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Talking to the media is not one of my favorite things to do, in fact it is pretty close to the bottom. But someone has to do it and in Milwaukee I seem to be the go to person for autism and vaccine stories.
The first call on Tuesday was about 11am, I spoke to the reporter and he was impressed with my knowledge (I read Age of Autism). He asked if he could come over. Huh? Sure? OK - he'd be there in 20 minutes. PANIC! I grabbed 2 rubbermaid storage boxes from the basement and dumped everything in the living room into them and hid them in the dining room. Then I brushed my hair and put on a ton of makeup (learned that from last time - my face was way to shinny). I pulled out the last two issues of Autism File Magazine for Dr. Andy Wakefield's articles. The butterflies were pounding in my stomach. The reporter and camerman arrived and we talked. It was obvious to me that he didn't know anything about this topic, so I tried to keep it simple. I still can't pull off the politican answers though - when asked a question you don't want to answer, say something completely different! The next call from another station came about 3pm, just when I was leaving to pick up the kids from school. She wanted to come to the Talk About Curing Autism (TACA) meeting that evening and interview me there. We meet at Children's Hospital and that was not enough time for Children's to clear that, so she came over to my house about 5:00. At least the living room was still reasonably clean, I just put on a different shirt. This reporter also did not understand the big picture.
This is not the only study saying there might be a link between vaccines and autism. No, this does not end the debate. No, I am not going to trot my NT 6-year-old daughter over to the doctor's office tomorrow and say I changed my mind because the Lancet study from 12 years ago was retracted. Do they really think we are basing our vaccine decisions on one study of 12 children 12 years ago? Well apparently that is what they thought because that is how both of the pieces came out. They let me say a few words that were not taken completely out of context, and they voice-overed some sentences that were completely wrong about what I believed or things I have done. All in all, I hope that someone saw me as an intelligent person and not a crazy anti-vaccine mom and will think about researching the subject themselves.
Until the next big news hits the media world....