An Open Letter to Karla Gardner

Karla,

I know you loved your daughter. The pain you were in when she was dying was apparent with every word you posted. It unnerved me when I read about her tragic death. My youngest is only a couple of months younger than Thalia, and looks a bit like her, and when I saw her eyes I could think of nothing besides how I would feel if it were my own child. I can’t imagine the pain you’re feeling, and if there was anything I could do to bring your daughter back, I would do it. Mother to mother, I want you to know that I am truly, deeply sorry for your loss.

Your husband, Tyler Justin Gardner, was arrested on charges of battery and domestic violence in May of last year. I’ve been abused before. I know what it feels like. I can’t be sure of what convinced you to take your husband back when he was released from jail, but I can guess. You wanted to think that he could get better. That it wasn’t one-sided; you somehow provoked it. That it wouldn’t happen again, and that it certainly wouldn’t happen to your children. You felt guilty about your kids witnessing violence but the idea of raising them without a father—especially your youngest—was scary and inconceivable. And, really, you loved him. Drug addiction, violence, and questionable parenting aside, you really loved your husband.

Your daughter got her shots when she was eleven months old. Some of them were delayed—I know what that’s like, too, because I used to delay my kids’ shots. Vaccines are scary. You can’t go online without encountering horror stories of things going wrong. She had a fever that night and was fussy, but the next day, everything was back to normal. You went through a move and dealt with your daily life the same as always. The people caring for Thalia said she was well, and you were relieved, and the world moved on.

Then, at some point, your daughter was in your husband’s care, and the next thing you knew, she was in the hospital with opiates in her bloodstream and what the doctors later diagnosed as shaken baby syndrome. I won’t carry you back through what I’m sure was the most horrible day of your life. But you lost your baby. And every arrow was pointing to the idea that your husband was responsible. I can’t even conceive of how much that would hurt: not just losing your baby, but facing the distinct possibility that your husband is a murderer.

But, then, wait—your husband swears that the opiates in Thalia’s bloodstream were caused by naloxone (strange, since naloxone doesn’t cause a positive drug screen). Maybe the hospital was wrong, after all, right? And suddenly a bunch of friends online are telling you that they’ve heard of vaccines causing shaken baby syndrome. It doesn’t sound like it makes sense (because it doesn’t, and has been disproven by actual scientists) but in your grief and pain, you wanted to believe it.

After all, she did have her shots nine days before she died. And nine days is practically the same thing as eight days, which you might as well go ahead and call six days. And four vaccines is pretty much the same as six, which might as well be ten, and you’ll accept it when someone online tells you that it’s really twenty. Grieving minds don’t follow reason or logic. Plus, there are lots of parents who have been accused of shaken baby syndrome who say they didn’t do it. And your husband is a changed man, right? He’s different now. He couldn’t have done this. He loves you, and he loves your children, right?

And that’s what motivated you to support it when the internet collective co-opted your daughter’s death as a means of fueling their stance against vaccines, right?

Physicians are professionals. They don’t attend college, med school, and residency to do guesswork on Google about how to diagnose a dying child. They would diagnose her with shaken baby syndrome only if she had characteristic symptoms of SBS that could not otherwise be explained. And doctors don’t, despite claims to the contrary, receive kickbacks by giving vaccines. There isn’t a doctor in the world who would fabricate evidence of child abuse for no reason. And even if there was, the doctors, nurses, and paramedics who treated your daughter weren’t even the same ones who administered her vaccines. Why would they protect the career and reputation of the doctor who vaccinated Thalia? These questions are in your mind, but you’re pushing them back. You don’t have the answers and you’re afraid because part of you knows the answers aren’t there.

I understand how it happened. I really do. And, honestly, Karla, I think that pretty much anything someone says or does while grieving a child is excusable. I don’t blame you at all for supporting the people who say vaccines killed your daughter. But I do want you to one day realize that their motives are deadly, and that more innocent children will die if they use your daughter’s death as an excuse to not vaccinate their children.

You believe that, despite her diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome, your daughter’s death was actually caused by encephalitis. Did you know that the most common causes of encephalitis are vaccine-preventable illnesses like measles and Hib? Vaccines are extremely effective in preventing these conditions and we’ve seen a tremendous drop in death rates among babies by vaccinating them. Even considering the remote possibility that vaccines cause encephalitis, a reaction estimated in fewer than one in a million children, the most effective way to prevent encephalitis is still vaccination. Children can, will, and do die when their parents buy into fear-mongering and avoid immunization.

I think that the odds that you’ll react well to this open letter are even slimmer than the odds of a vaccine causing encephalitis, but I’m writing this because of the remote possibility that you might see it and redact your support of the people who are exploiting your daughter’s death to fit their agenda. You can save the lives of other children by accepting, as painful as it is, that someone shook your daughter to death.

You can go ahead. Yell at me, threaten me, tell me you hate me, call me a bad person, wish harm on my kids, correct my mistakes, insist that I’m wrong. Or don’t respond at all. You can say, or not say, whatever it is that you need. But I hope that part of me gets through to you, because children’s lives are at stake.

I sincerely wish you strength, healing, and safety during this difficult time. You’re stronger than you think.

Juniper Russo