An Epidemic of FearHow Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us AllReaders Respond to 'An Epidemic of Fear,' Part 1Readers Respond to 'An Epidemic of Fear,' Part 2Readers Respond to 'An Epidemic of Fear,' Part 3All Related Stories »Earlier, I posted some of the positive and negative responses I’ve received about "An Epidemic of Fear." I’ve been tweeting about my experience. Check out what happened to @bastardsheep’s traffic when he arranged my tweets in order.
Meanwhile, I just got my first email from Poland. It comes on the heels of a few from Australia and Japan. Vaccine panic is indeed a global issue. From Wojciech in Poland: "I think it's a rare situation when a piece of prose might save lives... That's why I'm not silent - I hope to add a little to the tide of reason." Wojciech was the 307th person I've heard from since my Wired story on Dr. Paul Offit and his campaign to battle vaccine panic appeared.
I want to talk about something we didn’t discuss in the Wired piece. That is: how vaccine panic affects adults with autism. In the past week or so, I’ve heard from several people who said they were on the autism spectrum. They all said they enjoyed the article.
What they don’t enjoy, however, is hearing themselves described as people that no one wants to be. One 47-year-old man who did not talk until he was 6 years old wrote that he is a software engineer with two university degrees. He says being autistic is not easy. He has been passed over for jobs because employers feel he wouldn’t fit in. He has been denied promotions because he “needs development in social skills.” He wishes there were more acceptance for people with autism “who are useful and who have something to contribute.”
Here’s the powerful way he closed his email to me: “I have Autism. But: I am a person, not a problem. I am an asset, not a subject. I’m not a lab mouse, I am human. I’m not as good as you are in some things and I am far better than you in others. I deserve the same chances in life as yourself. I deserve to be invited as an equal partner in the discussion.”
My friend Karl Taro Greenfeld has a brother with autism. He recently wrote a book about the issue. It’s called Boy Alone and you can read about it here.
