January 1, 2010Louise Kuo HabakusHAPPY NEW YEAR!I'm sending you and your families my warmest wishes for the very best new year ever. January 1, 2010. It sounds good, doesn't it? A clean slate. A fresh start. So much is possible. Whatever we dream about, it feels more within our reach on 1/1. Whatever it is, it feels more doable, if we want it badly enough. |
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ON THE 00sAmerica loves to celebrate new beginnings. Just a few notes from Auld Lang Syne and we're immediately transported back to innumerable New Year's Eves of our past. I've been reflecting on last year and the last decade. I came up with all sorts of choice adjectives. But TIME magazine seemed to capture the gist of it, calling the 00s the Decade From Hell. Two market crashes, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, The Tsunami, Guantanamo, the housing bubble, huge corporate bankruptcies, TARP, numerous examples of celebrity hubris, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bernie Madoff, SARS, and the H1N1 swine flu pandemic of 2009, to name a few. How many of us emerged from the decade unscathed? Each event, monumental and potentially irrevocably life-altering. Combined? Ouch. My personal plan was filled with new beginnings, too. During the 00s, I became a wife, and a mom twice over. And I quit the corporate job that I thought defined me. The unexpected twists and turns affected us, too. The attacks on 9/11 hit us at home. Ron was working at 59 Wall Street, I was caring for our new baby in our Upper West Side apartment, and hundreds of our friends and colleagues were directly affected by the devastation. But more bad news was yet to come: our boys' vaccine injuries. Monumental and irrevocably life-altering indeed. I found a new purpose professionally. THANK YOU FOR THE RECOGNITIONAge of Autism voted me their 2009 Person of the Year. It's a big honor, and especially so because I was nominated by my peers. And there were many others who could have been chosen instead. It leaves me a bit tongue-tied and embarrassed. It also has me feeling like I better not let everyone down. Age of Autism is a gift. Read it, even if you don't happen to love a child with autism. Because you'll learn something. Because we should be honest with each other. Something very wrong is happening. In our country where 1 in 91 children, 1 in 60 boys is diagnosed with autism, there is only one response. This is messed up. In contrast to the impostors who claim to report the news about the autism epidemic, AoA could also be called To Tell The Truth. Maybe it sounds disingenuous that I'm saying nice things about an organization that just gave me an award. But I've been writing for them for a while now. And... it also happens to be true. |
MAKING LISTSEach year, when I watch the ball drop in Times Square, I am blessed to be surrounded by loved ones. But I always end up feeling wistful and a bit sad on December 31. An entire year flies by in a heartbeat and I tend to focus on what I could have done differently. So I make lists. It's a form of therapy. Things to do around the house. Health goals. Photo books to make. Places to visit. Things to do with the kids. Books to read. Movies to watch. You get the idea. The stuff that gets postponed when life hits the fan. There are professional lists too. I just made a list of all my talks, workshops, conferences, roundtables, rallies, and hearings in 2008 and 2009. Click HERE if you'd like to take a look. We've been busy. And there's a lot more work to do. [If I left something out, or made an error, let me know and I'll correct it pronto!] |
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 2010 THE YEAR OF ADVOCACYThere's something about sharing the list that makes it more real. If I say it aloud, then someone will surely hold me, and all of us, to the commitments and promises we make to ourselves and each other. I've received hundreds of notes from you. Lots of wonderful words of congratulations and good wishes to be sure. But many questions, too. Are we going to hold Christie's feet to the fire? Do we let Merck get away with their decision to stop making individual measles, mumps and rubella vaccines? What's next, Louise? So here's my top three list for The New Year. It's called: 2010 - The Year of Advocacy. It's aspirational. But it's also doable. A very big rally, in the heartland of our country. A command performance event, where there is no choice but to go, and to bring our friends and family with us, because it is our chance to send the strongest message possible. "Meeting in a box." My vaccine choices presentation, finally, in all your hands. I've been asked by hundreds of you for a PowerPoint copy of my standard vaccine talk. The one I've delivered 40+ times over the past 18 months. With your help, we can take this message across the country -- and the world. Fifty state organizing. But in the most practical and efficient way. There will be no need to join a new group, unless you want to, because we can come together as we are, belonging to the organizations that mean the most to us. Our generation is the one that best understands the power of Open Source. It's the collaborative process that helped the Internet blossom. It's the same collaborative process that has powered this American movement, the one that asserts our fundamental rights over what goes into our bodies.
I'm sure you have lots of questions. What do I mean exactly? How will it work? I will be sharing details soon. But I need to hear from you. I need to know if you want to help. |
A WORD ABOUT CHRIS CHRISTIEOur Governor-elect has been busy. Here's a peek at his Transition Team. It's a sizable list. I scoped out one name that I recognized... Anthony Ferrara's, an autism parent, supportive of vaccination choice, who attended our August 2009 meeting with Christie. But the original offer made to me, by a Christie insider, that I would have input into the selection of our new health commissioner doesn't seem to have materialized, so far. It doesn't surprise me that I haven't felt the love since Election Day. They courted us prior to November 3 for the votes we could bring to the table, and we were smart enough to ask for a promise in return. I don't know the players yet, but it's not a stretch to imagine that his new Chief of Staff and a handful of others surrounding our new Governor aren't too crazy about his campaign promise: "I stand with them now, and will stand with them as their governor in their fight for greater parental involvement in vaccination decisions that affect their children." Here's the "morning after" reality. WE are going to have to ensure the follow through. WE are going to have to remind him. I can't work to hold him accountable without your help. I've received copies of several hundred of your letters so far. It's a good start, but it's not enough. So... if you haven't written our Governor-elect yet, please do. If you've already written him, write him again. You do not need to be from New Jersey to make the point. Send your letters to: The Honorable Chris Christie
Governor-Elect
State of New Jersey
20 West State Street
PO Box 22
Trenton, NJ 08625-0022
609-341-3000 Send an e-mail copy of your letter to Mark Braden, Deputy Director of the Transition at mark.braden at govelect.state.nj.us. And also send a copy to me at louise at lifehealthchoices.com because I'm keeping track! (Yes, please remove the spaces and substitute the @ for "at" in the e-mail addresses above... I'm trying to foil the spambots.) If you don't know what to write, click HERE for some suggestions. His inauguration takes place on January 19. I'm sure he'd love to receive your good wishes as he assumes the title that you may have helped make possible. Tell him we want input and we're eager to hear from him. | How many of you were stunned, shocked and devastated to hear that the former head of the CDC, Madame Vaccines-Do-Not-Cause-Autism herself, Dr. Julie Gerberding, is now pulling down a big bucks, senior corporate executive salary as President of Merck Vaccines? OK, maybe not so stunned and shocked. After all, the revolving door between government and industry is well-established. Let's just step back for a sec and think about this. The entire U.S. vaccine program reports to the head of the CDC. The CDC makes recommendations on which shots should be added to the childhood and adult vaccine schedules. The state health departments all defer to the CDC when it comes to vaccine selection. Not one state mandates a shot that has not been blessed by the CDC. As head of the CDC, Gerberding held steadfast to the claim that vaccines don't cause autism. In fact, so convinced is she of the privileged status of vaccines that she failed to pursue any plausible link between vaccines and an entire raft of autoimmune, chronic, neurological or developmental disorders facing American children today. During the time Gerberding was at the CDC, America added a half dozen new shots to the childhood vaccine schedule. She never met a shot she didn't love, a quality that Merck clearly found irresistible. Even the most jaded among us surely must have paused for just a moment to consider the brazen and flagrant disregard for appearances. You know, that thing called "appearance of impropriety." So let's please offer them a healthy dose of shame and reproach, since neither she, nor pharmaceutical giant Merck, seem able to muster up any on their own behalf. Sorry for the sarcasm, folks. I can't help it. And by the way, no one writes about this better than Ginger Taylor. Ginger is smart, witty, and wickedly on target. So please read her post on my site or hers. | PLEASE SUPPORT US!I hate to ask but it's the only way that we can continue to do this work. We need your support. Please make a donation. And keep in touch. I'll be back soon with more details. Here's to 2010. A brand new year. A brand new decade. Filled with hope. Louise Kuo Habakus |
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1/1/10: 2010 The Year of Advocacy... Thank you AoA...
