They did not finish the story... The vaccinated child, who has the same genetic predisposition and immune family history dysfunction, now slips into regressive autism.And the mother brings the child back to the doctor, after she has had an MRI taken,which shows the brain damage he caused.
The doctor says my liability insurance will give you some money, and turns away. And the mother says, no I don't want that.Instead, every weekend, I am going to drop my child off with you for respite care,and you and I will spend the rest of our lives helping him with ABA and other therapies until he gets better.And the doctor finally learns first hand what raising an autistic child is like..

First, it was that episode of "Private Practice", which I knew to be overly dramatic and in my opinion crossing to "melodrama" which had me research Generation Rescue. The character Cooper does not dispute that the first son was smiling and otherwise iteracting without signs of autism, until he received the MMR shot. I did note the other two sons did not somehow end up with this "mutant gene" that according to pediatricians is causing the severe rise in autism. My question thus is what is causing an entire generation of Americans therefore to have said mutant gene? What were we or our children exposed to then? That is not being answered.

The second thing which got to me concerning the character Cooper's innoculation of the son against the mother's wishes is my knowledge that innoculations cannot work that quickly. My teen daughter did receive a flu shot in November and her pediatirican warned that for two weeks she could still come down with the flu as it took two weeks for the shot to protect. I was told that if she were to "exhibit flu like symptoms" in that two week period I should bring her in for a nose swab test. The irony of that in real life now also is that this year the wrong flu type shot was given for the influenza making the rounds, even if one disregards the mercury content (although now I am not half as likely to do so!).

The truth is this show did reach overly far in several ways in my opinion. However, in my case it backfired. I was aghast that a doctor would administer such a shot against a parent's wish. I had previously had a friend that insisted on a safer schedule where her twins did not receive the MMR, I believe now she went by either The Danish Schedule or the schedule that existed prior to 1983. I also have a friend who has not immunized because she fears the mercury levels in shots could not only cause potential autism, but other autoimmune disorders or ND's.

So the episode of Private Practice infuriated me with what I felt was an AMA political propoganda message. I homeschool my daughter and am a fierce advocate of parental rights. I personally believe my friend who has not immunized her twins or toddler should do so according to a safer schedule: however, I respect her rights as a mother and know she is anything but neglectful or abusive. She is a devoted mother and her fears are valid to some great degree according to what I have been reading on the Generation Rescue website and other links, such as this one.

I thought the episode of Private Practice which aired did reveal what is the attitude of most in the medical profession, unfortunately: that instead of addressing parental concerns as to the risk of autism they keep trying to insist on a shot parents fear. There was no attempt on the part of the Cooper character or any of the other doctors to discuss any "safer schedule" or even indeed to inform the mother that a seperate shot for measles alone could be given and that this "triple cocktail" did not have to be administered.

I am afraid also it is in huge part what many also believe since they themselves remain uninformed because in general the American public wishes to trust their doctors and perhaps especially their pediatricians.

I am grateful now for the celebrities and web links such as this one that do publish studies and speak out against "one size fits all" when it comes to the vaccines given and current schedule. I am now recommending to my friends that at the very least they visit the Generation Rescue website and read and consider a safer schedule before buying into what this episode of Private Practice manifested ....yes, complete with the music accompaniment.

YES,YES go let have the true story on shots after all we still have freedom of speach or they going to take that away to as i read about article says we soon will have no choice about giving our pecious chrildren shots my 19 yr. old i did not allow him to get 1 at age 17 i think that school said he must have so i had a dr. send letter to them letting them know he wasn,t getting any more after all the harm was done to him many yrs. ago after MMR 1 so yea!!! lets have a real reality show from the start of a child wgo is ok till after the mmr THEN as many have said just looses all speech ect. i say LET US HAVE OUR SAY TO!!! go for it lets flip the coin & show the other side for all to see THAT THSES SHOTS CAUSE SO MUCH DAMAGE AS WITH MY SON LIVING FOR 19 YRS NOW WITH AUSTIM AND THE PARENTS& ALL OTHER PROBLEMS THAT HAVE HAPPEN TO OUR PRECIOUS ONES BEACUSE OF THE AMT.OF SHOTS GIVE & BEING FILLED WITH MERCURY THERSOMAL ECT.

Watched it online. It’s left psychological scars that I think will be there for life.

Summary: Doomsday music, as if the story were about the black plague or ebola and not the measles. Parents who question vaccine safety referred to as conspiracy theorists, their children as ‘little ticking time bombs’. Threats of charges of child abuse against the mother.

Don’t tell me the picture of the sunset or whatever that is supposed to be that comes up whenever the name of show is on before or after the commercials—don’t tell me that that was not SUPPOSED to look like a frikking atom bomb just gone off. Right after we learned that the boy had the MEASLES!

Not only was the boy’s death the mother’s fault—not only was she going to live the rest of her life with the guilt of killing her own son--but the boy with autism, he too is to bear the burden of guilt. Because you could see that when the mother and Doctor were discussing the cause of the sickness, and how it was the result of the mother not vaccinating her children, and how the mother didn’t vaccinate because of her beliefs about autism-- you could see that the boy with autism was just cognizant enough to realize that this was somehow his fault, too. You could see it in the guilt that was on his face, as well as on the mother’s. So not only did this horrid mother kill her child, she left her boy with autism with the guilt of knowing that HE too was in some way responsible for his own brother’s death.

How can we look ourselves in the mirror?? I am sick to my stomach.

Could they at least have made some attempt at a story line, in between the propaganda? There was nothing between the propaganda at all except for whoring around! “Part of being an adult is the freedom to do whatever we want!” is the message from our Hero in White. Ah yes, except when it comes to deciding what medical treatment our children will get. Then there are only two choices to be had. Either do as the Gods decree, or else face charges of child abuse and then watch as your child dies!

Did that public health official worker, as she finally looked into the real Doctors eyes (thus proving to him that she thinks of him as a human being--just one more thing which I found extremely insulting, btw), actually say “I was afraid if I saw your lips I’d want to taste their chocolate????” Omg I think I might prefer death to subjecting myself to another episode of this show, even were I not enraged by their treatment of the autism/vaccine topic.

I know this is all just fiction. (Where was the disclaimer at the end? The one that says “the preceding story was fiction, please do not be afraid to ask questions about vaccinating your children.”) But after watching that forced vaccination, suddenly I feel that I don’t want to be anywhere near a medical facility in the future without a knife slipped into the waistband of my clothing like Mercedes in Pan’s Labyrinth.

At http://abc.go.com/primetime/privatepractice/index?pn=index
there is a poll.

The first question asked whether the mom had the right to not vaccinate her sons.
So far:

71% voted "YES - The parent has the right to act on their beliefs."

29% voted "NO - Her decision put her son and hundreds of other people at risk for the measles."

The second question asks whether the doctor was right to vaccinate the son against the parent's wishes.

20% voted "YES - Cooper had to protect his patient, no matter what."

80% voted "NO - He crossed the line."

Guess the fear-mongering propaganda didn't work so well.

I follow ABCNews website pretty closely and ALL of their vax related stories are heavily tilted toward pro-pharma. They're pretty much in the bag, I think, owing to the advertising dollars, though keep in mind the entertainment division also aired that Eli Stone back last year that caught so much flack. Maybe this episode was done as a means to kiss and make up with the pharma people who were so ticked off at the other one.

oops - thought my post would end up in another thread with references to this one - but this is just as good a spot :-)...

In line with Mary Webster's post here http://www.ageofautism.com/2009/01/private-practice-measles-god-help-us-all.html#more and comments by Jack, Sammi, and others, my gut feeling is this is another shot in the foot for the fear-mongering camp. People are (albeit) slowly) waking up to the reality surrounding the politics of vaccination. I think a reasonable, rational person watching this show would be most shocked and appalled by the 1 truly terrifying event - not the measles - but Dr God performing an invasive medical procedure on a child, against that mother's wishes, in the midst of her protest, with no clinical reason to do so (other than his "duty").

This week a friend described a chicken pox play date for his kids. They all got it - all sailed thru it - lifetime immunity - nothing for the herd to worry about. I wonder what he would have done if Dr God showed up at his door with a needle? Not sure what his shoe size is, but I think the good doctor would have gotten a fitting.

And to Diane's point, I guess we shouldn't anticipate any flurry of letters from the AAP et al, to ABC anytime soon over this one.