Private Practice

I watched "Private Practice" faithfully when it first came on and then kind of dropped it for no other reason than the silly antics got on my nerves.  The characters often act like lovesick, sex-crazed teenagers rather than mature adult professionals.  I've worked in office settings and people do NOT carry on like that so openly.  Anyway, I taped last night's episode to give the show another chance and just finished watching it.  There was definitely more than enough silliness (the health dept official about to eat Taye Diggs's face off in his office, one character announcing that two others are sleeping together in a staff meeting) but the vaccine/autism storyline really got to me.

Autism is splashed across all forms of media lately and the condition scares the hell out of me.  Not enough to refuse vaccinations but it frightens me nevertheless.  It is actually one of the reasons I was glad to hear that we're having another girl.  I assume girls can be afflicted with it but it seems to always be boys one reads about or sees on TV.  In the episode I watched earlier tonight, a mother had 3 sons,  the oldest of whom went from a bright, smiling 2 year old to a child locked in his own mind as a result of autism.  This happened immediately after he was given an unnamed vaccination by the pediatrician on the show, years before the episode took place.  His mother blames the vaccine (and the doctor, it seemed) for her son's condition and refused to vaccinate her younger boys.  She brings them all to the clinic because the middle boy has a cold.  Turns out, he has the measles and the whole clinic has to be locked down while the patients' immunization records are checked and anyone at risk gets vaccinated.  One of the patients is pregnant and they tell her that she can't be vaccinated because it's a live virus.  Instead, they'll check her blood levels and the best they can do is give her immunoglobin (?) if necessary.  She is understandably alarmed, worrying that her baby will have birth defects because of her exposure.

I really, REALLY wanted a scene where she confronted the mother of the unvaccinated child.  Granted, I worked for the vaccines division of a major pharmaceutical company so I am definitely pro-vaccine but even with that bias, I don't think it's ethical for a person to risk the lives of others by choosing not to vaccinate.  It would have been awesome to hear the pregnant patient call out the sick boy's mother for risking the health of everyone around them.  I've read where anti-vaccinators scoff at their need to vaccinate, saying why are vaccinating parents so worried if the vaccines are such great protection?  Because children aren't vaccinated for everything at birth, dumbasses.  MMR isn't given until toddlerhood so by not vaccinating your children but letting them mix with society at large, you are risking the health of very small children as well as the unborn.  What gives you the right?  If my baby was exposed to measles and died as a result of it, I'd consider the unvaccinated family to be murderers, plain and simple.

On the show, the child with measles declined rapidly and his mother still refused to vaccinate her youngest son.  The pediatrician took matters into his own hands and gave the child the vaccine while the mother screamed that she would sue him.  Bravo, Dr. Coop.  Totally illegal but totally laudable.  

In the end, the boy succumbed to the disease.  As a mother, I wept as his mother sobbed over his tiny body but I kept thinking, "You could have prevented this!!!"  She had scoffed at measles in the beginning of the show, acting like it was some right of passage to get ill and recover from measles like her grandparents did.  The pediatrician tried to tell her that measles isn't like a cold, it's a deadly disease but she wouldn't hear it.  Poor woman learned the lesson the hardest way possible.

My kids are vaccinated.  It's my responsibility as a mother to protect them in any way I can and it's my civic duty to be a responsible citizen and ensure that we don't harm others in our community.  I just hope that everyone who comes into contact with my Sheemee is equally responsible at least until she is old enough to be vaccinated herself.