No problem Hunt. With all the crazy out there I wouldn’t be surprised to hear someone make the claim either!
There has been a rise in autism diagnosis. As far as I know, there is no actual evidence that says (or even can say) that cases of what we currently classify as “autism” have actually increased.
I work with patient records of kids 100 years ago that would almost certainly have been diagnosed with autism if they were alive and young today. What did they call them then? “Feebleminded” “Idiotic” “Imbeciles” “Retarded” “Peculiar” “Anti-social” and threw them into asylums.
My college freshman DS emailed me that he was jogging last night and had a fairly bad fall. He had to go to urgent health on campus for wound care, and he said that the nurse seemed surprised (maybe thought he was on substances) because he was “way too happy to be getting a tetanus booster” - DS’s response to that in email to me:
“Why wouldn’t I be cheerful to be able to use modern medicine and get a simple injection instead of a horrible disease?”
gives standing ovation to fretful son
Hope he heals well!
Thanks, @romanigypsyeyes !! 
He emailed a photo of his hand and it was pretty bad looking. However, kids heal fast, right?
Have go in and be seen by health center on Monday, just to be sure it remains clean and free of infection. Student fees are paying for health center anyway.
OK - thanks @HImom
The student health center may also give him a follow up appt date as well; checking and prevention is better and cheaper than letting it get had and then trying to fix. Sometimes photos make things look worse than it looks when you see it.
Thanks, @HImom on your recommendation I emailed him and they had already set up both a follow up and instructions of when to call sooner.
It’s good that they are teaching him to monitor his injury. Nice to have eyes on it when we can’t be there.
It’s not just not vaccinating that’s the problem. I have ran into several who don’t vaccinate their kids that also have different opinions about fever and illnesses. They bring the kids around mine even though they know they have fevers or getting over something or starting to get something. “It’s just a fever, no problem.” I know my kids run into germs every day at school and the supermarket just everywhere we go. I’m not a germaphobe. However when you’re on vaccinated child who is clearly sick is around mine I can’t help but think about what they might be spreading to my child.
Oops double post appeared - sorry!
@scmom2017 - I was under the mistaken impression that you shouldn’t treat a fever because it helps the body fight a disease by “burning it out” - based on reading and friends - until my oldest was 13 months old and had a febrile seizure. That scared the pants off me and NEVER again would I do such a thing. But the scary part is, I’m a scientist by training and was a fairly well-read parent. Good thing I realized what was what on my oldest, and when he was still a baby…and thank Gd there were no serious effects.
I didn’t always treat a fever. It wasn’t the fact that they don’t want to treat the fever, but rather that they bring their feverish kids to my house and don’t care that my kids may catch something. They don’t really seem to believe that you are contagious with a fever.
Mr R works at an education daycare- specifically with toddlers so there is always something going around. They have a rule that you can’t come in until 24 hours after a fever has died down but of course no one follows that.
As soon as Mr R comes home from work, his clothes go downstairs and he jumps into the shower. It’s the best we can do to avoid getting something passed to me.
They had a whooping cough outbreak a few months ago and since then have tried to crack down on sick kids coming. I had to take a heavy dose of preventative antibiotics when the whooping cough came though and just wait for a few weeks to make sure I didn’t get it. Luckily, I was OK. (Yes, I’m vaccinated but with the suppressed immune system, we’re never sure how well the vaccines will work.)
I do have some sympathy for the parents but it comes with the territory of being a parent IMO. I was a chronically sick kid and I know my mom sacrificed a lot to stay home and take care of me but she was the one with the more flexible job. This is in an affluent area and not really a cheap daycare so the odds that these parents are hourly workers at a McDonalds (for example) is very low.
If the fever is low, I rarely treat mine, but have always been concerned about kids with high fevers and persistent ones. Our D had Kawasaki’s Syndrome and we couldn’t get her fever down and she became quite listless by the time we rushed her to the ER. Fortunately, they had one of the world’s experts on KS on staff when we arrived and she took over. It was very scary! It appears she’s escaped lasting cardiac damage and other serious side effects as well.
Again, I am not talking about randomly getting exposed to germs or getting them from school or daycare. But rather the ones who knowingly bring their sick kids to play dates, around pregnant women, old people, and immune compromised people because they just don’t believe it is a big deal. They think fevers are meaningless, and as long they wash their hands that the fever, coughing, sneezing will make others sick.
scmom, I was agreeing with you
I just can’t believe the mindset of taking a sick child out if you don’t absolutely need too. That child needs to rest and recuperate, not get worse from running around at a friend’s house!
@romanigypsyeyes Agree 100%. I’ve worked on a number of scientific studies. The reality is that diagnostic techniques have improved as has the definition of autism. We are also now diagnosing far more cases than before, and autism now is held to involve a “spectrum”. This spectrum now classifies as autistic children we would previously have classified as normal. That said, we are also diagnosing more cases of cancer than before, and psychiatric diagnoses have exploded (thanks to DSM-IV).
The causality between vaccines and autism has not been demonstrated. However, the causality between contracting polio and paralysis and death has been established. It is also a fact that cannot “boost” your immune system to make it harder to contract polio, or rubella.
If parents want to put their own children at risk, that is their decision although if the child does contract a preventable communicable illness and is disabled, I’d say there would be a good case for prosecuting them for child endangerment. And there are sound public health reasons for excluding non-vaccinated children.