A reader of Flea emailed yesterday about a discussion she found at an Altie forum.

The discussion concerns the catastrophic death of an 8 year-old girl, the eldest child of a blogger who calls herself Lavender Essence.

Before going any further, it has to be said that losing a child is perhaps the single worst thing that can happen to a human being. Flea can only imagine the soul-destruction that losing a child causes.

When the child dies for seemingly unknown reasons, it is natural, even expected that a parent would seek explanations. Even when the causes are known (e.g., struck by a drunk driver), a parent naturally builds a story that fills in the chain of causality ("that bartender should have known the man was drunk and should have taken his keys before he got in the car and killed my child!") How much more so when the child dies of an uncommon complication of an uncommon disease!

According to Lavender Essence, her child Marissa died when, during the course of an uncontrolled seizure, Marissa's brain swelled, leading to a fatal complication known as herniation.

LE blames vaccines for her daughter's death.

LE's story begins in the hospital after Marissa's birth, where a hospital nurse appears "flabbergasted" that a mother would ask about the necessity of giving a Hepatitis B vaccine. At 3 1/2 months, Marissa receives her first DTaP. Two days later she has her first seizure. Then the history gets a little squirrely.

Marissa's mother is told that shots never cause seizures (in fact, febrile seizures happen from time to time after vaccinations, albeit less commonly since the introduction of acellular Pertussis vaccine.)

Marissa's mother is told that the girl couldn't have had a seizure because she wouldn't have recovered so quickly (in fact, febrile seizures are only infrequently followed by a postictal period).

Well, who knew what was actually said and what was heard: Flea wasn't there.

What follows is a very sad story of a progressive seizure disorder involving neurological compromise ending in death by status epilepticus.

What makes the story even sadder for Flea is that mom believes with perfect faith that vaccines killed her daughter. She refers to the child she lost as "Marissa (victim of childhood vaccines)". It's bad enough to lose a child. It's worse to remember her with a parenthetical moniker like this one.

For readers of this sad tale, it doesn't help that this mother describes herself as a "lay-homeopath" who practices cranial sacral therapy, and "unschools" her surviving children (whatever that means). Oddest of all, Lavender Essence provides a link in her side bar to this web site that includes an article entitled "Orgasmic Childbirth".

Let's be clear about one thing. There is no credible evidence that vaccines cause any negative neurodevelopmental outcome whatsoever. I'm afraid that no amount of evidence, no matter how credible, is going to change Lavender Essence's mind. Period. End of sentence. End of paragraph. Shut up now and hit "Publish Post".