By Erin K Costello I don’t usually write about the deaths of children, especially babies, but this time I am making an exception. I don’t usually write about these events even though many parents falsely blame vaccines for such deaths. The thought of doing so has always felt wrong and cruel. People like Larry Cook of Stop Mandatory Vaccination have no problem exploiting the deaths of these children for profit. Even though I make zero money off my posts, writing about them still felt wrong. It bothers me that parents wrongly blame vaccinations for these deaths and I know them doing so does causes harm, usually by convincing other parents to stop vaccinating for no reason, but I don’t want to be the one to take the focus of their anger and sadness away, even though they are directing it in the wrong place. I chose to make an exception this time for a couple of reasons. One reason being that this child died over a year ago. Even though I know this mom is still hurting, and always will be hurting, writing this a year later seems more acceptable. The second reason is because there are conflicting accounts of what occurred and I think people should know this. Not because I am accusing the mother of anything, well other than being mistaken, but because I hope other parents will notice this and realize this is a mother who is grieving and not a mother who is understands vaccinations or should be listened to for advice. My heart goes out to the mom. I can see the pain in her face and hear it in her voice when she discusses what happened in a Facebook video. I don’t think she did anything wrong or caused the death of her child. I wish she could find a cause if that would help her come to terms with losing her baby, even if that cause were vaccinations. I see this mom as a victim for losing her daughter, and as a victim to the anti-vaccination community. I believe those in the community have preyed upon her grief and loss for selfish reasons. I know anti-vaccinationists often target grieving parents and I can imaging how vulnerable these parents are during the hardest loss of their lives. I don’t agree with this mom, but I don’t blame her either. Often times on Facebook we will see a post made by a grieving parent concerning the loss of a baby, usually due to SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). Often times these posts are parents just reaching out for support and even though the parents are devastated, they know the cause of death was not from a vaccine so they don't claim it was a vaccine. They don't have to make this claim though either since hundreds of anti-vaccinationists will appear on their post and make this claim for them. Sadly though sometimes the parent is posting to find support for both their pain and for their theory that the cause of death was from a vaccine. It doesn’t matter if the last vaccine was administered 24 hours prior, or 24 days prior, these parents will still insist it was the last vaccine the baby received that took the child away from them. It also doesn’t matter to these parents what a coroner determines as a cause of death, if the death is ruled as SIDS, or what medical professionals have told the parent what the cause of death likely was, the parent will still decide it was the last vaccine the child was given. A big reason for this is because the child will pass away some time after a vaccination was received. According to the CDC, it is recommended that during the first year of life, babies receive vaccinations at birth, 1-2 months of age, 4 months of age, 6 months of age, 7-11 months of age, and 12 months of age. Sudden infant deaths without any other known cause that occur during the first year of life are classified as SIDS deaths. These types of death still rarely occur after one year of age but they are no longer considered to be SIDS since the baby is not longer an infant. For much of the child's first year of life they had just received a vaccination only weeks prior since they have multiple recommended age milestones during this first year. Statistically speaking many babies who die from SIDS will die within days or weeks of having a vaccine because of this. This is a perfect example of how correlation does not imply causation. The child in question is Remi Rose. She was an adorable little girl born on September 9, 2017 to her mother, Megan, or Megz Egidi as she’s known on Facebook. I questioned leaving the mom anonymous for this blog post but due to the fact it’s been a year since this unfolded and since I am not at all attempting to throw shade at the mom I decided to reveal her name. The website and the Facebook page What’s the Harm in no way supports or desires anyone to contact the mother in any way. We will condemn any actions by readers to contact the mom, especially if done so from a place of anger or hate. Now that I’ve said that, let’s continue. I am going to assemble this blog post as a timeline of events. Events being posts made to Facebook in the order of which they were posted. The only post I find from the day of Remi’s death was made by a person named Kellie Taylor Condie on her own personal Facebook page. In this public post Kellies says, "This morning was a nightmare for me. I can't even imagine what my best friend in the whole wide world is going through right now [emoji]....just the few weeks that Remi Rose graced us with her beautiful little presence she has brought so much joy to our family the kids love her so much [name] [name] [name] [name] and [name] man they're their own little cousin bestie group and they all ove each other so much and they all love Remi so much this is just terrible please keep Megan [name] [name] and [name] in your prayers keep my whole family and please above all Megz because no mother ever deserves to lost a child at any time [emoji emoji heart heart]" Other than the above post all I can find from this time are several Go Fund Me shares of a Go Fund Me campaign started by a Leah Alison Childs for the purpose of assisting the family with funeral costs The next post I come across is from October 12, 2017 when Megan posted in the closed Facebook group, Vaccination Re-education Discussion Forum. I am unable to find any posts made at the immediate time of Remi’s death. In this earliest post by Megan she says, "Ok so I didn't get the coroners report yet and ii wont have it for a couple weeks. But my three week old daughter got the hep b vaccine. She died in her sleep three days later. Im looking for answers and trying to not stay quiet about it but Im getting a lot of backlash bc people dont think thats why she passed. I just don't think its a coincidence. I feel like even if it was the reason she passed away, they will try and hide it. Im so confused. Has anyone else had problems with their child and this particular vaccine. Ill never see my baby again bc i decided to listen to the doctor after denying it three different times... I need answers and dont know what to do. If anyone has any info can you please help me and let me know your stories. I just dont even know where to start. When we were in the hospital the doctor actually told me he though the cause of death was her not being able to swallow my milk and choking. One of the side effects of this vaccine is "trouble breathing and swollowing" We were co sleeping and i always just had by breast out so she could eat when she wanted to during the night. When we woke up there was no evidence of anything blocking her face to breath. She was lying blue and had passed through the night. I have a feeling they will pass it off as sids. But why would they tell me she choked on my milk in the middle of the night... i could be A million thehy will say sids/co sleeping was the cause. It makes no sense. I wish I had dome way to investigate and prove it. Or just find some answers. [crying emoji] I just don't know what to do!" The next post comes from Megan and was posted to the same Facebook group as mentioned above on December 21, 2017. In this post Megan says, "So me and my aunt were discussing vaccines at the dinner table tonight like adults with some agreements and some not so much. She thinks that you should wait and be on a delayed schedule when I said that I think you shouldn't get them at all. But not once did she make me feel crazy. My father was sitting in the living room and as soon as he heard me say that he popped up and started telling me that I was crazy and that I am reading crazy articles and my kids will be kicked out of school and not be allowed back in. I have kept my vaccine status secret to everyone bc of this reason. My dad thinks he knows everything. He literally told me that I was reading bull**** and crazy! So I told him oh the Dec and vaers and vaccine inserts amt credible. And books written by scientists and doctors who actually study it? Really that's crazy? And he just get talking in circles making me look completely stupid and crazy in front of my whole family and then proceeded to say that he was a scientist ! Omg his is a freaking biology teacher for highschool. That is his only degree. He is not a scientist! So please please help me. I just totally look like a crazy person in front of my whole family bc of this scene he wanted to make! Please give me credible resources that I can show him and them. Anything and everything about vaccines and the diseases that they supposedly make you immune to. Please help me not look stupid!" In the comment section from the above post Megan adds, "Thank you so much guys. I am going to get all my thoughts together and literally make a power point with all the inserts and all the info I can get that he'll actually not just shrug off. If he wants to play this with me I'll appeal to the teacher in him with a research paper for him just to prove he is not rite. We literally ended up getting in a screaming match. He called me stupid and crazy and told me my kids would never be aloud to go to school and that I wou of never be aloud to get religious exemption bc I'm not religious. He's literally so uneducated i was baffled but really really thought he was rite!!! He is an asshole. I was so mad I had to walk away bc I didn't want him to see me cry. My daughter just passed away two days after receiving vaccines and now he just wants me to follow his no facts rant and continue to put my other two kids at risk. Screw him!" There’s nothing relevant found for a few months after that last post on December 21, 2017. It was in April 2018 that Megan made a video and posted it to the closed Facebook group Vaccination Re-education Discussion Forum. In the video she says the nurse never even asked to give the shot of vitamin k but instead just went ahead and gave it to the baby. In this video she also says she requested delayed cord clamping and that the hospital only delayed this for about a minute but Megan wanted it delayed until the cord turned white. This catches my attention because, even though I don’t know this to be an absolute fact, wanting delayed cord clamping until the cord turned white is one of the anti-vaccination tenets. For granted there are crunchy moms who vaccinate and request this, and I’m sure even some silky moms request this as well, this request isn’t exclusive to anti-vacinationists. However, I have no issue saying that you will not find an anti-vaccination mom in a delivery room who doesn’t request cord clamping until the cord turns white. This was especially true a year ago when Megan delivered Remi. In the video Megan continues by saying she did refuse the hep b shot for her daughter because this was one of the shots she had read up on before delivery. She goes on to say that she had read how the baby doesn’t need to get the shot, that hep b is a sexually transmitted disease, a drug using disease, and that if the mom doesn’t have hep b there’s no reason the baby should get the vaccine. She adds that she decided to wait and talk to the doctor about the vaccine. Megan continues by saying she took Remi to the doctor’s at about 3 weeks old and informed the pediatrician how she was afraid to allow her daughter to get the hep b vaccine and was doubting other vaccines as well. According to Megan the doctor spent about 15 minutes discussing her fears with her. The doctor allegedly assured Megan that the hep b vaccine was the safest one to give Remi, that it’s the one with the “least amount of reactions and side effects” and that the doctor promised her Remi would be O.K. She then says she allowed the hep b vaccine. Megan says that hours after the appointment Remi was cranky, kept stiffening up and making fists, and that she looked “bug-eyed.” She then forwards to the following morning and said her daughter appeared really skinny and to have lost weight. She then called the doctor and relayed these observations to him and elaborated that Remi looked like she lost a bit a weight. The doctor allegedly instructed her to supplement some of Remi’s feedings with formula instead of breast milk. Megan claims that even though she didn’t want to follow his instructions she still did so and supplemented a few feedings with formula. She then reveals that she has co-slept with all three of her kids, including Remi. She explains the day as though it was an average day and then says everyone went to bed that night like normal. Megan then says she remembered getting up two times during the night due to Remi crying and that she had fed her when this happened. She added that when she did this Megan would lie on her back, slightly on her side with her arm out and Remi would lay next to her resting her head on Megan’s arm as Megan kept her boob out for Remi to nurse. This was how she slept with Remi. At 7:30 they woke up Megan said and then she noticed Remi wasn’t moving and that she hadn’t cried. One side of her lips were gray, she was still warm and wasn’t hard or stiff but she was limp. Megan also noticed Remi wasn’t breathing so she woke her partner, George, up and told him the baby wasn’t breathing. She says George started CPR and told her to call 911. She continues by saying she called 911 and that her other two kids had woken up and witnessed this all play out. She expresses regret for not being able to shelter them from this tragedy. At this point she adds that Remi was blue. Megan says the first people to respond were the police and they took over CPR, then shortly afterwards the ambulance arrived. She adds that her next door neighbor at the time was her cousin and her cousin came over to get the older two children. They all then went to the hospital. After about an hour or so waiting at the hospital the doctor came in to the room they were waiting in to tell Megan and George that they had done all they could but tragically Remi did not survive. Before I continue with her posts I’m going to mention a video Megan made yesterday. It will make more sense in discussing the timeline if I add here. The video is of an interview between Megan and another anti-vaccinationist named Heather Turano, and is a public post found on Heather’s page. In an interview with Heather Turano, a woman whom I can only describe as one of the most ignorant people in the anti-vaccination movement, Megan revealed Remi was born at 39 weeks after her doctor decided to induce her at her last appointment. The doctor feared a possibility of pre-eclampsia and diabetes to the point that he insisted she be induced that day. Megan said Remi was born healthy. She then explained that she refused the Hepatitis B vaccine for her daughter while still in the hospital after giving birth, but allowed the nurse to administer the vitamin K shot. Megan claims she asked the nurse what the shots were, the nurse told her, and then Megan only allowed the vitamin K injection. Often times anti-vaccination parents will refuse the hep b vaccine and then lie to the hospital staff that they are doing so because they prefer it be given at their pediatrician’s office during the baby’s first doctor’s visit, usually only days after hospital discharge. Megan stated she genuinely intended to allow the hep b vaccine at this first doctor’s appointment, only after she had an opportunity to research the vaccine a little first and determine she was comfortable allowing the shot for her daughter. Most infants are scheduled to see their doctor a few days after being born, usually at about a week old. Megan said Remi did not see her doctor for her first visit until she was 17 days old. Mom gave the reason for this late appointment of being too busy to go sooner than this. Before I continue I’d like to address a few things here. I have no doubt mom was busy. Remi was her third child. Her oldest child is a son, her younger child is a daughter age 3 though 2 at the time, and she had a newborn at home. I am not sure of her son’s age but he doesn’t look to be much older than his 3 year old sister. I know what this mom was dealing with because I was this mom. I had a 7 year old son and a16 month old son when I brought home my youngest child as a newborn. I don’t blame this mom for such a late initial pediatrician visit, nor do I think the late visit contributed in any way. That being said, I do feel I need to be honest and explain that I don’t believe her reason for wanting the wait to give the hep b vaccine. I realize she gave a different reason in the earlier video but even without seeing that I’d still doubt this excuse she provided. For granted I don’t know this as fact but it’s been our experience throughout this vaccination debate that when a parent holds off on a vaccine, especially when they refuse the shot in the hospital, that the parent is already an anti-vaccine parent, or at least heavily leaning to that side of this issue. As the interview goes on I only become more convinced of this when she explains a scary experience with her son years prior. When her son was 2 years old he had a doctor’s appointment and received several vaccinations. She claims that during the night her son experienced a seizure. She called 911 and by the time the paramedics arrived the seizure was all over. She then says her pediatrician warned her to never vaccinate her son again, but that she could vaccinate her other children. It isn’t clear if the doctor told her this at the time or told her she could vaccinate her other children at a later time. Unless she was pregnant with her second child it would seem odd for the doctor to have told her this at that time. Mom then admitted she stopped vaccinating her son at that point. Between her refusal in the hospital, this event with her son, what she claims her doctor told her, and her admittance to never vaccinating her son again, I can’t help but to think she was already likely anti-vaccine at the time she delivered Remi, or at least mostly there. As a result I can’t help but to question her intention of researching the hep b vaccine. She then revealed that she never had a chance to do this research before Remi’s first doctor’s appointment. Moving on! During Remi’s first pediatrician visit Megan says she expressed doubt and concern over allowing the hep b vaccine to be given to her newborn. She said the only reason why she eventually allowed the shot was because the doctor allegedly told Megan “I promise she will be ok.” Remi is said to have received no other shots that day. Megan says once they came home after the appointment the baby was sleepy. She said that hours later the baby felt “stiff” and looked “bug-eyed.” Looking back mom now believes Remi was likely having seizures while stiffening up and making fists. Later on at night Megan said Remi began to do a scream type of cry when she was fussy and that this was unusual behavior even though the baby was barely 2 weeks old at the time. Mom said the baby didn’t cry too often and usually slept well. She then claims she called the doctor in the morning to discuss these concerns. She claimed to tell the doctor that Remi seemed sickly and frustrated, that she kept stiffening up and was now losing weight. The doctor allegedly advised the mom to supplement a couple feedings with formula instead of breast milk. Megan continues by saying day and night of September 27 Remi slept more than usual. She said she noticed her newborn didn’t seem to be eating much and was possibly sick. The family then went to bed that night like usual. She said Remi slept in a cot next to the parent’s bed and that her other two kids slept in their room with them as well. During the night mom said she woke up and thought Remi should try and eat something since it had been a while since Remi’s last feeding. Megan claims to have breast fed the baby a bit then laid her back down in her cot before mom went back to sleep. It is then said that George, that baby’s father, woke up suddenly in a panic at about 7:00 am, and that Megan suddenly woke up in a panic as well, seemingly for no reason. Megan then said she had a feeling she needed to hurry up and find Remi, to check on her. She claims to have picked up her baby and even though she felt stiff it didn’t occur to mom that she could be deceased. She handed the baby to George who then told her to call 911 as he administered CPR. Megan then said in this video that she brought her other 2 kids to the neighbors and then called 911. Paramedics arrived shortly after and rushed the baby to the hospital. About an hour or so later Megan said the doctor came in and told them they had done all they could but tragically baby Remi did not survive. The next post is the one that brought this situation to our attention, to many people’s attention really since it has gone viral at this point. As of writing the post has over 3,000 comments and almost 8,000 shares. This is a public post she made to her personal Facebook page. In this post she made on November 27, 2018, along with some pictures of Remi’s funeral (I am not sharing the funeral pics, they are lovely but don’t contribute to my post at all. The post is public though and can be found here.), she says, "I never shared these pictures on my fb before. But I think its time. Its taking alot of courage to press share. I think it needs to be seen. It wasnt a planned thing. Someone thought I would cherish these pictures in the future and took them and now im glad they did. It may make some people mad or uncomfortable but it's my reality every day. Its the reality of what can happen from vaccinating. There are dangers expecially with very small babies. I had no idea and I wish I can go back. I hope you can read the pain and shock on our faces. Because pain and shock and not accepting of what had just happened is how I felt then. And she looked like such an angel. A beautiful angel. She was given hep b vaccine at around 330 pm on the 26th of september at her first doctors apt. She died less than 48 hours later. Her name was Remi Rose ans she was so loved. We wanted to do what was best for our baby and so we listened and vaccinated her. Everything in me was screaming not to for some reason and I had no idea why. I even denied it the first time they asked and thats why she didn't get it until she was three weeks old. The doctor tole me that it was very important that she got it and that I was putting her at risk. Made me feel like a bad mom. Couple of things about hep b. It is a disease you get from blood to blood contact. Exp. sexual contact or sharing needles with drug addicts. So why is this vaccine given to baby's on their first couple days and weeks of life? If you look at the vaccine insert, sleep apnea and trouble breathing can be a reaction to the shot. She just stopped breathing in the middle of the night with no explanation. It was ruled unexplained and we are still fighting to this day to get the truth from them. They did not do the proper testing to even see if it was the vaccine but I know it was. I seen what happened to my baby the day she got her shot. She deteriorated over less than 48 hours and then died in her sleep. I can only wish she went peacefully with no pain. I can only wish she could have told me what was wrong with so we could have saved her. We will get the truth no matter how long it takes. I promise. I promise in her name." Many people shared the above post to several closed anti-vaccination groups on Facebook. One of the groups was (again) Vaccination Re-education Discussion Forum. On November 27, 2018 a group member named Claudia shared this post and commented “So hearbreaking.” The post has only one comment at this point and the comment is from a group member named Ana Griggs. In the comment Ana adds, "I remember seeing these pictures last year when she passed away. So sad." I should note that I have no idea if Ana is telling the truth or not, or is mistaken. Next Megan made another public post to her personal Facebook page that included some screen shots of private messages she had received in response to her last post. Now, even though I disagree with messaging this mother privately like this, this person does make some valid points. Here is what one person messaged the mom shortly after her last post, "Hi! So how do you know for sure it was the vaccine and not your precious Hemp/CBD oil in your system that killed your daughter?" "Seem irresponsible to claim it was one thing considering there's photographic evidence [included image] of you using things not tested on infants or recommended to be around them." "And how does your story change from the baby dying in three days to 49 hours, and also how does it go from 'she was just gone to declining..." In addition to these screen shots was was a comment from Megan stating, "And it starts... not even replying. What a sad woman. When did I ever say three days btw ppl? The 26th at 3pm to the 38th at around 5am is less than 48 hours and I never claimed anything else. And I didn't even know what cbd oil was back then....literally discovered it like 5 months after Remi died. And I was holding my vape in the hospital room in this picture about to leave for a break. There were nurses in the room at this point. You can't smoke in a hospital. just shut up. I've never smoked around my kids. That picture is over a year old. Must have been stalking my profile hard to try to find something to blame me for [thinking face emoji]" In the comment section of one of the last two posts highlighted above was a comment from another Facebook user who shared a screen shot of the post Megan made on October 12, 2017 to that closed Facebook group mentioned above. They then pointed out some inconsistencies. Megan responded to this comment by replying the following, "That post from the vaccine re education page is from right after it happened. I was in shock and was looking for answers. Literally less than two weeks after it happened grieving my baby. Had done now research and I was just starting my journey. That is the post that started me on my research. There is a thing called a coroners report that I got that ruled everything out. They found no cause for my baby and didn't do the test to prove for vaccines. I'm sure the trolls can do better than that. Block. delete Bye." Next Megan publicly posted a video to her personal Facebook page showing her daughter’s death certificate and the coroner’s conclusions. Along with the video she stated, "Only reason im doing this is bc my post went viral and i am now being stalked and harassed. They dug up a post I made on a private page two weeks after Remi passed away. It was about how I though vaccines contributed to my daughters death and seen that I co-slept with my kids. This was before i had done any research in vaccines and i was so heart broken and looking for answers. So they started screen shoting this post and plastering everywhere and saying i dont deserve to have my other kids and that i killed my daughter by smothering her and bc i smoke a vape pen. Just some crazy hurtful rediculous stuff. I am not showing the official toxicology and autopsy report bc it literally is so painful to look at. They describe my daughters dead body and what it looks like laying on a table and talk about how they cut her open and im not going there with anyone. So here is the official documented cause of death certificate. It doesnt have as much info as the coroners report but it has enough to prove that smoking nor smothering killed Remi. It says undetermined and sudden unexpected infant death. That is the official c o d. Thanks for making me dig this out and explaing myself, but i will not have people thinking im a liar or that i killed my baby girl. I loved her more than life itself. And yes. After it happened i blamed myself. Its something you just do when your grieving deeply. I hope this clears things up and your people will stop harassing me now. Also wanted to add that when was at the hospital with Remi's body the day she passed I was grief stricken having a panic attack asking why this happened. The doctor told me he didn't know and we wouldn't until the autopsy was done but that she could have choked on my milk after i fed her that night or that there could be no reason at all. It was a conversation and he was trying to calme me down. It was a guess on his part. You cant tell a cause of death by looking at a baby's body. You people are absolutely hideous people. ill gladly continue to prove i am no liar. Thanks!" I should first stress that I am not qualified in any way to give an assessment on Megan or anyone else for that matter. I am going to give my opinion though it is not one I am summarizing from any type of formal education. The only assets I have to formulate an opinion on human behavior are my 43 years of living on this planet among other humans, my 14 years of professionally tending bar, my years of debating with anti-vaccinationists on social media, and my roughly two years of trolling anti-vaccination groups in search of post material, as well as finding a never-ending repetitive loop of anti-vacciantionists parroting the same tenets and questions over and over again. I realize these assets do not qualify me to be some sort of authoritative voice on anti-vaccinationists let along on human. So I kindly ask that you take my opinion with a grain of salt. Next I want to stress something about Megan. In the time I’ve spent reading these types of posts, and in the past two years there have been dozens of posts, videos, images, and Go Fund Me campaigns for me to read, it becomes easy to determine which ones are more genuine and sincere than others. There have been some posts I’ve seen where I doubted much of what the parent claimed, some to the point that I wouldn’t believe the story to be true unless I found proof that a child existed and tragically died. Those posts I rarely ever do find proof a child existed. Other posts I simply doubted the parent really believed the cause to be vaccines. There have even been a few where I doubted the parent was upset as they claimed to be. Megan belongs to none of these groups. I fully believe she has been and is still devastated from this loss of her daughter. I fully believe Megan believes the cause was Remi’s hep b vaccine days prior. I realize everyone grieves in different ways but even those who extreme in odd ways will still come off as sincere if they are sincere by some things they say, their facial expressions, mannerisms, and how long they focus on their loss and their grief. Some people who grieve in ways that seem completely normal and expected will still come off as cold, emotionless, or even flippant if they aren’t sincere in their sadness. I find Megan to be probably one of the most sincere parents to express their loss and sadness that I have ever come across. Most parents don’t post videos so the fact that there’s a couple videos from Megan over the past year could contribute to why I am able to find her to be so genuine in her emotions and her beliefs. This doesn’t mean she’s correct for believing her baby’s death was caused by a vaccine, it just means that I don’t doubt that Megan truly believes that to be the cause. Even with some inconsistencies in her recall of events I don’t doubt her pain and her belief. The inconsistencies could be due to a number of reasons. I never lost a child like this so I don’t what it’s like to go through it, what parts of the event a parent may or may not be likely to remember, how possible it is to just shut down to the rest of the world and have to rely on spotty memory of what happened later on, or how a parent’s brain is likely to simply function during those first moments and days. I can’t say for sure but I imagine the trauma of losing a child could easily cause someone to get things wrong or remember differently at times. I don’t think this would could for all the inconsistencies though. Specifically the two different claims of where Remi had been sleeping at the time she passed, and Megan’s different claims of whether or not she anti-vaccine and why she refused the hep b in the hospital. I think she told conflicting accounts on the hep b vaccine possibly because she was against vaccines before she had Remi and felt guilty for agreeing to the shot at the doctor’s office and wanted to try and hide this. Or maybe she feared comments or messages from other anti-vaccinationitsts as they said “told ya so” in the many familiar cold and heartless ways they do this. I realize and agree that some pro-vaccinationists are just as bad at times. The ones who do that are deplorable and have no business contacting parents to say such horrible things. I will condemn any pro-vaccinationists that I see do this grieving parents. That being said, there have been an untold amount of times I have seen anti-vaccinationsts blame their fellow cult members for the deaths of their own kids. Even when vaccines were clearly not the cause, so much so that other anti-vaccinationists attested to them not being the cause, but to the militant ones in the group there is no other cause of death for a child but vaccines. I don’t see this rarely happen either. I see this happen often, like on a weekly basis at least. Because of this I would not doubt that Megan told a little lie to hopefully avoid facing such wrath at what is likely to be the most horrible time in her life. As for the different accounts of where Remi was sleeping, I think she purposely lied about this because she’s afraid of looking guilty, or getting in trouble, of realizing she could be at fault even if accidentally, and/or afraid of what kind of backlash she’d receive from pro-vaccinationists. She likely already experienced the vitriol of the worst of kinds of pro-vaccinationists last year when she first posted about losing her daughter, and even earlier this year when she posted her video. She probably remembers how horrible the messages and comments she received were and did not want to relive the hate and the hurt they caused, so she lied in Heather’s video in an effort to avoid re-living those attacks. Who could blame her for that? I want to also add that I have no idea if co-sleeping contributed to the loss of Remi. But even if it had, I have no doubt that it was a complete accident and Megan had no inclination that it could’ve happen. I don’t blame this mother for this death in any way, shape, for form. Even though I find her to be sincere in her claims and beliefs, this doesn’t make her right to spread such dangerous misinformation around or to reach out to other parents in efforts to warn them of the non-existent dangers of vaccines. She has undoubtedly affected some parents and caused any number of children to be denied badly needed vaccinations causing them to be exposed and vulnerable at this moment. She will also undoubtedly affect more parents in the future and cause the same outcome. Then those parents who changed their mind due to her will then go on to change the mind of other parents and so on. The amount of harm caused by Megan and her posts and videos is un-measurable. This goes for any parent who does what Megan does, regardless of sincerity, and does so without medically backed evidence to their cause of death claims, and especially when they omit medically backed evidence of no cause having been found or a cause other than vaccines having been discovered. The harm is the same regardless of intent or belief. What makes Megan stand out is that she is clearly just as much of a victim as the victims she’s created in the children to the parents she’s affected. She has been lied to about cause of death by others who have no authority or qualifications to advise anyone on such matters. Some are parents much like Megan but many are not. There are anti-vaccination and anti-medicine charlatans like Larry Cook, Kate Tietje, Andrew Wakefield, Erin Elizabeth, Joseph Mercola, Polly Tommey, Del Bigtree, Suzanne Humphries, Sherri Tenpenny, Brian Hooker, Meryl Dorey, Alex Jones, Mike Adams, Brandy Vaughan, or T. Matthew Phillips. Most the people who keep the movement alive and growing though are other parents much like you and I. In my experience these parents either truly believe vaccines harmed their child and caused the ailment in question, other parents believe they see something wrong with their child event though no medical or behavioral specialist would agree with, and they insist the abnormality in question was caused by vaccines. There are also those parents who aren’t really anti-vaccine in real life but don’t want to be shunned by the new “crunchy” community they come to know and love so they pretend to be on on social media, and some parents simply lie about their convictions more monetary gain but will vaccinate their kids and themselves in real life. I think many parents are drawn to this lifestyle because they like to feel as they belong somewhere and make a difference. They find a sense of personal identity and purpose in this community. They feel as though people listen when they talk. That feeling is a wonderful feeling when you’re a stay at home mom with little kids who don’t listen to you and a partner who at times belittles you or what you do all day long. I know. I’ve been there. There are other factors I’m sure that contribute as to why parents suddenly deny known science in favor of complete nonsense and bullshit, and risk the health of their own children to willingly become ignorant like they do. My opinion on any of the things I addressed here is based on my experience and the behaviors I am familiar with in one way or another. I am far from an expert and no one should take my reflections on these issues as with any less than a healthy dose of skepticism.
I’d like to wrap this up by offering my condolences to Megan and her family for their unimaginable loss. No parent should have to endure the loss of a child, regardless of the cause. I understand some people will disagree with me and that’s fine. I may be completely wrong in any or all of my observations. Regardless where you stand in regards to this incident I truly hope you refrain from seeking to cause this family any further grief. That doesn’t mean help perpetuate the false information being spread on behalf of this tragic death. By all means speak up against the lies when you come across them. It just means that I hope you don’t set out to cause any additional pain or anguish for this family.
1 Comment
Angie Braden
6/7/2020 02:20:04 pm
This might be the most pathetic, poorly written article I've ever read.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWhat's The Harm? Archives
May 2020
Categories
All
|