Best of AofA: Back to Christmas 1962
Yesterday the AAP and CDC had a TweetChat about measles. I Tweeted only once: My daughter w/ autism sleeps w/ doll from 1961 that has MEASLES - a child's toy - Irony 101 #measleschat
In other news yesterday, a child died following Polio drops, a MRSA vaccine trial was halted due to serious reactions (death and organ failure) and a Seattle reporter took Michael Belkin and many other folks you know (including yours truly) to task for being ""anti-vaccine refusers."."
By Kim Stagliano
Let's take a trip back to Christmas, 1962. A little girl named Michele had a Christmas wish for Santa. Michele wanted to play Mommy. Mommies used to take care of sick children. It was part of their job description. Sniffles and sneezes, spotty rashes and wheezes. That was childhood, after all. Get sick, build an immune system, grow up. Michele got a wonderful new doll from Santa that year. Her name was Hedda.
Hedda slept through the night like a dream.
Hedda smiled at her Mommy
Hedda had one more face. In 1962, it was a face that every Mommy recognized and knew how to care for and love. So did doctors. In 2009, this face would instill fear, panic, disdain, loathing and angry cries that Michele was a very, very bad Mommy to Hedda.
Hedda had the measles! See the little hole in her mouth for the thermometer?
Yes, in 1962, measles were a common childhood illness. And little girls played with dollies that had the measles, and made them all better. So did doctors for children who got the measles. The full name of the doll was "Hedda Get Better." Michele is my big sister. She found a Hedda doll on ebay this Fall and sent her to me. Perhaps I'll invite Hedda to Autism One, if she's feeling up to it.
How about your child? Is there a magic button you can twist so that he/she gets better? I wish there were. For each of us.
Kim Stagliano is Managing Editor of Age of Autism. Her book from Skyhorse Publishing, All I Can Handle I'm No Mother Teresa; A Life Raising Three Daughters with Autism is available now. Visit her website at Kim Stagliano.
Here in Canada in 1967 I had both types of measles in the same year. My mother,and grandmother both caught them from me,and we all survived. They were a bit more ill than me,which is why it is better to get them as a child.
Posted by: gina searle | June 25, 2011 at 09:40 PM
Have you checked you titer yet? If you don't get measles after exposure be sure to check the titer. I never had chicken pox after repeated exposure because my immune system worked as intended and I developed strong immmunity from the exposure naturally. Approximately 80 percent of those of us who do not contract the clinical disease have the immunity (at least that was the stat given to me by my OB in 1993 for varicella). Interesting how those of us who have natural immunity are villified.
Posted by: 4everyoung1989 | June 21, 2011 at 10:27 AM
I am looking to catch the measles as part of the documentary I am working on because I know it is not a serious illness, and I want to show on camera that it is not a big deal. People have been lied to and fooled--Mumps, measles, chickenpox are all mild illnesses.
I actually have had someone tell me if I got the measles for my film they would do what they could to see me "rot in prison" because I was murdering children with my project.
I have a facebook group (Natural / Aquired Immunity) where loads of parents are asking for exposure to the childhood diseases because they know the vaccines are poison.
At least a few people are waking up, but it is so sad so many kids are still being poisoned and not gaining natural immunity.
Posted by: FORCED ANARCHY | June 20, 2011 at 07:46 PM
aww..Hedda's eyes look just like my little guy's when he "came down" with autism, without spots...
Posted by: barbaraj | June 17, 2011 at 06:34 PM
Most people don't know that in 1967, the CDC said:
"For centuries the measles virus has maintained a remarkably stable ecological relationship with man. The clinical disease is a characteristic syndrome of notable constancy and only moderate severity. Complications are infrequent, and, with adequate medical care, fatality is rare."
"Effective use of these vaccines during the coming winter and spring should insure the eradication of measles from the United States in 1967."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1919891/pdf/pubhealthreporig00027-0069.pdf
Posted by: Rachael | June 17, 2011 at 05:07 PM
In the good old days, childrens books were written to comfort children while they were sick with measles or mumps.
I found this little gem written in 1959 called "Michael Gets the Measles" and another called "Dear Little Mumps Child" written by the same author Marguerite Rush.
http://www.amazon.com/Michael-gets-measles-Marguerite-Lerner/dp/B0007FSZAK
Book Review:
"Michael Gets the Measles" is a 27-page illustrated story designed to acquaint students with the symptoms of measles. The book seems appropriate for students in kindergarten through grade 2. The story traces the development of Michael's symptoms, from his fever, to his spots, to his return to good health. The story is written in rhyming verse and contains approximately equal proprotions of text and 4-color illustrations. Two pages of information about measles written for parents or teachers follow the story.
Books about measles and mumps, yet no childrens books about autism back then, hmmmmm
Posted by: Sarah | June 17, 2011 at 07:52 AM
My brothers and sisters and I had 'em all: measles, mumps, chickenpox, German measles, pneumonia (me), polio (me again) and none the worse for wear. The sickest I ever was as a child was after the typhoid/typhus vaccines we had to get to join my soldier dad overseas. My youngest brother was so ill from them he was hospitalized.
Posted by: Theodore Van Oosbree | June 16, 2011 at 11:32 PM
Australia
Rachael,
The Brady Brunch episodes are being repeated here in Australia. I noticed that Mrs Brady didn't panic and race for a vaccine!!
Elizabeth-AussieMum
Posted by: AussieMum | June 16, 2011 at 10:00 PM
Hedda Feel Better, the doll that gets measles and then recovers, has been replaced with Bloggin Seth Mnookin - the doll whose string you pull to tweet and blog every new case of measles into cyberspace, as if it's a national disaster.
Mnookin is to measles what Madge was to dishwater hands.
Posted by: You're soaking in it! | June 16, 2011 at 09:20 PM
Sometimes I wonder if the disproportionate concern over measles is fueled by a fear on the part of "health authorities" that with each case of measles, those of us who haven't experienced the virus will compare it to the vaccine injury that we see all around us and feel like we've been had on a grand scale, but I know too many who are probably dealing with vaccine injury who are all too willing to be kept in the dark about cause, while simultaneously being annually frightened by West Nile, Bird Flu, H1N1, whatever, so I don't think the health authorities need to be so worried.
That, plus a history of making choices that have caused harm hoping the end would justify the means, probably tends to make one feel like the end has to be 100% eradication.
Posted by: JenB | June 16, 2011 at 02:20 PM
This Brady Bunch episode demonstrates that back in the late sixties, early seventies, the measles was once not the feared virus, that they make it out to be today.
http://www.blinkx.com/watch-video/the-brady-bunch-is-there-a-doctor-in-the-house/Vw7AJKy5XO3MhdzsNbPFqQ
Posted by: Rachael | June 16, 2011 at 10:06 AM
Ironic indeed, Kim. When my sisters and I were little, we had a babysitter named Annette, who was studying to be a nurse. She would help us construct these elaborate Barbie doll hospitals, in which we'd use Kleenex and scotch tape to make casts, and a red marker to draw measles spots on the all the dolls. Then we'd put them to bed, to rest.
Nowadays, I guess she'd have us just inject them all with little mini-syringes and render them completely silent for life.
So much for medical progress...
Posted by: Donna L. | June 16, 2011 at 09:57 AM
Well, Hedda can certainly go to Autism One. I had the measles as a child and survived just fine as did my sisters and all the kids in my school and neighborhood. Yes, Hedda will be well over the measles by then and she will be protected from ever getting them again for a whole lifetime.
Isn't that amazing? Maurine
Posted by: Maurine Meleck | June 16, 2011 at 08:50 AM
At 1:40 into the below-linked 1961 episode of The Flintstones, Fred and Barney are outside Fred's house, while their wives, who have come down with the measles, have locked themselves inside. Fred expresses misgivings, and Barney says, Aww, Fred - it's okay; it's only measles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18DomrtZwWM
Turns out Fred wasn't concerned about the wives' measles anyway, but about something else.
Measles hasn't changed in the interim 50 years; ownership of the mainstream media has.
Posted by: Shawn Siegel | June 16, 2011 at 08:11 AM