As the debate about vaccine safety intensifies, new laws have been passed to protect the pharmaceutical companies from litigation. No new laws have been passed to protect the victims of vaccine injury. Against rising proof that vaccines are unsafe and linked to autism, ADHD, and other serious outcomes, the same mantra is repeated by government sources—that there is no proof of cause and effect between vaccinations and health concerns.

Now let’s get real. The truth is, risks have always been known and accepted. Every parent who signs a vaccination form and bothers to read it, knows that they are risking their child’s life by agreeing to a vaccination. I will never forget the dread I felt signing those forms. Oh the risk was slight, but my child could contract the very disease I was vaccinating against or encephalitis or another complication. And death? Oh yes, that was listed as a possible outcome. And as this fact was sinking in, the nurse was pushing me to sign, telling me it was perfectly safe. I felt like I was sending my child outside to run back and forth across the street in hopes he would not get hit by a car. After all, the odds were on his side for that risk as well.

When my ADHD child was 3 and I told the testing psychologist I was going to try diet management (rather than the Ritalin he wanted to prescribe) he told me the link between diet and ADHD was nonsense and he had a study to prove it. When diet mnagement worked, with amazing and immediate results, he didn’t want to see the proof or witness the change in behavior. We do not as yet have good solid research to prove a link between autism and vaccines, but all you have to do is speak to a parent of a bright, verbal toddler who, after a vaccination, suddenly lost both speech and normal behavior to know the link is real. It is an dramatic cause and effect, witnessed over and over and over again by parents across the country.

I work for non-profit organizations, writing grant proposals. One of my jobs is to search grant databases, including grants.gov, the site for federal grant opportunities. Today I stumbled across two requests for proposals from the Department of Social and Health Services, grant opportunities to research vaccine safety.

One announcement reads, “This R21 research opportunity invites studies that address scientific areas potentially relevant to vaccine safety such as 1) physiological and immunological responses to vaccines and vaccine components, 2) how genetic variations affect immune/physiological responses that may impact vaccine safety, 3) identification of risk factors and biological markers that may be used to assess whether there is a relationship between certain diseases or disorders and licensed vaccines, or 4) the application of genomic/molecular technologies to improve knowledge of vaccine safety.”

Our government may be continuing to deny the link between autism and vaccines, but at least they are funding research.