The light dawned. “Parents? You mean, like you?”
The woman planted herself more squarely on the sidewalk. “Like me. My son developed autism when he was two, after undergoing every one of those vaccinations Dr. Rouse said he had to have. I never even questioned what they were putting into my baby. Now I’ve got another one, and I’ll be damned if I’ll expose her to any mercury-contaminated serum.”
“I’m sorry,” Clare said. “But isn’t your quarrel more with whatever entity funds the clinic? If the doctor has to purchase older vaccines because of the cost, shouldn’t you lobby the town to give him more money with which to purchase the new stuff?”
“I suspect”-here she dropped her voice-“that Dr. Rouse has personal financial reasons for continuing to buy the older serums.”
Clare looked at the clinic again. One of the shades twitched. “You mean, he’s getting kickbacks from the drug companies?”
“Who can say?” The woman spread her mittened hands. “I know he lives pretty cushy for a man whose salary has been paid by Millers Kill his whole life. Big house, a new car every three years, vacations in the tropics-better’n most of us are doing. I’m trying to get a referendum question to increase the clinic’s funding, with citizen oversight. But even if we can get more money, the budget is dependent on the tax revenues, and there wouldn’t be any change for up to a year after the referendum. In the meantime, babies are getting inoculated every day in this clinic. And parents are being intimidated into giving their consent to it. It’s not just the danger for autism, you know. The bacterial toxins in many of the common vaccines can cause retardation, disabilities, death-people have no idea. The nurse hands you a sheet of paper with a lot of small print on it while your baby is lying on the exam table screaming and you’re told you have to sign off. So you do.” She shifted the placard from one shoulder to the other. Clare could read, DR. ROUSE A DANGER TO OUR CHILDREN. “I wish to God I had educated myself before I put Skylar in his care.”