| Family & Relationships |
| Nervous System |
| Autism Spectrum Disorders |
| Health Care Issues |
| Health & Fitness |
| Vaccinations |
| Children's Health |
| Diseases |
Summary
Summary
In her poignant account, Julie Obradovic discusses her heart-rending struggle with her daughter's autism and her subsequent quest for answers. She reveals the feelings of depression and helplessness brought on by the diagnosis and her initial inability to find help. Unwilling to give up, however, Obradovic began fighting, finding a treatment for her daughter and going on to campaign on behalf of others. An Unfortunate Coincidence is the result of this fight. The account takes its readers through the political, historical, and scientific developments behind the greatest medical controversy of our time, including:
The findings of the vaccine injury compensation program
Investigations of CDC fraud and the subsequent congressional hearings and findings
The identical symptoms of autism and mercury poisoning
Eyewitness reports of families and educators
The author's struggle to present her point of view and the backlash intended to silence it
Ultimately, An Unfortunate Coincidence will ask the readers to take a closer look at the evidence uncovered by ten years of research and decide just how many coincidence claims they are willing to accept.
Author Notes
Julie Obradovic is a teacher, a writer, and an advocate. She has spent almost twenty years in education and more than ten years advocating for families and children affected by autism. Her work has been featured in the Autism File magazine, GRAND magazine, the Age of Autism blog, and a number of other publications. She previously worked as an assistant to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., on the Go Mercury-Free project. Obradovic and her husband reside in Chicago, Illinois, where they cohost the annual Rescue Our Angels fundraiser for Generation Rescue.
Reviews (1)
Booklist Review
Obradovic, who makes no bones about being a mom, not an M.D., raises questions about some possible causes of autism. During the first 2 years of her life, her daughter, Emma, received more than 10 doses of antibiotics, mostly for ear infections. Antibiotics enhance the toxicity of Thimerosal, the mercury-containing preservative widely used in vaccines in the 1990s, when Emma was born. And Obradovic ate tuna fish while breastfeeding. Every single thing that was wrong with Emma could be explained at least in part by mercury poisoning, from the repeated illnesses, to the loss of skills, to the staring spells, to the head shaking--everything, writes Obradovic. Autism was discovered in the late 1930s, about seven years after Thimerosal was commercialized. Coincidence? Obradovic calls out some prominent doctors for their ties to pharmaceutical companies and asks, could Emma and other children be suffering because of medications and environmental toxins, not because of their genes? Obradovic promises to keep questioning authority and conventional wisdom, declaring, Yes, our children are gifts, I agree, but no, their autism is not. --Springen, Karen Copyright 2016 Booklist
