have sixteen vaccines, some requiring multiple shots, at the cost of over $1000.”  That’s a lot of new discoveries in only fifty years (and don’t forget to take inflation into account when comparing those dollar figures).  As another blogger commented, “The thing that was incredibly eye opening while reading this book is just how recent many of the medical advancements (vaccines, antibiotics, etc.) that we take for granted are.”

While Hilleman was not the inventor of the polio vaccine, two of our bloggers - interestingly, two who have deviated somewhat from the standard course of vaccinations due to their own children’s reactions - recalled family friends who had been struck by polio.  One wrote: “My mother recalls when her best friend came down with polio. They had to gesture to each other from several backyards away since they couldn’t play together anymore. Parents used to fear many of the diseases that are now part of the routine immunization schedule.”

The other knew the polio victim herself, and this woman comes to mind whenever others ask her about her stance on immunization:  “That visual confirmation of the horror that vaccines prevent looms large in my mind. Most people don’t have this sort of reference to draw from. They have never lived in an age of a pandemic, never experienced in anyway the true horrors that vaccines prevent.”

The final three chapters of Vaccinated deal with the controversies of vaccination, and according to one blogger, they “should be mandatory reading for anyone who questions whether or not vaccinations are necessary.”  She goes on to say that “one of the reasons why I feel safe to take my young children out into society, allowing them to play with other children, is that I assume that those children have been vaccinated…What about the parents who are essentially counting on everyone else to immunize their children so that their own non-immunized kid won’t get sick?”  Another blogger chimes in with essentially the same sentiment: “After reading this book, I’m even more convinced of the necessity of vaccinating all children, especially my own.”

While the book is undeniably pro-vaccine, its basis is science, not editorial:  ”The explanations of the history of vaccines, and the scientific data [are] pretty unemotional. Even when showing that vaccinating is preferable after analyzing data, the author still completely articulated the opposing argument and then rebutted it.”  Another blogger agrees, noting that: “Even though this is a touchy subject for some, I feel that Offit does a nice job of compiling the facts and presenting them in a way that few would find offensive.”

One blogger - a former neuroscience researcher whose son is on the autistic spectrum - is still not sure about how well the associated risks have been refuted.  “Without taking up a huge debate over the issue, I’ll say that neither side has me convinced.”  She goes on to theorize - quite sensibly - that: “I do think that for sensitive kids, the sheer number of vaccines may be problematic. This isn’t that the vaccine causes autism, but rather that too much too soon combined with other factors may serve as an environmental trigger (more likely a catalyst for other environmental triggers) to show the various symptoms that are now classified as being on the autistic spectrum.”

But the most striking anecdote came from a mother of preemie twins, who had recently passed up the first MMR vaccine for her boys:

“With all the hoopla surrounding the MMR vaccine we decided to be safe rather than sorry with the boys. Even though I was 90% certain there was no substantiated link to autism, I didn’t have the time to research the issue enough to erase all doubt. So at their 15 month well-baby visit, I asked their pediatrician if he had each of the three components available in separate injections.

He made it clear that the science behind the alleged link to autism was faulty – and he had given both his sons the MMR. But he understood our caution. Yes, that meant an additional two shots/visits per boy, but we figured that was a small price to pay.

Just a few days later I was reading Vaccinated by Paul Offit and came to the part about the alleged link of autism to the MMR vaccine. After a few pages (and having read in the rest of the book about vaccine methodology), I changed my mind. The boys had their MMR injections the next week.”

Regardless of whether parents choose to follow the standard course of vaccinations or not, it only makes sense to gather information - from reliable, diverse sources - and be clear about the path you take and its possible repercussions.

We’ve got more reviews of Vaccinated in progress - please see the schedule below and return for our Round-Up Review on Wednesday, June 27!

6/21 - Slouching Mom
6/22 - Chaos Theory, Hello Pushkin
6/25 - Gingajoy, Sarah’s Dandelions
6/26 - Midwestern Mommy, Quarter Rest
6/27 - Round-Up Review on PBN

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