One of the most heated debates regarding raising your children has to do with vaccinations. For years some people clung to the fact the MMR Vaccine causes autism and other adverse reactions to children. Even though that infamous publication has been discredited and the author even admitted to fraudulent information people still cling to it. In California they removed the thimerosal from its vaccines the blamed reason for the rise in Autism and instead of the rate going down it went up. I am not sure why Autism has become such a growing epidemic but this is just proof that you can’t blame the vaccines.
Its upsetting to me once eradicated disease in the United States are now coming back. Whooping cough, measles, and mumps have all had outbreaks in the last ten years. These are serious diseases with detrimental effects leading all the way to possible death. With parents not vaccinating their children they are adding to the problem not helping. It infuriates me every time I read another article about an outbreak because the choice of not vaccinating your child is not just affecting you but everyone around you including the elderly.
It does not help the situation when you have those in the spotlight who have the access to the media to advocate the anti-vaccination movement. Unfortunately many listen to these stars and get swept away in their message and none too often, do they really think about what they are saying.
Do I believe maybe the vaccinations should be spread out a little bit? Yes
Dr. Sears’s book, “The Vaccine Book Making the Right Decisions for Your Child is an excellent source of showing that the vaccines truly outweigh the cost however spreading it out is an ideal solution.
I hope someday we can find the reason to the rise of Autism. It is very upsetting that it has affected so many children and we are just now beginning to understand how the different interventions are needed for it. But I do hope we do get to a point that once again we are protecting our children and the population from these very serious diseases.
Mother of Two 
I feel that Autism isn’t so much an epidemic as it is just more likely to be diagnosed than it was even 20 years ago. Also, it has such a wide variety of classifications now, whereas some people we went to school with that were maybe diagnosed with learning disabilities would today be grouped into a subset of Autism. Teachers and parents are now taught to look for signs in their children at younger ages, as well. So, I do wonder if it really is just the rate of diagnosis that has risen due to the knowledge we now have.