Oprah and Autism

Oprah is a freakish cult leader, and no one is going to be able to argue otherwise after reading Newsweek’s viciously delightful attack on her. I especially enjoyed reading it, because all my life I’ve had people tell me that I’m not feeling well because I have some sort of bad energy or bad aura. Whatever it is that I have, it changes every few years as Oprah changes her way of expressing it, but it’s followed me through most of my life and I’m sick of it.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I’m reminded of a hunch I had about the theory that vaccines cause autism. It’s by now thoroughly been debunked, but I don’t think it’s such a foolish thing to believe. My idea is that autism is not caused by a vaccine, but that it may be caused by an autoimmune reaction that’s triggered by a viral or bacterial infection that is caught in a pediatrician’s office while getting vaccinated. Everyone knows pediatricians’ offices are swarming with every sort of bug; many people believe that autoimmunity can be triggered by an infection (it’s possible that my Hashimoto’s was triggered by a bronchial infection that I had in the preceding months); and there is some evidence to suggest a link between autoimmune conditions and autism. This is just an idea and I’d love to see it tested some day.

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