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 […]
A few years before my diagnosis, I had seen many doctors for irregular bleeding and cramping. Sometimes my paps would come back abnormal and doctors would tell me I had low-grade cell changes on my cervix and that my body would fight it off. Other times I’d undergo an ultrasound to check for endometriosis, but […]
Every parents’ life has been touched in some way by cancer. Whether they or their friends or their grandmothers or someone else has beaten or succumbed to some cancer, all parents know that cancer isn’t something to wish upon their worst enemy much less their own children. There are six cancers caused by HPV that […]
Well, maybe not everything. But a lot! If the Voices for Vaccines Facebook page is a gauge, this flu season is seeing the circulation of more flu myths than usual. Is this flu strain particularly bad? Is this year’s flu vaccine a bad match? Is the flu worth preventing? Does the flu vaccine make you […]
We started out following the doctor’s orders with our first baby—she received her first year’s vaccines on time. After a period of moving around a bit and coping with some family illness, we fell behind on immunizations, but did manage to catch my daughter up once we had settled in Texas. After a move to […]