CDC on Thimerosal

Sorry to be such an alpha mom about this, but I was just reading the Center for Disease Control's FAQs about Thimerosal. As I suspected, there are still trace amounts of this poison in much of the flu vaccine supply. There were only 6 million to 8 million thimerosal-free flu vaccine doses available last fall.

I understand that the CDC doesn't want parents to panic, but they are still standing by the notion that there is no link between this ingredient (said to be almost 50% mercury) and neurological disorders, while they quietly take it out of our vaccines. They're tearing apart scientific studies as if they are nonsense. Read about the Geiers, who conducted a 2003 study that found a link. (It's a great story from Seed Magazine, but I think it's missing some pages.) Then read what the CDC says about their study. Is it really so illegitimate?

Parents should definitely ask to see a list of ingredients for all of the vaccines doctors plan to give to their children. I'm thankful that I didn't have a kid five years ago and find out now that he may or may not have been poisoned by the government, but who knows what the official word will be five years from now? We really should've stopped it sooner, we apologize?

Best of Breeders

I'm a little behind in my bitching, but I can't let the week pass without mentioning this week's New York magazine cover story on the Alpha Mom.

I urge you to read the story, but to sum up: Alpha Mom is this television network dreamed up by a tightly wound New York woman who, essentially, wants to throw herself into something that will get her the hell away from her toddler. Before conception, she was a VP of Marketing at Solomon - those who know anyone in financial marketing, or marketing period, know the type. (Her husband is co-chairman of Atlantic Records.) After having precious Ryland (note to self: add this name to bad baby names list) she realized she was a shitty mom or didn't love her kid or something, and did so much self-help research that she now feels qualified to start a bullshit cable channel - nay, a media empire (she and her partner call it "AlphaMomnimedia") - that helps other freaks justify their crying over their kids not getting into the right preschool.

Listen, I may be one of those freaks. I probably will be. But if I want 12-step parenting advice, I want it to come from some wise old granola granny with 10 kids, all of whom have become well-adjusted, wonderful adults, finding their own way in life - be it on an art commune or in a corporate boardroom. Like a maternal, Birkenstock wearing Martha Stewart; or a modern day Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. I don't want some 20-something fame whore with a gaggle of nannies harping at me about "learning how to mother 21st century children" and "intellectualizing the process" of talking to your child. In the article, when she discusses her business, she sounds fake PR-ish and very alpha, but when she talks to little Ry Ry, she sounds like a fool. Not a I'm-talking-in-a-baby-voice kind of fool. She's the kind of fool that even kids can see right through. Total beta. No wonder Ryland is a needy spastic who enjoys spending most of his time with his real mom, the nanny. In fact, I want the nanny to give me parenting tips.

True, this woman isn't planning to be the channel, just create and run it (with her partner, who mothers only cats). Still, it's a sad world when you don't need any talent of any kind to start a momnimedia company.

Another disturbing article this week is Robert Kennedy Jr.'s look at the link between vaccination and Mercury poisoning. Apparently, kids born after 1991 have a greater chance of having autism than those born before - today it's a 1 in 166 chance, once it was 1 in 2500. The rise in the disease, and other neural disorders, coincides with a mercury based toxin, thimerosal, being added to a number of the umpteen vaccines kids today have to suffer through. But the CDC claims that we are just better at diagnosing autism than we were 15 years ago. This is the kind of thing I want to see on my mommy channel. And I want it to be avoiding thimerosal for dummies - just spell it out for me. Is it still in vaccines in this country? The article reads that vaccine manufacturers have phased out their use of it for American infants, but that they were still trying to sell stores of the old stuff last year. They're still sending it to developing countries. Then I read somewhere else that thimerosal is banned in California and Iowa, but that's it. 32 other states are considering a similar ban.

The weird thing is, parents are just forced to immunize their children without even being allowed to consider any risks. I read somewhere that one woman tried to make the staff at her hospital put it in writing that they would accept responsibility for any problems, and they left her alone. I'm not an anti-vaccination freak or anything. I live in the big city - my kid needs a suit of armor to stay healthy in the first years. But how do you get anyone to tell you the truth?

I'm not taking RFK Jr.'s word for it - there has been some backlash email in response to the story - but I believe the CDC would try to cover something up. (HG, the king of our conspiracy-theory castle, believes they are covering up the fact that the symptoms of AIDS are caused by the cure - and he's not the only one.)

I want a show that outlines all of the vaccines my kids get and why, and which are necessary and which are optional, and which have dangerous - if only rumored - side effects. And, following that, I want a show about how to slim down your thighs after pregnancy. And then I want to see how to jar your own baby food... the best tips for home schooling... money-saving ways to perform junior's first hair cut at home.

But start talking about what a child needs in a mom and you've lost me. Conventional wisdom would dictate that I needed a mom that didn't smoke while I was in the womb, and drink while I was in my adolescence. That I needed a mom that stayed married to a dad and lived in a big clean house in the suburbs and fed me healthful meals and encouraged my development and cared about whether I did my homework. I didn't have that mom. Mine was beta to the point of being nearly comatose. But I would not trade her - not for any other mom I know, or have heard of... or can dream up.

My dad, on the other hand, is an asshole. Happy father's day everyone.