First, the Before picture

Here is my son Julian, at four years old: he couldn't play with toys; he scowled most of the time; he had explosive, violent rages; had little or no recognition of danger; panicked easily; aggressive; little to no tolerance for changes of any sort; intolerant of light, loud noises, anyone touching him; constantly sick with asthma, ear infections, virus after virus after virus.

Julian would compulsively rub his head all over me and want to put his hands and head under my shirt. He made strange noises a lot of the time, something like the sound dolphins make. His outbursts of rage seemed most of the time to come out of nowhere.

How I found the way out, after the fold. It gets worse before it gets better.

I spent the day with my 82 year old father yesterday, my twice-Bush-voting Old South WWII-vet registered Democrat father. He hasn't voted for a Democrat since Roosevelt, so we've argued about politics, sometimes viciously, for 35 years. In 2004 he got onboard with the Swift Boaters and wouldn't listen to any argument whatsoever, just kept saying that we needed to support our commander-in-chief in times of war.

I need to mention that his sources of information are limited to the stinkin' Richmond Times-Dispatch, occasionally Rush and network news, plus the gang of ultra-reactionary fellow geezers he hangs out with. Also at his age he's more interested in going to dinner parties than reading a lot of bad news, so he's skimming at best anyway.

On the flip, I'll give you his take:

New quarterly numbers are out in CA, which has the best tracking system for autism cases in the country.

The numbers are dropping.

According to the state data, 2002 was a record year for new autism diagnoses, with 3,259 cases. In 2003, the number of new cases slipped to 3,125. In 2004, the number was 3,074.

For the first half of 2005, there were 1,470 new cases, compared to 1,518 in the same period in 2004.

http://www.dds.ca.gov/FactsStats/quarterly.cfm

Why does this matter? More after the break.

The bald fact is that the thimerosal in infant vaccinations has caused an epidemic in autism, ADHD, speech delay, and other neurological and developmental problems. A bit more on this below, but I'm not writing to argue the point -- read David Kirby's "Evidence of Harm" and then we can debate all you want.

So far this issue is shaping up to be a disaster for progressives. So far, with the recent exception of Robert Kennedy, Jr., the conservative right has been leading the way on the this issue. If progressives fail to grasp what's happened (huge failure of government oversight followed by coverup leading to a generation of damaged children), then Republicans are going to use this as one more example of the evil of big government and the hopelessness of trusting governmental regulation at all.

In the first days after the election, you could feel the sorrow here in Charlottesville. When I went grocery shopping at Whole Foods, that usually cheerful place felt funereal. A lot of people, including me, were buying flowers and big desserts to cheer ourselves up. My family, and almost my entire neighborhood, was going through this weird communal mourning.

What I'm wondering about is how this feeling of loss is affecting people's reaction to the possibility of fraud. Could it be that some of those who don't want to hear a word about the possibility of fraud can't stand the idea of going through another fight that seems to offer only a slight chance of being won?