Thursday, January 31, 2008

Deja Vu all over again

A hallucinating lawyer with relationship trouble and a sassy administrative assistant. No, it's not Ally McBeal, it's a dude! It must be Eli Stone.

The intertubes have been all abuzz about this premiere because of the whole autism/mercury plot line.

Apparently some organizations were even calling for ABC to pull the premiere because they were afraid that parents would decide not to vaccinate their children based on this single, fictional television show.

I understand that the general public is stupid. Like the saying goes, think of how dumb the average person is... Now, realize that statistically, half the people in the world are even dumber than that! But I'm really getting tired of people treating parents (and particularly women) like we're idiots.

And anyone who would make any major life decision based on a single fictional television show is, by definition, an idiot.

See, here's the thing... They took away my kids' cold medicines because a bunch of really dumb parents couldn't be bothered to read the labels and dose their kids correctly, so now my kids have to suffer. And They want to take away TV shows with a brain (after all, you never see them getting all ticked off over trash like Flava of Love) because some people without brains don't get that fiction means "made up" or "based on reality." They think that women go around making major life decisions based on other peoples' bumper stickers. It's starting to drive me insane.

I hope that parents will have frank discussions with their doctors about vaccines, after having seen this show. ALL parents should be discussing ALL medical treatments with their doctors. To not do so is just irresponsible. Personally, we chose to vaccinate our kids. We decided that the risks of polio, measles and so on were greater than the risks of the vaccines. That said, I have not gotten them flu shots (BJ got Claire one this year, when he took her for her 9 month appointment - guess we should've talked about that one!), or shots for things that aren't a big risk (flu, rotavirus - although I regretted that one with MG this time last year, so Claire did get it!!). I got the chicken pox one because it was bundled with a bunch of others, and separating it out would've meant more needle sticks for the kids. We have tried to weigh the benefits against the risks, and to take into account our own social responsibility (in other words, we don't think it's right to rely on the immunizations of the other 22 kids in their kindergarten class to keep our kids safe). It wasn't a decision that we took lightly.

It shouldn't be a decision that any parent takes lightly. Taking Eli Stone off the air wouldn't have changed the fact that vaccination is a big decision for most thinking parents. I applaud television shows that raise these issues and bring them to people who might not spend every waking moment on the 'net like myself (hey, we're sick and we can't go out, damn that social responsibility! What else am I going to do??). There may be people who didn't realize that there was a controversy with vaccines and thiomersal, and now they're aware of it and awareness is good.

I wish They would quit treating parents (women) like we're morons. I could get all loud about the patriarchy and stuff, but BJ just gets all irritated when I talk about Vast Patriarchal Conspiracies, so I won't. Besides, someone's awake upstairs, so I have to go.

I'll watch Eli Stone, though. Cute show. I liked it when it was Ally McBeal, too.

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