Medical professionals, including occupational therapists are expected to study the data, use evidence -based strategies.. believe in science! I also ignore the incoming administration that brings back a president who claimed that Covid was a hoax, the vaccine was questionable, Lysol would cure us and masks were an unnecessary nuisance- all this as he received the top medical care and science to save his life after contracting the disease. This is all history- so let’s look at the future…. back to the dark ages if RFK Jr. has his way…
I’m old enough to actually remember elderly patients who had polio as children and continued to receive therapies to improve function. We occupational therapists do not wish to bring this debilitating scourge back…..
Thirty-six years ago my premature (36 weeks gestation/ 6.2 pounds) baby was expected to receive a war-chest load of vaccines during the first 4 months of his life. Here are the parameters I set:
- Use my baby’s adjusted age instead of date of birth to determine when to give vaccines.
- Use the dead virus Salk polio vaccine and NOT the more available, (perhaps cheaper? ) Sabine live virus vaccine. This involved the doctoring ordering the Salk vaccine- an inconvenience. The Sabin vaccine has caused a small number of polio cases. Not good enough because I wanted NO polio cases….
- I insisted on spreading out the vaccine schedule so that the polio and MMR vaccines were given at different times. I see no reason to overload my baby’s immune system for the convenience of a one stop vaccine visit….
One more word:
Parents should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. My child is on the autism spectrum, so are many of his genetic relatives because autism runs in families. We all want a magical solution, but that is not a reason to debunk science. The Covid vaccine saved millions of lives and enabled the world to safely come back to life. So some people had negative reactions to the vaccine and a myth started spreading across social media platforms that exist to enrich click-bait posters and Facebook executives, often by lying…..
My child has autism and mental illness (reality sucks….) – but he never got polio, measles, rubella, whooping cough or covid because I believe in the power of science, the words of scientists- and I hope that you do, too….