The afternoon after Kelly Kerns' 2-month-old daughter Kaylee got several vaccines was living hell," with the child screaming and arching her back, her mother said. 'I kept telling myself everybody gets vaccinated " this is OK,' she said. When Kaylee was 18 months old, her white-blonde hair began falling out and she stopped talking. Meanwhile, Kerns had twin boys " Andrew and Daniel. When they were 15 months old, they received three vaccines. A week later, they stopped talking. All three children have since been diagnosed as autistic. Flu vaccine sold in multidose vials still contains the preservative, and the government urges flu shots for pregnant women and young children even though not enough thimerosal-free ones are available, critics say. Finding answers is tough because autism, a little-understood developmental disorder, often is diagnosed at the very ages when children get vaccines. The stories are remarkably similar: A seemingly normal child gets a shot and days, weeks or months later, withdraws from the world, stops speaking, becomes upset at random stimulation such as a doorbell, and adopts compulsive behaviors like head-banging.