MELTDOWN IN CHERRY HILL
By Wendy Fournier
I’ve attended almost every Defeat Autism Now! Conference since my daughter was diagnosed with Autism. Getting together with other parents and with professionals who validate our beliefs on what happened to our kids can be quite an emotional experience. I used to find myself in tears pretty often at these events, but through the years have been able to keep the hurt and anger in check a little bit better.
But during Jenny McCarthy’s talk in Cherry Hill, NJ, I completely fell apart. Jenny brought her film crew along to get footage for the documentary that she and Jim Carrey are producing. She spoke to a huge, standing-room-only crowd and as I looked around that room, all I could think was that there were so many people there - this should have been over long ago, and none of these parents should have to be here.
Jenny McCarthy
Jenny asked parents to take the microphone and talk about their children. We heard the same heartbreaking story over and over again. Our baby was perfect, he met all of his developmental milestones and after receiving multiple vaccines, we lost him.
I stood in the back of the room with tears streaming down my face, shaking uncontrollably with profound sadness for these parents as I saw the pain on their faces and heard their voices crack with emotion.
At the end of her talk, Jenny asked everyone in the room to hold up a picture of their children. A thousand hands were raised high in the air, each one proudly holding a photograph of a beautiful child. There was not a sound in the room for what seemed like an eternity – complete silence – yet in my mind I heard these parents screaming, “I’m here to fight, I’m going to get my baby back!”
It was at that moment - looking through my uncontrollable tears at this sea of photographs – that I realized for every one hand in the air, there were 1,000 more kids whose parents weren’t there. The kids in those pictures were actually the lucky ones. And that’s when I really lost it.
I cried for all of the parents who have been given no hope for their children, the ones who have never been told that autism is treatable, the ones who watch their children suffer in pain and have no idea that they can help them, the ones who our federal health agencies have turned their backs on, the throw-away kids who are callously dismissed as collateral damage for the vaccine program.
As parents from all over the country march with
Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey to our nation’s capitol on June 4th, I
pray that these lost children will at last be found.
Wendy Fournier is President of the National Autism Association.
UPDATE: The rally was a huge success. Over 8,000 supporters marched!