Vaccinations Made My Cat Autistic

[KamaAina]

http://reductress.com/post/vaccinations-made-my-cat-autistic/

When I took my cat Admiral Ticklebelly to his regular veterinary appointment, I was expecting a routine check-up – but I left with an autistic cat.

I may not be a “veterinarian,” but I have watched enough programs on feline behavior (just search YouTube for cat+riding+roomba) to know that Admiral Ticklebelly has caught autism.

The realization came shortly after my cat’s vaccinations last year – for rabies and feline distemper. My veterinarian insisted that vaccination was “required by law” and that it was “extremely important to the health of my cat” and that without vaccination my cat could “get really sick and die,” but I should have known better. I soon learned from holistic reading materials that vaccination = autism.

Of course I still love my autistic cat. That will never change, but I cannot help but wonder how the Admiral’s autism will affect him later in life. Will it be hard for him to make friends? Will it be a challenge for him to find love from less empathetic humans? What will his future look like when I’m no longer around? Society can be so closed-minded.

edit: I actually know someone who swore she had an Autistic cat.

[brooklynite]

1. Additionally, who will pay for the therapy he'll need for the trauma...

...of being named "Admiral Ticklebelly"?

[ck4829]

2. The author sounds like she still has more love for her cat than the more extreme anti-vaxxers have

for their own kids or people with autism.

Look at what the anti-vaxxers say and they can't be topped in their statements. They absolutely dehumanize people with this, they say things like that the light is gone from their eyes, or call it a fate worse than death.

Also, RIP, Admiral Ticklebelly.

[Padiddle]

5. Autism's not exactly a picnic

I'll agree that the anti-vaxxers make it out to be the equivalent of a chemical lobotomy. A lot of B-horror-movie hyperbole about the mysterious poison that turns babies into zombies.

Not being autistic myself, but having struggled for as long as I can remember with moodiness and PTSD, I can only say that concern is warranted for what is a legitimate mental-health epidemic. I can't begin to imagine how the autistic must suffer. I figure it must be like people with locked-in syndrome, who want to express emotion and speech but can't. Or deaf-mutes who long to hear and speak but become frustrated that they can't. The schizophrenic can't turn off the echoes, while the autistic struggles to make a sound.

I don't think it's because of vaccines, obviously. The guy who made Borat has a brother who is a brain scientist, and he says that there is a link to fetal testosterone causing deformities in key areas of the developing brain responsible for things like speech and emotional connectedness. (He nevertheless says that the vaccine-testosterone link is bogus.) He also says that there's something to be said for the idea of it being "Linux syndrome," where a lot of computer scientists and engineers tend to be autistic and that this is an example of an "extreme male mind." He undoubtedly courts controversy for suggesting there are gender differences that contribute to mathematical ability and emotional empathy (and that a deficit in one may be linked to a strength in another), but it sounds like a reasonable theory to investigate. At least more nuanced than letting kids die of measles because of some idiot charlatan's bogus research and Jenny McCarthy's equally idiotic PR campaign.

[meow2u3]

3. DUzy

[raven mad]

4. I do not have an autistic cat.

I do, however, have 5 who have Asperger's..............

and they're all smarter than me.