It’s hard to talk about vaccines or autism without mentioning the sometime gastroenterologist, Andrew Wakefield. Almost everyone has at least a passing familiarity with Wakefield, even if it is just as “the guy who wrote that fraudulent paper claiming vaccines cause autism.” And everyone has a deep familiarity with the needless controversy he sparked concerning […]
Yesterday afternoon, the Minnesota Department of Health reported that 60 people (mostly children) in four counties across the state. This measles outbreak is the worst in the state in nearly 30 years, and that last outbreak occurred during a time when measles was still endemic in the United States and only one dose of the […]
“Mandy, can he try Jello?” my mother asks me conspiratorially, as she cuddles her last grandchild in her arms at the Chinese buffet. Mikey Wale is my third child, so the answer is almost always yes. “Why not?” I say, and she tenderly feeds him a tiny red morsel. He drools it right back onto […]
When I first had babies, long before I became The Vaccine Lady, I took my children to be immunized as a matter of course, without any real sense of what I was protected them against. I knew that the diseases I was hoping to shield them from were bad, but I didn’t know the path […]
The headlines last week were nearly catastrophic, declaring that HHS Secretary Tom Price had made statements about letting states do whatever they want to as far as requiring vaccines. And almost immediately, my podcast co-host (Dr. Nathan Boonstra) and I wondered if we missed anything because we weren’t feeling the sense of impending doom the headlines […]
On January 20th 2016, my husband and I had a doctor’s appointment for an ultrasound to find out the gender of our baby. It was all we could think about. We lived in an Idaho town at the time, so our doctor was part of a little family practice office. The ultrasound started off great: our […]
A few months ago, I came across an article claiming that we can blame the anti-vaccine movement for the mumps cases popping up in college campuses and communities across the country. As much as I wanted to have a villain to blame for outbreaks, I also needed to make sure that all my assertions were based […]
Have you ever strolled by someone in the grocery store who smelled like she just walked out of a package of incense? That was me. I bathed in patchouli oil, smeared crystal rocks on my armpits (and let me tell ya’, people: it doesn’t work). I had Himalayan salt lamps and amber teething necklaces. You […]
I met Jennifer in 2011 when I moved to a rural town in Minnesota so that my husband could pastor a local church. It was clear upon meeting Jen that she was a joy to be around—full of life, vibrant, and beautiful. From the beginning she and I would often spend hours after Bible study […]
I have no underlying health conditions and was and am a generally healthy. I am athletic, active, and enjoy time spent outdoors in any capacity. I had some abnormal Pap tests in my early twenties, which was treated with cryo followed by a LEEP. (note: a Papanicolau Test, or Pap test, is a test that looks for […]