Dr. Deisher, vaccines and autism: three red flags

PIC vaccine

Catholics and vaccines. Oh, this is hard.

Can we live with letting our children profit through the deaths of aborted babies? I’ve had those awkward conversations with our pediatricians. At first, I explained why we were declining the MMR and chickenpox vaccines, because they use cells derived from cell lines from aborted fetuses. Later, we began accepting the vaccines, but registering our desire for ethically-derived alternatives.

Why did we make the change? We turned to the Church for guidance.  Bishop Elio Sgreccia, speaking for the Pontifical Academy for Life, said that

the Vatican had sent a two-part message to the American pro-life group. “On the one hand,” he said, “in a particular context such as that in the United States, it is licit to use these vaccines, because there are no others actually available.” The bishop explained that parents have a serious obligation to protect their children from disease whenever possible, and in doing so they are not signaling their approval for abortion.

Drug companies who choose to use cell lines derived from aborted fetal tissue are guilty of formal cooperation with evil; parents who choose to use these vaccines to protect their children are not guilty of formal cooperation with evil. They are not culpable.

Many parents decide that, since vaccination is not morally obligatory, they will regretfully decline the ethically troubling vaccines even though they accept their medical efficacy.  In our family, we have decided that we do have the obligation to protect both our kids, and other people who are immuno-compromised or who cannot be vaccinated for various legitimate medical reasons. We recognize that vulnerable people face the serious threat of serious disease, especially since they can rely less and less on other parents to help make those diseases rare.

This is why, after weighing the small risks against the undisputed benefits, we vaccinate. We believe that the vaccines that are currently available are both morally permissible and safe for most people, and that while no medical treatment is 100% safe or 100% effective, the benfits they offer far outweigh the small risk of harm.

You may have heard that Dr. Theresa Deisher is working on an ethically sound version of the MMR vaccine. This is wonderful news, and as soon as an ethical, effective vaccine becomes available, we’ll certainly request that for our kids.

But here is where Dr. Deisher lost me. She recently published a study once again resurrecting a putative link between austism and vaccines that use cell lines derived from cells from aborted fetuses. Her study raises three red flags:

Red flag #1: This is a clear conflict of interest. Imagine that someone says, “My studies show that product X will make your children sick. But I’ve developed product Y, which will keep your children healthy, and I’ll be selling it soon.”  What would your first thought be? Would you assume that his studies about product X are reliable and objective? Or would you take a closer look?

I do not mean that Deisher is deliberately lying to sell her product. I do mean that, when we have personal reasons for wanting something very badly, it hinders our ability to work objectively.

Red flag #2: Her study relies on an emotional response to an ethical question. Catholics everywhere are accepting her study as Gospel truth. Why? Her theory has a special appeal for Catholics who feel a natural horror at the idea of profiting through the death of innocents. It seems only logical and just that we should suffer physically if we cooperate, even remotely, with something so dreadful as abortion. It seems like God and nature should cooperate to punish people who, in effect, rob graves for their own health.

But that’s not how it works — not medically, and not theologically. This argument — that sin always leads directly to physical suffering — is a red herring. Hundreds of the medical cures we rely on every day came from unethical sources. That is how the world works: sometimes bad actions lead to suffering, sometimes they don’t. We may not like it, but we cannot deny it. Show me an effective alternative, and I’ll use it with gratitude. But don’t tell me that God will not allow us to make good come out of evil.

Red flag #3 (the big one):   The science is just plain bad. For a short, clear, accessible explanation that helps us understand why Deisher’s study is no scientific bombshell, read this response from the Rational Catholic Blog.

Parents do not recognize the symptoms of autism until a child is a few months old, and they assume that these symptoms are caused by the vaccine their child just received. But a trained doctor can spot signs of autism in newborns, long before these symptoms are obvious to laymen. There are myriad markers of austism in newborns, in unborn children, and even in their placentas.  How could these be caused by a vaccine administered after birth?

Moreover, if DNA transplants caused autism, then people who received organ transplants or even blood transfusions would be at risk for autism. Heck, we’d be at risk for autism every time we ate a burger, because of all the cow DNA we’re allowing into our bodies.

Deisher commits the cardinal sin of scientific research: she confuses correlation with causation. There is even some question whether even the correlation she posits actually exists.

This is bad science.

I applaud her efforts to find an ethical alternative to current vaccines, I do not doubt that her motives are good, and I hope and pray that she or someone else will develop one soon.

But if we are going to hesitate over any vaccine, let it be for medically and theologically sound reasons. Dr. Deisher has not provided either. Her study displays a conflict of interest; it banks on an emotional response to an ethical question; and most damningly, it relies on heavily flawed science. Catholics should keep their eyes open for other scientists whose research is sound.

Sam Rocha sings . . . Augustinian Soul? (an interview with Sam)

sam rocha

 

 

In contemporary Gospel music, people like Israel Houghton are making amazing music with the best studio and stage musicians around. Consider this: most popular artists in soul music honed their craft in the Black church. Perhaps the question, then, is why do Catholic churches not produce artists of this calibre in any popular medium?

Read the rest of my interview with Sam Rocha at the Register.

I’ll be speaking in Manchester, NH in a few weeks

… at the Mom’s Night Out at Ste. Marie Parish Campus on Carter St., on Friday, September 26, 7:00 – 9:00 pm

st joseph family center moms night out

More about the event here, and you can register online here. Hope to see you there!

 

Love, Blame and Hope in the Movie MUD

PIC Mud poster

This movie wasn’t about what is wrong with women, or what is wrong with men. It was more about how difficult love is, and how little it helps when we lie to ourselves. It was a sorrowful movie, but not a depressing one; and it left lots of room for at least some of the characters to learn from their suffering and to forgive the people who failed them. Yes, the snakes that have been waiting will get you in the end. No, you will not die. But don’t let yourself get bitten again — unless it’s for someone you love. And around it goes, and the sun keeps shining off the open waters ahead.

Read the rest at the Register.

I’ll be on Radio Maria’s “From the Rooftops” Wednesday morning

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Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers was tons of fun to talk to last time, when we discussed NFP and my book. Tomorrow at 11 Eastern, we’ll be discussing various issues that crop up in marriage and family life. Okay, fine, I don’t actually know what we’ll be talking about! Not vaccines, though!

You can listen online here.  Hope you can tune in!

Men, try whispering these seven simple words into your woman’s ear, and watch her melt.

“I did that insurance paperwork for you.”

PIC woman swooning

Why I don’t say “I’m so blessed.”

The other day, a woman lashed out at me for announcing my latest pregnancy online. This particular woman’s stock in trade is lashing out; and since I’m pretty sure I don’t (as she accused me of doing) parade my perfect children around like perfect trophies to prove that I’m a perfect Catholic mom, I didn’t give her anger much thought. Just another angry person on the internet.

Later, out of curiosity, I read more of her comments. And then my heart broke.

It was a lot of what I expected: You Catholic moms think you’re so great! You think I’m bitter, but I’m not! Who cares what you do with your stupid perfect lives! You think you’re happy, but you’re not!

You think that just because I don’t have any kids, God doesn’t love me!

Oh.

It was as transparent as a child who howls and screams that he is not tired, not tired at all. Only no one was going to come to this woman, pick her up, soothe her, and put her to bed. No one was going to say, “It’s all right, sweet one. I hear what you’re saying. Let me help you and give you what you need, so you will feel better.” She thinks that God doesn’t love her, because He didn’t give her any children.

It’s not true.  God loves you. But I don’t know how, just like I don’t know how or why or how much He loves me. He makes rain fall on the wicked and the just, and woe to the just who think that they deserve the rain.

This is not easy. When we love somebody and want to show them our love, we give them things – do nice things for them – make them feel our love in the way we know best. If I spent four months hunting for the perfect present for my husband, and he acted like it just randomly fell out of the sky because he’s a lucky fellow, I would be annoyed. No! I would think. I gave you that on purpose, to prove that I love you! This is personal!

And it is personal when God gives us good things.  But it’s not proof of His love, exactly. It’s not that simple. Yes, everything that is good comes from God, and He deserves our thanks and praise for the things He give us. But the problem comes when we look at His gifts and draw conclusions about ourselves.

This is why I rarely say, “God has blessed us” when I mean, “We have good things” — whether it’s things like the sunny little house where we live, or a car that keeps running one more year, or a happy weekend, or a living, breathing baby (or ten). I say, instead, “We’re so lucky.”

I mean that the good things that come to us are only the hem of the mystery of God’s goodness. They are only a rumblings in the outskirts of the real workings of the economy of grace. It is a very good thing to be grateful and to praise God for the things we receive. It is a monstrously bad thing to conclude that we got them as a reward for good behavior. And all too often, at least in the 21st century of the United States, that is how we use the word “blessing.”

Witness the blaspheming Osteens telling us,

To experience [God’s] immeasurable favor, you must rid yourself of that small-minded thinking and start expecting God’s blessings, start anticipating promotion and supernatural increase. You must conceive it in your heart before you can receive it. In other words, you must make increase in your own thinking, then God will bring those things to pass.

Tit for heavenly tat, in other words. Well, Jesus wasn’t small minded. Jesus’ Father loved Him, and look at Him. Look at Him:

PIC Grunewald cruxifix

 

 

This is why I do not say that I am blessed, even though I know that this is the word that is technically, theologically sound. I think it means something different to modern ears. I am afraid that it says something so loathsome that I don’t want to risk it.

If my happiness is a sign that God has blessed me, what does that equation say to people who aren’t experiencing “promotion and supernatural increase”? To the people whose house is washed away, whose husband is shot down, whose womb is barren? It says what my reader said, without knowing she was saying it:

God does not love me.

So I don’t say that I am blessed. Instead, I say that I am lucky to have all that I have, because it is closer to something that I cannot express:  in my best hours, my witless bafflement in the face of God’s mercy to me and my family. I am lucky, not because my good fortune has no meaning or no purpose or no design, but because I do not know why it happens. It happens because God loves me in this way at this time, when I am just and when I am unjust. I do not know why.

Why do I have, and why does she not have? I don’t know. It is easy for me to see that God loves me, because I am simple: I see that He has given me many things, and to my childish soul, that spells love. When I pray for other people, I often ask that He will bless them in obvious ways, that He will make it as clear as possible that they are loved. I suppose this shows some arrogance, telling God how to do His job. But really it’s fear.  I am afraid to learn more about the other kind of love.

What About Behavioral and Spiritual Arguments Against Vaccines?

PIC vaccine

As we can see from Tuesday’s post and the response to it, it’s not necessarily clear what we mean when we say “science” or “medicine.” So let’s put science and medicine aside entirely for a moment, and let’s focus on two arguments against vaccines that I keep hearing — arguments which don’t appeal to science at all, but which are spiritual and behavioral.

Read the rest at the Register.   Note: any snark, condescension, lack of charity, arrogance, self-pity, logical fallacies or otherwise insufferable behavior in this post is unintentional. If you think I’ve missed the mark, please pray for me and respond with as much kindness as you can, because I really am trying here.

How I feel at Patheos sometimes

Especially with all the hotshot upstarts amazing talent Elizabeth has been bringing on board lately, like Kyle Cupp, Artur Roseman at Cosmos the In Lost, Tom Zampino at Grace Pending, Ben Conroy at Shadows on the Road, and Rebecca Frech at Shoved to Them.

Gee . . .

 

 

That’s me, that third guy, looking more and more nervous. Luckily, they are more than willing to pass the bottle and share a manly hand clasp of solidarity. Do yourself a favor and see who has something to say about the moon at Patheos lately!

Science, Catholics, and Fear

PIC doctor pocking cash

More and more, religious people are pitching their tents in the vast, squashy wilderness that calls itself “natural living” or “alternative medicine,” and are rejecting science and modern medicine — not some of it, but all of it.  Their creed is this: drugs are evil, chemicals are evil, doctors are evil.You can cure most diseases, mental or physical, with a handful of seeds and a few essential oils squirted into the proper orifices. Above all, be afraid.e

Read the rest at the Register.