There’s a narrative amongst anti-vaccine activists that people who work in the vaccine world are doing it for the money. Be they pediatricians or advocates or pharmaceutical employees or government workers, the story goes that they are primarily motivated by money. Of course, this story is false. I’ve met hundreds of “vaccine people,” as I […]
A few weeks ago my five-month-old, Lucian, started showing symptoms of teething: mild fever, fussiness, not sleeping as well, and a small decrease in milk intake. We used some teething tabs, and when the fever didn’t go down, I gave him a small dose of Tylenol. After one more dose, his fever still wasn’t going […]
It is National Infant Immunization Week, and that means we are talking vaccines in infancy. In particular, we are encouraging people who are expecting babies and their loves ones to discuss the benefits of immunizing on-time! When I say we are talking vaccines, I mean we are talking about vaccines everywhere! First, Nathan and I […]
I guess it all started with my fascination with herbal medicine and other alternative healing practices. I had a very nice and sizeable herbal remedy bookshelf, the pride of which was my ‘The Green Pharmacy‘ by Dr James D. Duke. I’ll come back to that in a bit. I also used ‘Healing Foods‘ by Miriam […]
If I had a penny for every time I said, “I’m talking about mothers here because mothers are the people who usually make decisions about healthcare for their children,” I’d probably have a dollar. Still, we talk a great deal about motherhood, Crunchy Moms, Mom Tribes, mommy groups, and so forth when we talk about […]
With the birth of my daughter came the mom’s group—a place where first-time mothers can go in sweatpants, baby in tow, and not feel guilty about it. Normally, this wouldn’t have been my jam, but I needed some kind of solidarity and there it was. This world of mom was new, but so was being around so […]
When I first heard that Dr. Chad Hayes (from Demystifying Pediatrics) and Natalie Newell (from the Science Moms film) were teaming up to do a podcast, I knew we had to talk to them. I’m glad we did talk, because the result was a great podcast episode covering topics from integrative medicine to Andrew Wakefield […]
When he turned sixty, my friend Al went for his yearly physical and mentioned to the attending physician that he had a small lump on the side of his neck. The doctor didn’t seem concerned, but three months later the lump had grown. When they biopsied it, it turned out to be a HPV-positive throat […]
I don’t know if Dr. Paul Offit (author and doctor in Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia) counts as famous, but for many in the pro-vaccine world, he certainly appears to be so. What might surprise his fans is that he is as kind and generous as he is intelligent. A few years ago, […]
Five years ago, Voices for Vaccines relaunched as a pro-vaccine parent organization. On a personal level, working with Voices for Vaccines these past five years has been an honor and almost always a true joy. The absolute best part of this job, and of my efforts to coalesce a pro-vaccine movement to do good, has […]