Pretend in your mind that you’re a grifter, a con man, a snake oil salesman. What kind of person is your target? Would you use your theatricality and deception on someone who knows better? Of course not. I am yet to hear of an oncologist with cancer who buys into alternative medicine to cure said cancer. (Though I’ve heard of oncologists who sell supplements and complementary and alternative medicine, SCAM, to their patients. There’s a special place in Hell for them, by the way.)
If you are a known fraud who likes to promote anti-vaccine nonsense, you are not going to go to infectious disease experts and try to sell them your lies. You’re also not going to go to responsible journalists who do their due diligence and study your claims thoroughly. And you are not going to go to a parent who has a meaningful and trusting relationship with their healthcare provider.
No, if you are Andrew Wakefield, you are going to target parents (preferably new ones) who don’t have the time to check your claims. Or you’ll target populations who already have a mistrust of the healthcare system because systems all around have failed them. If you want to get your story out to the world in order to attract more victims to your fraud, then you’ll get someone who is well versed in communications and doesn’t know better. If that person happens to be a new parent, even better. And if that person happens to have a following on social media, podcasts, and other media, and comes from a somewhat well known family, even better. You’ve hit the jackpot, Andrew Wakefield.
The other day, I told you about Justin Kanew and his descent into anti-vaccine thinking. Justin is the son of Jeff Kanew, a Hollywood big shot. Justin is a producer, actor, has competed in a reality show, and has a podcast. I don’t exactly how it happened, but Justin apparently woke up with the seed of doubt about vaccines one day and decided to ask some questions. To ask these questions, Justin apparently decided to invite some people to his podcast. To promote the podcast interviews, Justin somehow got a blog post up on one of the most anti-vaccine, hate-filled, anti-Semitic blogs around: Age of Autism.
His explanation seems simple:
This shows the first characteristic of someone who Wakefield and other anti-vaccine loons will attract: Someone who doesn’t do their homework. When asked why he posted a blog post about his podcast on one of the most vile anti-vaccine sites around, Justin’s reply was that there are no other places to do it. Had he done his homework, he would have seen Matt Carey’s blog, History of Vaccines (which has some fabulous information for parents), The Scientific Parent (who actually want blog posts on issues affecting parents like Justin), and others. There are plenty of non-vile, non-anti-Semitic blogs where discussions are not moderated to death and where we welcome open discussions on some of the most controversial issues.
Further evidence that Justin didn’t do his homework is a link he used to reply to me on Twitter:
He called Paul Offit a boy, by the way. Anyway, he links to “Whale.to” which, if you’ve never heard of it, is a website that has postings to every known conspiracy theory out there. The “CBS News” piece that Justin is referring to is nothing more than anti-vaccine propaganda from one Sharyl Attkisson, a reporter who has also tried to justify the murder of an autistic child, among other really weird things she’s said from her apparent inability to work a computer.
Alright, so Justin doesn’t know how to do research. What else? Well, Justin is a new parent, so he has some fears about what is going into his child:
He has fears and he is asking questions (albeit, the wrong questions to the wrong people), so it’s not a surprise that the anti-vaccine cult would reach out to him and sound appealing. (Seriously, did he reach out to Age of Autism, or did someone there reach out to him?) After all, all anti-vaccine parents are not really anti-vaccine, don’t you know?
They’re “pro safe vaccine” because the Phase I, Phase II, Phase III and Phase IV, and post-marketing research studies are not enough to prove safety. The billions of doses of vaccines with relatively few side-effects and even fewer deaths are not enough to prove safety. The studies done by government agencies the world over (not just CDC), academics the world over (not just Hopkins), local and state health departments, drug companies, consumer safety organizations, and just standing around and seeing kids not dying from polio anymore are not enough to prove safety.
Nothing will never be enough as long as there is cash to be made from suckers unsuspecting parents with doubts and fears about their new snowflakes. And there is a lot of cash to be made. Brian S. Hooker, one of Wakefield’s partners on the recent misadventure of a documentary, has a case before the vaccine court. He stands to make cash from that. Age of Autism asks for donations and promotes supplements. Dr. Bob Sears (our douchebag “emerit-ass”) messes around with the vaccine schedule not because it’s based on any science of knowledge or understanding of immunology (as he himself clarified), but likely because each added visit to get a child vaccinated incurs and additional charge. And don’t get me started on all the books, conferences, and videos that generate revenue for something (vaccine-induced autism) that doesn’t exist.
The UFO and Yeti believers are really jealous.
To wrap it all up, here we have a new player in the anti-vaccine camp, a man by the name of Justin Kanew. He is a new father, and he has some goddamned questions that people better goddamn answer. But the people he is asking questions of are not, you know, scientists and researchers. No. He is asking questions of Andrew Wakefield (a known fraud), two unethical researchers who think that money given through the vaccine court is an admission of guilt (which shows how much Justin investigated the vaccine court), and a computer scientist who thinks we will ALL OF US be autistic soon enough due to vaccines.
Yep, to protect his child from the evils of Big Pharma, or whatever, Justin Kanew has set up to interview the very wrong people. If anything, Justin should be protecting his child from them. And the only person who is skeptical of the vaccine-autism claim, journalist Brian Deer, gets his interview spliced and diced by none other than Andrew Wakefield! (Mr. Deer had only about 1/3 to 1/2 of the time allotted in the podcast, with Wakefield countering every point of the recording and not face-to-face.) What the hell, Justin?
Justin, you keep saying on Twitter that you’re not anti-vaccine, but how is it that you keep acting like it? How is it that you’re surrounding yourself with them and aligning yourself with their ideologies? How in the world can you expect us to believe that you’re not either fully committed to the anti-vaccine crowd or at least seriously considering it? And why did not you not serve your child’s best interest and do just a little more research into those questions you’re asking? And did you read Whale.to’s other articles (especially the ones about the Holocaust never happening) before deciding on promoting that sick and twisted website?
You don’t have to answer, Justin. They’re all rhetorical questions at this point because you’ve been extremely defensive, raising the “I’m pro safe vaccine” flag every time someone asks you to sit down and just jot down some notes from sites and publications that are not anti-vaccine. If you were to answer these questions, I’m sure it would be some form of “I’m just asking questions” (aka JAQ-ing off) or “I’m pro safe vaccine” or “I have my child’s best interests in mind, not the confirmation of my fears”, or something.
All of this is very disappointing because, as we have seen in years past with Ebola and now with Zika, health communication is very hard to do in an ocean of misinformation, fear and lies. Soon enough, blogs like Age of Autism and people like Andrew Wakefield will convince people like Justin (influential people with connections to communicators and communication machines in Hollywood) that the Zika vaccine (coming soon) is dangerous. If we, God willing, come up with an Ebola vaccine, the same anti-vaccine people will again reach out to Justin to deliver a message of “Don’t Do It! They’re Trying To Kill You!” that is hard to counter with a few public health grants. And then we’ll have Zika and Ebola and Measles and Polio to contend with.
As a public health worker, I’m happy to have job security like that. As someone who has seen dead children from vaccine-preventable diseases, it scares the shit out of me.
The Poxes Blog 
Pingback: Just(in) asking questions | The Poxes Blog
In case it doesn’t come out from the discussion–I entered into that to test Kanew. Was he really interested in exploring all sides of the story?
I told him I know this topic. Very well. Likely one of the best of anyone he can talk to, as I’ve followed Wakefield and, later, the William Thompson stories very closely (Brian Deer, of course, is by far an away the expert on Wakefield.)
He didn’t say, “OK, what do you have to say”. He took that as a threat, a challenge to his position. And now he’s been reduced to a childish mocking/trolling.
As I’ve already said, Kanew is smart enough to be scared by Wakefield, but he just doesn’t have the chops to work his way out. He may also just not want to work his way out–he may be justifying his fear so he can live with it.
Either way, he has jumped into spreading damaging misinformation while he admits he doesn’t really understand the topic. And he thinks it’s his childish trolling that is resulting in frustration. Think that one through, Justin. You’ve got the chops to figure this one out, you just have to be able to face the answer. Why are people frustrated with you?
Notice that Kanew went to the predictable “use my child as a shield against criticsm” step to shut down discussion (“I don’t care if you think asking questions about the stuff I put in my daughter is harmful”). He’s defending his decision to participate at AoA.
In his words AoA is an antivaccine site. So he’s going to an antivaccine site for information about vaccines.
But that was never really the point, it was a dodge. He’s participating in a harmful site to promote himself. Accepting their support. But he went to the human/child-shield defense.
Which makes even less sense now that he’s the one writing for AoA. He’s not anti-vaccine. He just writes for sites he says are anti-vaccine.
Yes. Parents should get information from both sides before making the vaccine decision. Age of Autism has a lot of valuable information about the dangers of vaccines, which is information that every parent, including Justin Kanew, should know. But not stop there.
[Editor note: “Valuable” is being quite generous to Age of Autism. This is the same site that promotes really weird ideas about vaccines causing every single known disease while at the same time promoting the idea that deadly and harmful diseases are somehow either God’s will, beneficial, good for the herd, etc.]
Why do you refer to Age of Autism as “one of the most anti-vaccine, hate-filled, anti-Semitic blogs around”? I’ve been reading it regularly for the past five years and have never seen a single word there which was anti-Semitic. I don’t think I ever saw anything about Judaism or Jews there, period. Could you substantiate your claim?
You missed their blood libel post, where people were eating a child for Thanksgiving? You miss the comments of people making fun of Jewish researchers’ noses and greed? Of course you do, Cynthia. Of course you do.
But, Reuben! Just because the images are so anti-Semitic doesn’t mean that AOA is. They’re just trying to be funny, and are so misunderstood by us all.
After all, here’s poor Cynthia, telling us how MEAN we are all being to her and the other denizens of AOA, while she’s allowed to comment freely here and other blogs (RI, SBM, etc) and no one blocks her.
Cynthia: if possible, could you please give us any reason that EVERY country in the world that has done creditable vaccine research comes up with the same result of: Vaccines don’t cause autism, ADHD, diabetes, obesity, gut issues, ‘disease of the week’. Are they all in the pocket of US big Pharma? Is it a world-wide conspiracy for the Illuminati?
How come I have a smallpox vaccine scar and my sister doesn’t? How come I had to go through measles and mumps (and, btw, NOT develop immunity) but she didn’t? How come my mom didn’t have to worry about letting us swim in the summer, when her mother lived in terror of crowds? Please explain.
A couple of small nit picks.
First, I’ve saw plenty of UFO’s over the years, most got identified, a few were things I was given a direct order, “You didn’t see that”. No space aliens needed, it was unidentified, later to be identified or denied. Yeah, the military has that weirdness to it…
Second, there is no “God willing” for an Ebola vaccine, there are currently two candidates, both proving quite effective and safe. A salute to those who worked on those vaccines!
As for anyone citing whale dot to, you’ve instantly lost any semblance of respect from me when you use that site for a citation.
As one who gives the respect due another human automatically, disagreeing with “respect is earned”, that’s saying a hell of a lot.
Well, I’ll just have to live with having lost your respect. I can think of something extremely objectionable and offensive in every person I know, but each person also has aspects and views which I agree with and respect. There is no one angrier about the anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism so common today than I, and I don’t know for sure, but I’m going out on a limb to say that I believe that those who hold such views also have some beliefs that I agree with. If they gave me advice on how to save my ailing lilacs, I wouldn’t automatically dismiss it.
I just said yesterday that it is inevitable that new lethal diseases arise in the world, and that vaccines will play a part in saving lives combatting them. I still demand freedom of choice, of course. Ebola is an example that quickly springs to mind of a lethal disease which, if there were a vaccine for it and I were in a situation in which half my neighbors were dying of it, I would probably take the vaccine for myself and my daughter. It would undoubtedly produce severe adverse reactions in some, but each person would have to decide which risk he’d rather take. But I would still refuse the vaccines on offer today for us, at any rate. Their risk is greater than their benefit for most people in the US. I cautiously recommend the DT series after two years old (but have no problem with people refusing it), and, if polio came back here in epidemic form, would recommend that people give serious consideration to the polio series. For those interested in my opinion, I wouldn’t recommend any of the others.
I believe that homeopathic prophylaxis is effective, and would like to see large scale studies done on that to see how viable that would be as a safe alternative to vaccination. I’m sure you don’t believe that homeopathic anything is effective, but I have found that the remedies often are for us and have been impressed by the studies done in Cuba and Argentina on the effectiveness of nosode protection.
He cited whale.to?
Justin, whale.to hosts the anti Semitic protocols of the learned elders of Zion.
Just goes to show you either don’t care who you share your reputation or, more likely, this is just another example of how little work you are doing. You got a question? Check with your new friends. They give you a link to whale.to and you run with it. Whale.to is by far not the only anti Semitic source of bad vaccine information, by the way. Many of Justin’s new friends dip into that well frequently in their online exchanges.
Kanew has the time to explore the question. The problem is he either doesn’t have the chops to really explore evidence or is really just looking for a justification to remain terrified of vaccines. He’s stated multiple times that he’s terrified. But when presented with repeated evidence that his new friends lie and mislead, he just skips over it. When presented with repeated evidence that much of what is scaring him is nonsense, he just remains afraid.
It’s worth noting that in the above quoted exchange it was Kanew who introduced the term anti vaccine. That’s why I used it. I tend to avoid using the term. He complained (erroneously) that I was using it as an insult. He seems to see the kinder, gentler side of the antivaccine movement.
He’s free to have bad ideas, based on a cursory exploration of the subject. He’s free to react from fear. But as a person undertaking a journalistic task like podcasting his lack of depth is irresponsible.
He throws up the defense he’s only asking questions. Too bad he doesn’t apply half of is skepticism to his new friends. But any and all evidence that his sources of fear are unethical are passed over.
I hate anti-Semitism, but must recognize that just because a source has ideas I find extremely offensive on one subject doesn’t necessarily mean that everything it says about everything is wrong or offensive. There is a lot of valuable, correct information at whale.to on vaccines. Anything it may say which is anti-Semitic is abhorrent. Dorit recognized last week that pro-vaxxers making false Twitter sites for some of us loaded with porn was contemptible and wrong. She said that some anti-vaxxers had done it about them, and of course I believe and said that it is a very bad and childish thing to do. But either way says nothing about the merits or dangers of vaccines, and it is important to differentiate.
Most journalists only give the Pharma party line and are doing a great disservice to the American people. A huge segment of the population has been seriously damaged by vaccines, and the entire population should learn about both sides, and journalists should tell them to a much greater extent than they do now. It is wrong to pretend that there is only one side to this issue, that vaccines are usually very safe, very effective, all the VPDs both used to be common and they were all very deadly, while serious reactions only occur in “one in a million” cases. And growing numbers of people realize that that isn’t even true on the face of it. Vaccines do usually provide immunity to the VPDs for a limited length of time, but the cost is very great. People must learn to consider whether they are willing to inflict neurological and/or autoimmune disease (or serious conditions affecting every system of the body) with the huge number of vaccines routinely given now on their children and themselves, for the sake of probably preventing diseases which are very rare or rarely serious. If we had an epidemic of yellow fever or Ebola here, it would be a different story.
Justin, and a growing number of “renegade” journalists, are stepping up to give the public the largely unreported side of the story and let them make up their own minds. That’s what freedom of the press is for. Justin has shown himself to be very skilled in his interviews so far, and I’m looking forward to more of his podcasts. No one has to agree with him, but most people would be glad to hear the other side of the story. To try to shut him down for breakaway journalism is censorship not appropriate for a democracy.
Celia, spout your bovine defecation elsewhere. I’ve personally been present during a polio and measles outbreak that killed dozens of children in multiple villages. So, my tolerance is absent for any antivaxer type. To this very day, I still have nightmares about the experience.
In what country? Even in Africa, one of Aaby’s studies showed that, although the measles vaccine DID save lives from measles, those children who did NOT get the vaccine but who DID get natural measles and recovered, the vast majority even there, had only one-fifth of the deaths in subsequent years as those who either got the vaccine or just did not get measles, because natural measles strengthened their immune systems so much. So even there, many parents might prefer to not get the vaccine and let their children get natural measles for that reason.
I just said a few minutes ago that if there were a polio epidemic, or just an outbreak in my area, I would recommend that parents consider getting the polio vaccine, either kind. Polio doesn’t often kill in the developed world, it can in the Third World, and most people get it subclinically or just get respiratory symptoms and permanent immunity. I had a roommate, though, who had been crippled by polio. For the few who were severely affected by it, it was certainly devastating, and the vaccine, while it has killed or disabled many, is probably the safest of any of the vaccines. But I would inform parents and let them choose either way: it is not I who would have to live with the consequences of either vaccine or disease damage.
And please notice that I make my points without ever using vulgar language: I don’t think that doing so adds to the persuasiveness of your arguments.
Can you substantiate your claim that the polio vaccine “has killed or disabled many”?
[Editor note: Because Cynthia Parker/Cia Parker/Celia is a very ardent anti-vaccine zealot who cannot seem to keep her facts straight, I need to correct her claims. I will do so in line with her comments, which I will not delete or change.]
I can get more, but those killed in the Cutter incident [Ed. note: More factual information on the cutter incident can be found here: http://paul-offit.com/booksby/the-cutter-incident/], those paralyzed by the oral vaccine [Ed. note: Paralysis from the vaccine does happens, but it is very uncommon, especially in countries where we have moved into injectable vaccine because the oral one was so effective in eliminating polio there. More information here], and those who died of cancer that was found to contain the SV-40 which contaminated a large percentage of polio vaccines for decades spring to mind [Ed. note: The claim that the SV-40 contamination that happened almost 60 years ago has caused cancer has been debunked. More information here].
Afghanistan was where we were chasing down a mutual outbreak.
[Editor note: Because Cynthia Parker/Cia Parker/Celia is a very ardent anti-vaccine zealot who cannot seem to keep her facts straight, I need to correct her claims. I will do so in line with her comments, which I will not delete or change.]
So in the Third World where poverty and malnutrition are so rampant that dangerous disease and dangerous cases of usually mild disease are much more common than they are in developed countries. [Ed. note: The claim that hygiene got rid of vaccine-preventable diseases in developed countries is patently false. (“Third World” is a pejorative term meant to make developing nations seem alien to us, by the way.) Measles and German measles are airborne. You can’t wash air. Same thing with smallpox. We have plenty of cases of rotavirus here in the US, too.] But there as everywhere, parents have the right to information as complete and accurate as it’s possible to give them, and it is they who must decide whether to accept or reject vaccines.
Cynthia, I’m going to have to ask you to go easy on the filibustering. Censorship is something that the government does to the people, not something that people do to other people. If that were the case, you would be very angry at Age of Autism for blocking so many of us from openly commenting there and correcting their lies and misinformation (and yours). Please keep your replies succinct, or I’ll be forced to start editing them for length.
By the way, Cynthia, please keep the hits coming: https://thepoxesblog.wordpress.com/2014/06/21/the-weird-and-confusing-world-of-ciaparker/
Yeah, I’ve seen that.
What else does Big pHARMa control in addition to the media, Cynthia? Are there any higher levels? Goals? Never seen any “population control” ravings at AoA? Who would want that? Where do the pHARMa shills sit on the organizational chart?
So what you’re saying is that no one may ask any questions about vaccine safety, no matter how many people he’s seen who have had serious reactions to vaccines? I have a feeling that’s a non-starter.
No, the blog certainly did not say that. It’s important to ask questions. The problem is blindly accepting answers from sources as bad as Andrew Wakefield.
It’s a good idea to be careful and discerning in choice of sources, if you’re not an expert.
No, Ms. Parker (it’s Cynthia Parker, everyone, aka CiaParker, aka “Too Sick To Do Any Kind of Work Except Constant Anti-Vaccine Activism”). That is not what I’m saying, and you know it. What I am saying, just so you don’t get too confused, is that you have to ask the right questions of the right people. You don’t ask fraudsters like Wakefield about vaccines, because his point of view is that of someone who is looking to make money off of unsuspecting parents at every turn. You don’t ask epidemiology and biostatistic questions of people like the Geiers and Brian S. Hooker because they’ve been proven wrong time and time again in what they think are “scientific studies.” And, certainly, you don’t ask questions of someone like you who has been proven to be incorrect and clueless about science over and over and over again.
Thanks for stopping by, Cynthia. Unlike Age of Autism moderators, I won’t block you. Feel free to stick around and enjoy the chats.
You also do not accept as definitive answers from those profiting from vaccines, or those affiliated with, benefiting from, or at the mercy of, the companies which make them. I certainly advocate getting information from both sides before making the vaccine decision. I believe that most vaccines (the acellular pertussis and the flu vaccines being the big exceptions) are effective in preventing the targeted disease for an unknown but not endless length of time. The formerly universal childhood diseases were usually relatively mild by the time the vaccines for them were introduced, and going through the natural diseases was a necessary experience for the strengthening and maturation of the immune system. The others were rare, but it’s certainly worth thinking about what would happen if everyone stopped vaxxing for anything, and what VPDs might become both common and serious. I continue to think a lot about it, turning over different factors, but it’s going to be a long, long time before that situation becomes reality. I can say, however, that the MMR and the hep-B vaccine DO frequently cause autism, and some of the others sometimes do as well, like the flu, DTaP, and Hib vaccines. And all of them can cause autoimmune disease, immune suppression, and other neurological disorders caused by vaccine encephalitis. There are many excellent questions which every person in the country should be asking about vaccines, not stopping with asking his doctor his opinion. And everyone in the country should learn about alternative ways to prevent and treat the dangerous VPDs or dangerous cases of usually mild diseases, and learn the symptoms of dangerous complications which demand immediate allopathic medical care.
But I fear that I need to translate for several hours now before taking my daughter to see The Angry Birds movie this afternoon. I’ll have to look it up so I can give her a plot synopsis hoping that it will help her to follow the movie (probably won’t). I’ve got one job due tomorrow, and two due Tuesday, and they’re pretty long. But I will certainly accept your kind invitation to enjoy and comment on your posts.
Oh, Cynthia. You almost sound reasonable, and then you parrot anti-vaccine lies. No vaccine causes autism. There are not side-effects in the severity and volume that you state. And, yes, vaccine-preventable diseases would come roaring back almost immediately. There are thousands of children being born in this country every day, adding to the pool of susceptibility. Just look at the UK. Wakefield scares everyone away from the MMR in 1998, and by 2005 we start to see outbreaks. Same thing when he scared the Somali community in Minnesota. It only took a few months there before they had outbreaks that involved newborn babies. Sure, go ahead and ask questions, but ask the right questions and ask them of the right people.
Hi Celia, a couple of things as you state that you are reasonable. “The formerly universal childhood diseases were usually relatively mild by the time the vaccines for them were introduced,”
I really need citation for this, also the mechanics of diseases getting milder over time as well. Before the vaccine the summer Polio epidemics were a terrible thing:
“Fifty years ago polio was every parent’s greatest dread. It’s difficult now to imagine the fear that swept through Australian communities each time there was another epidemic. Thousands of children spent months in special isolation wards, unable to breathe outside the “iron lungs” that kept them alive”
Preferable to dying for sure, but milder? Come on.
“I can say, however, that the MMR and the hep-B vaccine DO frequently cause autism,”
Since 2014, it is known that autism starts in the womb, way way before any vaccine.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-03-26/autism-begins-as-brain-cells-altered-in-womb-study-finds
Speaking of which, I was genuinely impressed by this recent dropping by Cia over there:
“Olivia [Dahl] was over the acute stage of her measles, but complained of a headache. I’m pretty sure that her parents would have given her an aspirin for the headache: at that time, 1963? it was not yet known that giving aspirin to children can sometimes cause severe complications leading to death. I think that’s the most probable explanation for the encephalitis which killed her.”
Rationality has left the building.
Olivia had complained of a headache. Most parents at that time would have given a child an aspirin for the headache, but we now know that giving aspirin to children can cause Reye’s syndrome and often death from it. I used rational reasoning, you have not.
[Editor note: Wow! One comment from Cynthia without anti-vaccine rhetoric and/or lies or misrepresentations. I’m impressed. Let’s hope she can keep it up.]
Another Wakefraud fanboi emerges, film at eleven. Justin Kanew has shown himself to be another gullible, lazy and scientifically-illiterate stooge. Perfect for Wakefraud to keep his message alive.
for a public health expert, these guys are like Nutella is for dentists…
You have to love the implied assumption that those of us who support vaccines don’t care about vaccine safety.
Because, apparently, I don’t care whether the shots I am going to give my soon-to-be-one-year-old, or that he got several times this year, are safe. The pro-vaccine-safety language just misses the point.
We all want safe vaccines. Some of us use accurate data to examine this, and realize that while nothing is 100% vaccines are very safe. Some of us are misled by misinformation into supporting claims that aren’t true and policies that aren’t good.
Well said, Dorit.
My parents had me vaccinated because they thought (with reason) that vaccines would protect me against measles, mumps, polio, TB, etc. – AND because they thought (again with reason) that it was safe to do so. I did the same with my daughter; and she’s now doing it with her son.