Not knowing what I love

These are the first 2 verses of Anne Ridler’s poem, Choosing a Name, which powerfully captures the feelings on giving birth



My little son, I have cast you out
To hang heels upward, wailing over a world
With walls too wide.
My faith till now, & now my love:
No walls too wide for that to fill, no depth
Too great for all you hide

I love, not knowing what I love,
I give, though ignorant for whom
The history & power of a name
I conjure with it like a novice
Summoning unknown spirits: answering me
You take the word, & tame it.


Anne Ridler can be heard reading the poem at The Poetry Archive

Related post

Born dismayed

The law of pots

I was under the impression that there are very strict laws about what anyone can do or not do with their pension pot once they have got it

Partly as a quid pro quo for the favourable tax treatment. Partly for our own good, to stop us going mad & splurging a lump sum rather than parking it safely in an annuity which will keep us as long as we shall live

Or did Gordon Brown change the rules when he conducted that raid on pension funds

And will he have to change them to have any hope of getting his hands on the one which is now in the name of Fred the Shred

The thingness of things

I was reading Paul Ormerod’s Butterfly Economics, looking at some 3-dimensional plots of Lorenz equations, when I was struck by the thought: There is no such thing as the economy

Shades of Mrs Thatcher on society! Actually I rather agreed with her, thinking that she meant as a thing distinguishable as an entity in its own right, independently from human modes of perception

On these plots only the US GNP (not GDP) showed the glimmer of a structure which could be captured by mathematical equations. Amidst all the intellectual agonising over whether new models can be developed which capture adequately the risks in the market for credit, perhaps we should also be thinking about the concept of the economy as a meaningful entity for analysis

Perhaps the US comes closest to a structure simply because it is so big and diverse. Not just in climate & natural resources but, up to a point, in local laws. Relatively unrestricted movement of people (both in retirement & in labour) as well as capital. Allows the law of error or the law of large numbers more scope

The Economy is something usually tied to a nation state. We sometimes talk of The European Economy, but rarely of the South American Economy. And usually we talk about the Asian economies

When did we get a UK economy? Did Gladstone ever use the word?

Interestingly, although the OED has a quote from the 1712 Spectator: “In the Dispositions of Society, the civil economy is formed in a chain as well as the natural”, which refers to the organisation of human society as a whole, it is only at the end of the 19th century that we get the definition

“ The organization or condition of a community or nation with respect to economic factors, esp. the production and consumption of goods and services and the supply of money (now freq. with the); (also) a particular economic system”

The earliest recorded usage comes from the 1892 Journal of Political Economy 1 137: “Taxes are still the main support of the State's economy”

The second known citation comes from our own Journal of the Royal Statistical Society of 1924: “The importance in our nation's economy of, say, cotton or wool”


The earliest recorded use of the term macroeconomics, according to the OED, is found in The American Economic review of 1945: “Across the distinction between statics and dynamics cuts another one: that between aggregative or ‘macro’-economics, and the ‘micro’-economics of a single firm or household”


To be continued

Links
http://timharford.com/2009/02/some-recession-experiences-are-more-equal-than-others/
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pic/

February crunchy bits

The skies are clearer - flights in British airspace were down 10% in January

Tesco received 1000 applications for 200 jobs in their new Liverpool store

Once-wealthy city workers are back in court trying to renegotiate bonus-dependent divorce settlements

Long stemmed red roses for Valentines Day were much cheaper this year

Long haul passengers flying from Gatwick were down 25% last month

The price for a permit to emit a tonne of carbon dioxide has fallen from €35 last July to €9 today

Nearly half of China’s toy factories have closed

Balmain jeans, £1000 a pair, are now available in British stores

More Americans are coming forward as (paid) blood donors

A big accountancy firm is offering the opportunity for staff to downsize & have a better work life balance by working (& being paid for) only 4 days a week

No Ladas are being made in Russia

Newspaper advertising is down by a fifth

Private investors in Japan are putting their faith in platinum & palladium bullion & coin

A gold plated Aston Martin with platinum & palladium bumpers comes up at auction next month

Family values

We are a multicultural family

I am a mongrel, though not a true one

When I was at Junior School we all wanted to be able to call ourselves a true mongrel – the idea was quite current

Mongrels were highly desirable. Only effete snobs with more money than sense would want to pay out good money for a dog. Certainly not for one that was overbred, inbred & temperamental. Not when there were plenty of dependable, unpretentious, friendly mongrels looking for a good home

In terms of us children, a true mongrel was one who could claim English, Welsh, Scottish & Irish blood. I came close but, although I was conceived in Snowdonia, nobody in the family could think of any Welsh ancestors

My grandsons, these days, might quite like to call themselves mutts – I have not asked

Their father, sometimes, likes to close down an argument by saying: I am right because I am the wog in this family

He tells me that he had never heard of it until I mentioned what ‘everybody knew’ – also when I was at junior school – that WOG is an acronym for Wily Oriental Gentleman

The authorities – OED, Chambers - dispute this & all other acronymic etymologies, without coming up with any convincing one themselves, though all are agreed that it was first used of Arabs

In my childish mind at least I was sure it meant Chinese – it somehow linked well with the Yellow Peril which used to scare people so much so long ago



My son in law is neither Arab nor Chinese, but he does count as oriental


There was also a well known saying: Wogs begin at Calais. Wikipedia says that this was first used Of Winston Churchill by a fellow MP in 1949


It was not a statement of fact, but a way of pouring scorn on people with a certain cast of mind or small minded set of beliefs. The sort who, faced with a dish of Spaghetti Bolognese, would say: I can’t eat this foreign muck; who was more afraid than Dracula of garlic: Ugh! The Paris Metro reeks of it

Related post

Golliwoggs & serviettes

Our business

Chris Mullin has been publishing his diary as a New Labour Minister. Very dispiriting

By his own admission, Mullin is one of those people completely unsuited to such a role – many otherwise good politicians have suffered similarly

But it is the tale of the battle over the charges for his Government Car Service which got to me most of all

It mirrors my own feelings when I, not too long ago, was curious enough to follow up a press advert for a job as a Business Support Officer in a ministerial Private Office.

Duties include “Providing support to the budget officer on financial and accounting issues in Private Office. This includes preparing invoices for payment… “ (? For what?)

Job criteria include “Knowing the business”

“The post holder will understand and respond to the needs of their key customers … to fully support the Business Team and … ensure internal Private Office guidance is up to date and ready for use at a moment’s notice”

I wonder how long the language of business will be seen as appropriate to public service?

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Political communicators

Tips for today

Tony Collins gives Top tips for project managers on his IT blog

My two favourites are “Nothing is impossible for the person who doesn't have to do it” and, naturally for someone with my favourite aphorism, “You understood what I said, not what I meant”

Coincidentally I was recently rereading some variations on Murphy’s law from Paul Dickson’s 1978 book The Official Rules




If not controlled, work will flow to the competent man until he submerges – Charles Boyle of NASA

Science is truth: don’t be misled by facts – Anon

When an error has been detected & corrected it will be found to have been correct in the first place – Anon

Seven eighths of everything cannot be seen – Anon

Where you stand depends on where you sit – Rufus Miles

ANOTHER OF MURPHY’S LAWS: It is impossible to make anything foolproof, because fools are so ingenious – Anon



And a few which seem to have been applied too readily in the years leading up to the credit crunch:

CANADA BILL JONES MOTTO: It is morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money

The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights – J Paul Getty

MERRILLS MAXIM OF INSTANT STATUS: In a democracy you can be respected though poor, but don’t count on it

The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet – Damon Runyon

More fallout from Baby P

A small paragraph in the paper reports that a GP has been suspended by the General Medical Council over the case of Baby P, despite the fact that he had twice referred the baby to hospital because of his concerns. No doubt we shall find out more in due course

Is it overly sensitive of me to note that none of the 3 professionals who have, to our knowledge, been disciplined in some fashion, is of an English background? Or is this just a result of London’s, & particularly Haringey’s, multicultural make up

The other outcome that does not seem to have excited much comment in the general media is that the newly appointed head of Haringey’s children’s services is required to report to Ed Balls every month

Although there are precedents for government ministers to have power to intervene directly in the management of local authority services, the examples I can think of all required a defined parliamentary procedure to be gone through first

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The man with no name

Wheat is the colour

Aasmah Mir presented an interesting programme on skin lightening on Radio 4. Although there was at least one interviewee who wanted to blame it all on western colonial imperialism, broader & more interesting lines were pursued as well

One small point of language really intrigued me. Aasmah & her Asian interviewees expressed their distaste for the word wheatish, on the grounds that it sounds awful, as well as what it represents. I wonder where this comes from? Could it be a British Asian coinage or possibly Pakistani rather than Indian? The word I remember from marriage adverts in the Indian press was wheaten, which is at least euphonious

Related post
Complected

Aretha Franklin’s Hat

There was an item about the Stephen Jones exhibition of hats at the V&A on Womans Hour this morning

He told of how they had tried to include Aretha Franklin’s inauguration hat, but had received the same polite refusal that she had given to the Smithsonian: The hat was such a precious symbol to her of the significance for African-Americans of the Obama election, & of the tremendous honour of being invited to sing, that she could not bear to let it go to where she could not look at it every day

I do hope that that is the truth, that she is not just deeply hurt by the reaction she got from the so-called fashion experts, which reminds me so much of how English people used to react to West Indian migrants & their children dressed up for church in the 1950s. How could they expect to be welcomed in to the congregation, dressed like that?

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Speaking up

Staying in power

Sometime in the mid 1980s I was, as one does, idly flicking through the monthly edition of Economic Trends. Actually I didn’t at all, usually, it was one of those things which passed rapidly from in tray to out tray

But they had just recently acquired the technology to put a graph at the top of each page – a simple black & white line graph to display the main features of the table

One does not expect drama in such things, so I was surprised to see any. But there was a graph with one line which took a steep plunge to the bottom while another took its place at the top. In fairly short order the two lines reverted to their normal points on the scale

The table showed fuel used in electricity generation. The line which plunged down represented coal, its place usurped by oil. The graph showed vividly how we got through the miner’s strike without any major power cuts

Some years later I saw a tv programme which told how a then junior minister, Nigel Lawson, had been sent to the Department of Energy by Margaret Thatcher with a specific brief to ensure that in any confrontation with the unions (which just about everybody expected sooner or later) the miners would not be in any position to inflict the kind of humiliation endured by the Heath government in the 3 day week of 1974. Appropriate plans were laid. Nigel Lawson later became Chancellor of the Exchequer


That may have been the last time any British government took a serious strategic look at energy supply, rather than ducking its responsibilities & hoping that the nasty problems of nuclear & the touchy feely windmill brigade would somehow sort themselves out

And yet, during the recent cold snap, we depended on coal for more than half the electricity we were so grateful to receive. The computers, the telly, the hot water & the microwave all pluckily kept going (for the most part) to keep us fed & warm

We had another power cut on Monday morning. This was clearly due to some very local interruption to supply. It lasted for at least 4 hours, at which point I had to go out, having managed only an old fashioned sponge down wash. Sorry about that folks, but it was like going back to the good old days, along with all the wartime recipes for left overs which are being so enthusiastically resurrected

If we get through the banking crisis relatively unscathed we will probably soon find that it is not just the flow of credit which maintains our way of life

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The ends of our world
Cold comfort
Constant hot water

Breast cancer screening

The NHS is tearing up its leaflet on breast cancer screening & writing a new one to include appropriate information about the risks. The director of Screening Programmes has said that, according to research, women do not want too thick a leaflet

Perhaps they might like a presentation similar to the one I used to make my own decision:


We have to screen 160 women to find one cancer

But 16 of the 160 will need further investigation before they get the all clear


These are old figures now (they come from a report published in 1992) so they should be replaced by the latest & best available

The 1992 report did not mention, nor had I ever heard of, the problem of DCIS which may otherwise lie undiscovered & non-lethal

I understood that most of the further investigations would be because of something like a fogged x-ray or, in a very few instances, require a needle biopsy before someone said: Good news dear! You don’t have cancer after all

But that was enough for me to make up my mind that it was not, for me, a worthwhile bet

It’s a kind of Bayesian calculation

Those who are only too familiar with this terrible disease, either because as medics they spend their lives trying to combat it, or have watched a friend or close family member succumb, will give great weight to the value of early detection

Breast cancer is nowhere near the top of my personal list of health fears. And with some reason

None of the oft mentioned risk factors – late first pregnancy, late menopause, obesity or family history – applies to me

I am not sure if my decision would be different if the process were easier. Round here it involves travelling to a village which is not on my usual itinerary, to visit a caravan in a car park. They offer to rearrange your appointment if the one offered is inconvenient, but the whole attitude is more that they are doing you a favour rather than being presumptuous about your diary

They 'have to' ask you to sign a form if you, politely, decline the invitation

And all to have your breasts squashed between x ray plates? (By the way, what happens with implants? Or with those who resisted that pressure, to stick with their slim but boyish figure?)

Then there is the question of what difference it makes in terms of survival. When I made my decision the only data with which I was familiar was expressed in terms of 5 or 10 year survival

Suppose there were 2 parallel me’s, living parallel lives

First me goes for screening, a tumour is detected. I have the treatment & live 11 years – very good, more than 10

Second me leaves it, & just before my next screening invitation in 3 years time I discover a palpable lump. I have treatment, but survive only 4 years. Oh dear. Less than 5

But first me had 11 years of knowing I had cancer plus the after effects of treatment & the fear that it might return

Second me lived a total of 7 years after that fateful decision, 3 of them in blissful ignorance

At my age I am not sure which one I would choose, even if I were omniscient about my multiple lives

Related posts

Discounted lives
Breast cancer
Refusenik

Price psychology

In his book, Why Most Things Fail, Paul Ormerod mentions the theoretical problems which stem from the fact that supply & demand curves are not, strictly, continuous in the mathematical sense

When was the last time you paid £∏ for something?

Less esoterically, & empirically, there is the everyday phenomenon of price points, & the strange fascination with the number 99

So when the government suddenly reduced VAT they played havoc with all this carefully calibrated point-of-sale psychology

Perhaps that is why the VAT reduction is not, some say, working as well as the government had hoped

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Small change in VAT
An ungrateful nation

Proportional representation & resource allocation

More on drains

One day last week I walked up & over the hill carrying a bag of washed & squashed to the recycling centre – a full bag since I had not walked that way for a while because of the bad weather

About half way up 3 men were gathered round a drain, just finishing off some job. I was surprised to see that one of them carried a half full but heavy-looking black bin bag as they returned to their vehicle, a small flat bed truck, which carried the same logo as the tanker they were using down our lane the other week

They paused to inspect another drain on the brow of the hill, but just drove on. I glanced down as I passed the drain, which was quite full but all I could see was water & a couple of floating leaves

They did get out at the next drain, halfway down the other side. To my astonishment one dug out a spade full of black rich looking loam – definitely not squidgy oozing mud. Again I glanced down as I passed – the soil came practically up to the level of the road surface

I wonder how many years it took for that to accumulate

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Good news on drains

The flea finds America

There is a very interesting sounding exhibition of cartoons from London’s Clubland on in London at the moment. I read about it in Libby Purves column in The Times

Libby mentions one cartoon by Thomas Rowlandson which shows an old maid searching for a flea, which is likened to Columbus “finding new land in America” Libby calls this insulting to “women & native Americans”

I have not been able to find any information on Google about the inspiration for this cartoon, but it sounds to me like a very clear reference to the poetry of John Donne, which I find rather delightfully funny



Jenni Murray often asks one of her guests on Womans Hour: What is it like, walking in to (or being in) a room full of men? Most recently this week in a discussion about Op-Ed pieces in the newspapers. Quite normal, Jenni, I always answer on the respondent’s behalf. As someone who went to nothing but co-educational schools & then from university onwards was used to being in a minority, often of only one, that is just how it seems



A few years ago I joined an embroidery group; nice middle class ladies, mostly of a certain age. Just like me. But I realised that not since I left the Girl Guides had I been used to being in a room full of women, & I found it a bit intimidating, thought I might have to be careful what I said, mind my p’s & q’s

One day I mentioned a poem by Donne. Oh, said one, is that the one about My New-found America? I like that one

Oh yes! said several others

The ice was broken

So you could call TO HIS MISTRESS GOING TO BED a women’s poem


COME, madam, come, all rest my powers defy;
Until I labour, I in labour lie.
The foe oft-times, having the foe in sight,
Is tired with standing, though he never fight.

Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glistering,
But a far fairer world encompassing.
Unpin that spangled breast-plate, which you wear,
That th' eyes of busy fools may be stopped there.

Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime
Tells me from you that now 'tis your bed-time.
Off with that happy busk, which I envy,
That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.

Your gown going off such beauteous state reveals,
As when from flowery meads th' hill's shadow steals.
Off with that wiry coronet and show
The hairy diadem which on you doth grow.
Now off with those shoes, and then softly tread
In this love's hallowed temple, this soft bed.

In such white robes heaven's angels used to be
Revealed to men ; thou, angel, bring'st with thee
A heaven like Mahomet's paradise ; and though
Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know
By this these angels from an evil sprite;
Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.

Licence my roving hands, and let them go
Before, behind, between, above, below.
O, my America, my new found land,
My kingdom, safliest when with one man manned,
My mine of precious stones, my empery;
How am I blest in thus discovering thee !
To enter in these bonds, is to be free;
Then, where my hand is set, my soul shall be.

Full nakedness all joys are due to thee ;
As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be
To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use
Are like Atlanta's ball cast in men's views ;
That, when a fool's eye lighteth on a gem,
His earthly soul might court that, not them.
Like pictures, or like books' gay coverings made
For laymen, are all women thus array'd.

Themselves are mystic books, which only we
—Whom their imputed grace will dignify—
Must see revealed. Then, since that I may know,
As liberally as to a midwife show
Thyself ; cast all, yea, this white linen hence;
There is no penance due to innocence:
To teach thee, I am naked first; why then,
What needst thou have more covering than a man?



Funnily enough, in my experience, the other poem which Rowlandson’s cartoon brings to mind, THE FLEA, in my experience appeals to men more than to women

MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.


O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.


Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.'
Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.



The picture is copied from The Luminarium & is Woman Catching Fleas c.1630.Georges de la Tour. Musée Historique, Nancy.

Not that different from the Rowlandson

Recollection & recall

Radio 4 gave time again this week to a scientist expert in childhood memory who cited experimental work which ‘proves’ that it is impossible to remember things which happened when you were very young, basically before speech develops

I am one of those who believes this is codswallop

Based on my own experience of course

I remember the first time someone told me that his earliest memory dated back to when he was about 8. How could you have 8 whole blank years, I thought

Later I got to know a young man who asserted that he could remember nothing that had happened to him before the age of 14 (he was then about 18), but that definitely reflected a deeper psychological disturbance

I sometimes think I can remember events which date right back to some time in my first year, but since many of them relate to events recorded in the family photo album I am prepared to concede that there may be some reworking going on. But from then on they come thick & fast, many of them the kind of tiny event (often involving tiny frustrations) which nobody else could possibly have told me about

But I have a particular beef with the experiment which is reported to prove the scientific case

Very young children were exposed to a ‘unique experience’ – details unspecified - which later they prove unable to recall. Slightly older children can recall similar unique experiences

How do they know that the children cannot recall the event? How do they know the children understand what it is that the adult who is doing the questioning wants to hear?

At that age a child has many ‘unique experiences’, the days are full of them

And I well remember our bemusement when our daughter, well into the age of speech, apparently completely failed to remember an important national event which we had taken her to. Denied having seen various impressive performances

But she did remember - & often mentioned – the man in the funny hat with a trumpet. It was her parents who could not remember him, had to have their memories jogged

memory does not depend just on words - smells & strong emotions are especially powerful. We may need to put them into words in order to bring them to the front of our minds, in order to reflect on, or to relate them to others, but we can do that later, after the event

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Another power cut

We had a power cut on Wednesday morning, a bit before half past 11, so I missed part of Sarfraz Manzoor’s very interesting take on What Happened to the Working Class?

Very annoying. Odd to get one now, when we got through all the bad weather unscathed. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps some idiot had managed to cut through a cable somewhere, but no, the power definitely flickered a few times before going out

It is the first time since they built the new estate that I can remember a power cut when I have been at home in the middle of a working day, so the first time I have heard all the burglar alarms going off together. At least these days you don’t get the clamour of clanging bells – these sounded more like the twittering of startled sparrows

It also made me realise I must re-appraise the just-in-time ironing policy I have these days, since it meant I had to put on an unironed t shirt

I find it hard now to believe how much time – usually on a precious Sunday afternoon – I used to devote to ironing. Definitely something to be cut back on in the interests reducing what Raymond Biggs called one of the problems with age - the amount of time you take ‘just living’


Power was fully restored after about half an hour, 5 minutes after it had come back in pitiful brown out mode & 15 minutes before I needed to leave the house

I decided to use the time to reset all the radio presets rather than iron the t shirt

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Power cuts

Loss

This is a poem by Dorothy Wellesley, for anyone who has ever lost a child

He is not dead nor liveth
The little child in the grave,
And men have known for ever
That he walketh again,
They hear him November evenings,
When acorns fall with the rain.

Teach me then the heart of the dead child

Teach me all that the child who knew life
And the quiet of death,
To the croon of the cradle song
By his brother’s crib
In the deeps of the nursery dusk
To his mother saith

MMR & responsibilty

Danny Finkelstein told, in his Saturday column, of experiments involving a version of the old ethical dilemma about the 5 railway workers & a runaway train

“The first had the respondents as the driver of a runaway train about to kill five maintenance workers. But they could flick a switch, go down a different path and kill only one worker. What would they do: flick or not flick?

Ninety five per cent said flick. It's simple arithmetic


Then there was a second dilemma. This time the respondents were told that they were on a bridge and watching the runaway train head towards the five maintenance workers. They happened to be standing next to a large man. By pushing him off, the respondent would kill him. On the other hand his bulk would stop the train and save the other five. To push or not to push? Almost everybody chose not to push"

The change from ‘driver’ to ‘observer’ is interesting; previous versions I have heard involve in both cases an observer who, in the first dilemma, can throw the points to divert the runaway train

“Mathematically, these two options are the same. Five die and one is saved
because of the action of the respondent. But emotionally they felt quite
different. Greene and his colleagues noted that, while solving these dilemmas,
different parts of the brain lit up. The second dilemma brought into play not
only the logical circuits of the brain but also an area associated with interpreting the feelings of other people.”

One problem with these hypotheticals is that you are told what WILL be the outcome of your action. This one is definitely peculiar in that way – how can you know that the large man has enough bulk to stop a train which left to its own devices could kill 5 men? And if he is that big, how on earth could you push him off the bridge?

Leaving that aside, does it not seem more likely that the different experimental outcomes of these two examples are due not to empathy with the victim but with the decision maker – with the degree of agency or responsibility, & therefore guilt which he might feel for having sacrificed the sole victim?

In the first case the driver can reduce the damage of something which is happening anyway; he is powerless to halt the runaway train (this applies even if the train is running away because of some earlier mistake he made). And all the potential victims are maintenance workers, with the implication that they have accepted the risks of working on a railway line. Even the victim might, if given the opportunity, choose to sacrifice himself for his mates

In the second case, the observer on the bridge is contemplating the sacrifice of someone who (like him) is just a spectator on the scene, a hapless passer by. In what sense is the observer qualified to sit in judgement in this way – unless questions of life & death are always to be decided by crude arithmetic?

Some will argue that this is in fact the utilitarian argument – the greatest good of the greatest number. Some might argue that life is sacred, you should never take one by your own deliberate act

The lines of discussion opened up fill whole books & libraries & lifetimes, but I found myself thinking specifically about what light might be thrown on the current ‘debate’ about MMR

Taking your baby to be vaccinated or inoculated is not something you do lightly – after all if a random stranger tried to stick a needle in your child’s arm you would do everything possible to stop them. You do it to protect your child, for the avoidance of disease which could lead to death, life long disability, disfigurement or even just a week in bed feeling poorly. Altruism – the protection of other people’s children through the immunity of the herd - is an added bonus

Nevertheless vaccination has always been controversial, the subject of political battles in the C19th, & generally speaking has never been compulsory in this country. My best friend at school had a mother who refused on principle to have any of her 4 children vaccinated against anything. And now we have the refusal of some parents to go for MMR

When I first heard about this I got the impression that the medical establishment was (not for the first time) objecting simply to the publication of a hypothesis

Funnily enough the idea of a link between the measles virus & autism gained a certain plausibility for me when I heard a doctor on the radio trying to explain why measles was not an unproblematic, simple childhood illness, but one worth vaccinating against. It was the mention of lesions on the lining of the colon which did it

For me there seemed to be an analogy with PKU. I am obviously not a scientist or a medic, & my understanding of PKU is based almost entirely on the explanation given to me by my mother when I was about 10

She was explaining why we had been saying special prayers for a member of our congregation, who had just, at long last, managed to finalise the adoption of a 4 year old boy she had been fostering since birth. I do not know whether the problem was with the natural mother’s consent or with doubts by the adoption authorities, because the little boy had been diagnosed with PKU (it was not automatically tested for at birth in those days). My mother explained that this meant that there was something wrong with his digestion so that protein, instead of building him up, turned into poison in his bowel & poisoned his brain. Fortunately it had been found in time & provided his mother was very careful about what he ate all should be well, though he might be a bit slow

That had a very profound effect on me, especially as he was such a beautiful, solemn little boy with glossy black hair, big eyes & long, long eyelashes

But, the fatal but, is that this analogy provides no basis at all for linking autism to MMR but not to the single vaccine or to the measles virus itself. And so the campaign against MMR seems irrational to me


HOWEVER – and this is where the guilt of the agent comes in – the fact that a doctor could come up with the idea of a link is itself a kind of evidence, sufficient to raise a doubt in some peoples mind

If my unvaccinated child suffered great harm from measles that would be a cruel
act of random fate, or God’s mysterious purpose

If my child were vaccinated & then developed autism I should be unable to forgive myself

Statistics apply to populations, not to individuals. If there is any risk – even if that risk is vanishingly close to zero, because many other doctors have searched long & hard & can find no evidence that it exists – it is not something I can do to my child

A public health doctor has no right to decide that the benefits of herd immunity which I confer on other people’s children justify the risk to my precious baby

In such circumstances lectures & threats do not seem either humane or productive

The beautiful words of the Anglican confession do more to help people think differently about how they think about responsibility for the sins of both omission & commission:


"We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us."

Link

http://whyfiles.org/209autism/4.html
Related post

Lighting Up The Brain

Promises, promises: the 21st century

This cartoon by Pugh appeared just in time to bring this mini series to a suitable close