>Jean Claude, I am so happy that your son did not have to suffer from the
>effects of toxoplasmosis.

Hi Judy,
I'm ingrid, JC's wife, and will reply for him since we both read your post
together. His father has died very unexpectedly and JC left for France two
days ago to be with his mother. We will join him soon.

But your story brought to mind another scenario
>that I will share.


Maybe i'm missing someting but i don't understand the comparison here,
especially since i don't know all the details
.
Here's another analogy of my own:
After much research, i decided not to vaccinate my children. My oldest son
contacted whooping cough at 6 years old during an epidemic in my community.
He was ill for about two months and needed a lot of love and care, though he
suffered no permanent effects (except perhaps a stronger immune system).

Now, some people saw this a sign of my irresonsibility and conjectured that
he would have been spared this illness had he been vaccinated. Yet, on
closer examination, and in a community where the majority of children are
*not* vaccinated, almost all the cases of whooping cough appeared in
vaccinated children, with the children who had received the full range
ofvaccines being by far the sickest. Now why did some children get ill and
others not? Clearly the answer is far more complex than vaccines, lack of
vaccines, or exposure. Jc's point: there are many conditions which lead to
illness--it is not a linear cause/effect thing.

Another example: the vast majority of the North American population believes
that birth is inherently dangerous and requires medical intereventon or at
least surveillance to be safe. Yet all studies and extensive empirical
evidence shows that homebirth, including unassisted birth, are significantly
safer for both mother and baby in both the short and long term (and that
doesn't even considered the emotional aspects). The presence of a medical
professional guarantees nothing except perhaps unneccessary intervention.

<You can say that maybe I am too >much of a "linear thinker", but did you
ever ask yourself what you would >have explained to him if he did come into
this world blind, or how you might
>have felt if he didn't come into this world at all, when preventable steps
>were available.

I wonder if you may have misunderstood the point of JC's post. His point was
that there are *many* factors which influence disease and its effects on
individuals--that it is not this black and white and rarely if ever as
simple as "take this and be cured". How would we have felt if he was totally
well and we had chosen to treat with drugs that caused heart failure or
cancer at 5 years old? Who knows?

What makes you say "preventable steps were available"? While the doctors
tried hard to emphasise this, in fact, this was not so. The details are of
course hard to express in a simple email and JC has a way of choosing his
words :-). I assure you that while he has a strong faith in nature based on
his experience, he does
not cavalierly risk his beloved son's health for reasons of idealism.

It's true that we refused to take the doctors' recommendations as gospel and
did our *own* research (medical heretics that we are :-)). I was diagnosed
at 8.5 months pregnant and we spent 3
12-hour days in the city pouring over medical texts and interviewing
specialists. And what we discovered was that NO ONE had the answers, *least
of all* the medical "experts" and that the answers there were, were pretty
pathetic and inconclusive, though they were presented as "truth".

If someone had been able to tell us for sure that our child was affected and
that a certain drug would prevent all effects (which would definitely not
have prevented blindness, serious defects, or death at this late stage of
pregnancy), we would certainly have considered it. Instead they wanted us to
pump this tiny baby full of 3 extremely dangerous drugs daily for the period
of
one year, with other strong drugs to counteract the *side-effects* of the
first drugs, and do weekly invasive, painful and traumatic tests on this
little infant to see if their drugs were even *working*, and the outcomes
were
pretty shaky.

When a world pediatric specialist who studies the effects of toxo on
infants, in response to my question of whether the protozoa can transmit
through nursing, looks startled and answers "That's a very good question!"
(which he's obviously neglected to ask himself), when a specialist tells me
that there is only a one in a million chance that any possible damage to the
baby would cause problems at a homebirth but he nevertheless recommends that
i give birth in a huge hospital with a pediatric emergency unit on standby
just to cover his ass (and he was blatantly honest about this), when another
"expert" grudgingly agrees that my high immunological response on the tests
*could* be because i am very strong and healthy rather than because i'm so
sick (though symptomless) but "probably not",and when a doctor then
threatens me with jail because i refused her services and chose unassisted
birth, i am not inspired to put my faith in these people or their system.

WE all choose to put our faith somewhere--some prefer to put it in
allopathic medical "experts", some prefer to put it the dogma of "natural"
healing, others prefer to take their own power, inform themselves, and do
what their hearts tell them. We prefer the third option.

>I hope nothing I have said here offends you or your wife in any way,

Thanks for your thoughtful concern, Judy.
I think JC and i are both at a stage in our lives and secure enough in our
parenting that we have no need to be offended by the words of a relative
stranger on an email list (or even a good friend in person for that matter).
No matter how attacking or disapproving--and your tactful post was neither.
On the contrary, we welcome the opportunity to look deeper into our own
choices, actions, and beliefs, so thanks :-).

>story here must have hit a nerve in me.  I think it has to do with my own
>self reflection of asking if my own adamant views about diet, and
>conventional medicine have marred my good judgment when it comes to making
>those life and death types of decisions that all parents invariably have to
>make..


I understand this difficult place--it sure was staring me in the face days
before i gave birth. Yet at the same time, i think the best we can do is to
fully inform ourselves and then do what we truly feel is best, despite
anyone else's opinions. Life and death is up to nature--we only provide the
conditions from which she chooses.

warmly,
ingrid