De Niro's Tribeca festival pulls anti-vaccination film

[webfact]

De Niro's Tribeca festival pulls anti-vaccination film
NEKESA MUMBI MOODY, AP Entertainment Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Robert De Niro is removing the anti-vaccination documentary "Vaxxed" from the lineup of his Tribeca Film Festival, after initially defending its inclusion.

"Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Conspiracy," was set to be part of the film festival when it opened next month. The decision to include the film by anti-vaccination activist Andrew Wakefield came under fire, particularly since Wakefield's contention that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine have a link to autism have been discredited.

While De Niro on Friday defended the decision to include the film, he released a statement Saturday saying he had reversed his decision.

De Niro, who has a child with autism, said he had hoped to provide an opportunity for conversation around an issue "that is deeply personal to me and my family."

However, he said after he and Tribeca organizers reviewed it, "We do not believe it contributes to or furthers the discussion I had hoped for." He said members of the scientific community also had reviewed it with him.

"The festival doesn't seek to avoid or shy away from controversy. However, we have concerns with certain things in this film that we feel prevent us from presenting it in the festival program," he added.

A statement from Wakefield, the film's director, and Del Bigtree, its producer, decried De Niro's decision, saying they didn't get a chance to defend themselves against critics of the film.

"We have just witnessed yet another example of the power of corporate interests censoring free speech, art and truth," the statement read. "Tribeca's action will not succeed in denying the world access to the truth behind the film 'Vaxxed.'"

The Tribeca Film Festival runs from April 13 to April 24.

-- (c) Associated Press 2016-03-28

[attrayant]

Good. Wakefield is human scum and doesn't deserve to have a voice after what he has done.

[DM07]

Well...it is right under "Freedom of speech and expression" to make a movie against vaccination!

...and it is everybody else's right to call you out on your BS and remove your piece of cr@p of a movie, full of lies and conspiracy theories, from a festival and expose it, as what it is: a dangerous piece of misinformation!

[up-country_sinclair]

My friend's wife is an anti-vaxxer. She's completely obsessed with it. And from what I've read/heard, many of anti-vaxxers are the same way.

I don't think the movie should have been pulled though. Just show as intended and let it face its critics.

Edited March 28, 2016 by up-country_sinclair

[SOTIRIOS]

....anything but the truth....when billions in profit.....and lawsuits are at stake.....

[Kabula]

Read the vaccine insert and do medical research before posting your opinions.

[hdkane]

The alleged connection between autism and vaccines was discredited almost before the ink dried on the research...the authors fully admitted that they forged and fabricated data, with the intent of securing major funding...they were pretty stupid, really...because the data could be independently analyzed using a basic calculator...still, stupid people scrounge for conspiracy and refuse the truth...their inane arguments distract real research and practice...if people listen to the anti vaccine advocates, children will die...it's that simple...

[arjunadawn]

"Read the vaccine insert..." ha! Utter nonsense. If for no other reason than the behavior of big pharma acting like big mafia there should be suspicion in the populace. When big pharma has to lobby to have congress immunize big pharma from lawsuits under the premise of "for the children" or "the national good," there should be incredulity. Whether the movie is spot on or off its rocker is irrelevant. The current debacle is one more example of free speech only being approved speech. De Niro, an advocate of the very message contained in the movie, folded. Clearly not a Goodfella. In America, the incestuous relationship of multinationals manage perception and news and public opinion and research and science and politicians and laws at every level.

When all the data and accusations and pretense to science and numbers are set aside, there is still the overwhelming reality of countless parents who viscerally know their child was healthy right up to the time of the polyvalent injection. When the train of coincidences becomes so overwhelming at a certain point researchers claims to the contrary become noise, disassembly. Of course vaccination play a role in autism. It is just a matter of grasping what concurrent factors or congenital factors set up the environment for the trifecta, the injection being the third.

I have known hundreds of parents of autism and all of them traced the onset to a child checkup/vaccination. My nephew is autistic and the community around Fort Bragg NC had an explosion of autism some years ago that made the national incidence pale. However, the national incidence of autism later skyrocketed itself. Its nearly epidemic in the US.

I have administered thousands of immunizations in my life.This does not make me an expert but I have seen first hand how vital vaccinations are. However, my colleague/friend, a former professor of virology at Harvard, agrees with me completely- there is some connection between childhood vaccines and autism. People who think there is a connection are not wildly anti immunization; they are wildly self evident. I 100% believe vaccinations are a culprit in the precipitous rise in epidemic autism.

http://vaxtruth.org/2012/04/when-1-in-88-is-really-1-in-29/

http://www.vacinfo.org/1in67.pdf

https://www.quora.com/Why-is-autism-diagnosed-in-military-children-at-roughly-double-the-rate-it-is-in-the-civilian-world

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-autism-idUSBRE82S0P320120329

http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/07/autism-in-the-m.html

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/robert-de-niro-defends-anti-vaxxer-film-for-tribeca-film-fest-20160325

[Credo]

I am absolutely astounded that people can fall for some of this stuff. We have people on this site, who may well remember the scourge of polio and the affect it had. Even though the vaccine was available when I was young, there were still a lot of people who hadn't had it yet and I had close friend when I was very young who got it and died. I grew up around people who suffered with the effects of polio throughout their lives.

Once vaccination was available, it almost entirely disappeared.

When I was in my late teens, I was walking through a hilly wooded area near where I lived and I stumbled on some rocks. It turned out they were grave stones. I asked around and people in the area knew there was a very old grave yard but nobody seemed to know anyone buried there or how it came about. A search at the local newspaper office found that there had been a small town in the area and all the town was ravaged by small pox. Nearly everyone died and the town was abandoned. The only think left were the overturned gravestones in the middle of a forest. You don't hear about outbreaks of small pox any longer.

As far as I am concerned, movies like this one are nothing more than fear mongering and scare tactics. They are not free speech. If you want to know about the dangers and effects of vaccinations, then talk with doctors.

Allowing films like this is like allowing neo-Nazi propaganda.

[Usernames]

Too many of these film festivals anyway. They are an industry in themselves, exhibiting films that nobody wants to see or have interest in otherwise. Just a way for organizers to gain funds, fees, and pretend to high art or social importance. But, as this film shows, most or simply obscure rants that will have trouble making it to home video.

[Rancid]

The problem with the pro-vaccine attitude is complete unquestioning acceptance of whatever the main stream media tells them. Even when the first vaccine was introduced the majority of doctors were against them. In fact most of the diseases that were vaccinated back then were either on the decline or very rare anyway, they really made no difference. Pro people demand that all kids should be vaccinated so that their vaccinated children don't catch the disease, now hang on, isn't the vaccine supposed to stop them catching the disease?

There is big big money in vaccines, why do you suppose Big Pharma gets government to pick up the bill, no mystery why they want it compulsory and keep introducing new ones each year.

Regardless whether pro or anti, shouldn't it be a choice, or have we already reached totalitarianism where the state now dictates what we can and cant do? I think most of us already know the answer to that.

[Tapster]

@Rancid

You make a reasonable point. With free will and no pressure from Big Pharma, everything should be a choice, right?

However, in the case of vaccinations, full protection for everyone is only conferred if everyone gets the vaccination.

The idea is that, as in the case of smallpox, the disease can be eradicated completely if everyone is immune to it.

The issue isn't the corporate greed of Big Pharma (and I don't deny that they are both corporate and greedy).

No, the issue is a public health one. For the benefit of all, everyone needs to be vaccinated.

Since antivaxxers came on the scene there has been an increasing number of outbreaks of measles and other illnesses in areas where this never happened when everyone was vaccinated.

I'm all for personal rights but not when people exercising those rights put others at risk. After all, we don't think it's a personal right to attack people in the street, do we?

The science behind vaccination is solid and for it to work, everyone needs to be vaccinated. In an earlier age, when science was trusted over and above people's opinions, vaccinations worked better than it does today.

[attrayant]

(I'm breaking this reply into two posts due to the forum's inexplicable limit of four quote tags per post)

The problem with the pro-vaccine attitude is complete unquestioning acceptance of whatever the main stream media tells them.

This is a problem with many issues that are science-based, not just "pro-vaccine" (whatever that's supposed to mean) views, but the "pro-disease" crowd as well. People are getting their education from the media instead of the scientific consensus. Then there are people who say that their unhappy experience along with that of a few of their friends has convinced them of... something apparently. These people lack an understanding of how easily we can be biased by our personal experiences and the anecdotes of others.

Even when the first vaccine was introduced the majority of doctors were against them.

I doubt the veracity of this, but even if true, so what? Did you know that RIM (a well-known communications company that made what was, at the time, state-of-the-art smartphones), thought the iPhone was a hoax perpetrated by Apple when it was first introduced about ten years ago? RIM said the iPhone couldn't possibly do what Apple claims it did. We know how that turned out, right? So it's not that surprising to hear about some skepticism about technological or medical breakthroughs. But decades later, now that we have epidemiological studies with millions and millions of subjects, anyone who still espouses such skepticism should be rightly called a crank at best.

In fact most of the diseases that were vaccinated back then were either on the decline or very rare anyway, they really made no difference.

This is factually incorrect. Please provide the justification for this claim, but before you do, you might want to brush up on the difference between morbidity and mortality.

Pro people demand that all kids should be vaccinated so that their vaccinated children don't catch the disease, now hang on, isn't the vaccine supposed to stop them catching the disease?

This is a dishonest misrepresentation of the evidence-based, established medical position. There is a small but significant portion of the population who cannot get vaccinations because they are:

• Too young to be vaccinated
• Too old/inform to be vaccinated
• The immuno-compromised

We vaccinate ourselves for the protection of these vulnerable members of our society. Yes, my vaccinated teenager is resistant (not necessarily 100%) to a particular disease, but that's not the point. The point is that your unvaccinated rug rat is now a potential disease carrier and is a threat to the lives of youngest, weakest and most vulnerable members of our population.

Edited March 29, 2016 by attrayant

[attrayant]

(continued)

There is big big money in vaccines

False. From the American Academy of Pediatrics:

This study shows that the variable costs of vaccine administration exceeded reimbursement from some insurers and health plans.

That means many pediatricians and doctors actually LOST money administering vaccinations. What about the vaccine makers? From the Economist:

For decades vaccines were a neglected corner of the drugs business, with old technology, little investment and abysmal profit margins. Many firms sold their vaccine divisions to concentrate on more profitable drugs. This troubled public-health experts because vaccines are a highly effective way of dealing with diseases.

Some of the more profitable vaccine makers make something like $10-$15 per dose. How much do you think they'd make if people caught diseases and had to be hospitalized and heavily medicated for days or weeks? More than $15, I'll bet. If you'd just THINK about these claims for a moment before you perpetuate them, and you'll see how ridiculous some of them are.

Regardless whether pro or anti, shouldn't it be a choice, or have we already reached totalitarianism where the state now dictates what we can and cant do? I think most of us already know the answer to that.

Your leading question aside, absolutely not. The general public should not be able to choose which preventable diseases are allowed to come roaring back into our lives.

Edited March 29, 2016 by attrayant

[stillbornagain]

"Read the vaccine insert..." ha! Utter nonsense. If for no other reason than the behavior of big pharma acting like big mafia there should be suspicion in the populace. When big pharma has to lobby to have congress immunize big pharma from lawsuits under the premise of "for the children" or "the national good," there should be incredulity. Whether the movie is spot on or off its rocker is irrelevant. The current debacle is one more example of free speech only being approved speech. De Niro, an advocate of the very message contained in the movie, folded. Clearly not a Goodfella. In America, the incestuous relationship of multinationals manage perception and news and public opinion and research and science and politicians and laws at every level.

When all the data and accusations and pretense to science and numbers are set aside, there is still the overwhelming reality of countless parents who viscerally know their child was healthy right up to the time of the polyvalent injection. When the train of coincidences becomes so overwhelming at a certain point researchers claims to the contrary become noise, disassembly. Of course vaccination play a role in autism. It is just a matter of grasping what concurrent factors or congenital factors set up the environment for the trifecta, the injection being the third.

I have known hundreds of parents of autism and all of them traced the onset to a child checkup/vaccination. My nephew is autistic and the community around Fort Bragg NC had an explosion of autism some years ago that made the national incidence pale. However, the national incidence of autism later skyrocketed itself. Its nearly epidemic in the US.

I have administered thousands of immunizations in my life.This does not make me an expert but I have seen first hand how vital vaccinations are. However, my colleague/friend, a former professor of virology at Harvard, agrees with me completely- there is some connection between childhood vaccines and autism. People who think there is a connection are not wildly anti immunization; they are wildly self evident. I 100% believe vaccinations are a culprit in the precipitous rise in epidemic autism.

http://vaxtruth.org/2012/04/when-1-in-88-is-really-1-in-29/

http://www.vacinfo.org/1in67.pdf

https://www.quora.com/Why-is-autism-diagnosed-in-military-children-at-roughly-double-the-rate-it-is-in-the-civilian-world

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-autism-idUSBRE82S0P320120329

http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/07/autism-in-the-m.html

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/robert-de-niro-defends-anti-vaxxer-film-for-tribeca-film-fest-20160325

I remember in 2014 when the whole right wing was up in arms about Ebola. They just knew that Ebola was hightly contagious and was about to break out in the USA. George Will, Peggy Noonan, Ross Douthat, and virtually the entire Fox news channel joined in the chorus. The CDC, The Center for Disease Control, the experts in this field, kept on maintaining that there was virtually no danger. But people on the right "viscerally" knew better. What was the upshot? Not one case of Ebola contracted in the USA.

The CDC performed many studies of kids who were vaccinated. They found no connection at all. You could actually go to the CDC website and see for yourself. You would see something there called "overwhelming evidence."

Next thing you know, you'll be telling us that human caused global warming is just a myth. No, I'm just kidding. Nobody could possibly believe that in the face of all the evidence to the contrary.

[attrayant]

Nobody could possibly believe that in the face of all the evidence to the contrary.

There are people who believe the Earth is flat, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. As I've said before in some of the other science denial threads, you can't reason a person out of a position that he didn't use reason to get into in the first place.

[arjunadawn]

@Rancid

You make a reasonable point. With free will and no pressure from Big Pharma, everything should be a choice, right?

However, in the case of vaccinations, full protection for everyone is only conferred if everyone gets the vaccination.

The idea is that, as in the case of smallpox, the disease can be eradicated completely if everyone is immune to it.

The issue isn't the corporate greed of Big Pharma (and I don't deny that they are both corporate and greedy).

No, the issue is a public health one. For the benefit of all, everyone needs to be vaccinated.

Since antivaxxers came on the scene there has been an increasing number of outbreaks of measles and other illnesses in areas where this never happened when everyone was vaccinated.

I'm all for personal rights but not when people exercising those rights put others at risk. After all, we don't think it's a personal right to attack people in the street, do we?

The science behind vaccination is solid and for it to work, everyone needs to be vaccinated. In an earlier age, when science was trusted over and above people's opinions, vaccinations worked better than it does today.

In the recent example of the outbreak of measles in the US a significant number of those infected were previously un-vaccinated; makes sense- smart vaccinations can work wonders. However, these people were not the source of the outbreak, as is often conflated. It can be argued the source were illegals or not but the source has been demonstrated to come from outside the US. So, with a nation that has evidenced an inability to enforce its own laws and allows millions to pour through a now porous border, hardly enforcing any laws, is it really a wonder? Furthermore, even a cursory understanding of epidemiology rejects the absurd protest that millions traveling from the southern Americans and elsewhere would not be carrying diseases.

So, the argument can be made that un-vacinated people acted as a reservoir, but the real crime is the government enabling the vector! I will not choose data to support one of two sides of this argument- what enabled the explosion of disease concurrent with the surrender of the US border. People can get lost in convenient data. The fact is, no rationale mind needs to explore that aspect- of course disease follows populations.

I rarely ask other posters to supply data because no one should be another's gopher but I would love to at least read the post that asserts contemporary US outbreaks were common and secondary to un-vaccinated populations prior to the onslaught of open borders.

No, not everyone needs to be vaccinated. Some people are highly allergic to the medium and preservatives. Thus, not all can be. If not all can be, do we make an exception for this population? If we make an exception, can it really be offered that universal vaccination is an imperative? No, it cannot. Its a tissue of false logic.

In the 1980s the US government made medical personnel in the Army Special Forces "voluntarily" administer hep c vaccinations to soldiers. I refused to take it and did not vaccinate any members of my team. In the 1990s many of learned of the horrible amount of SF soldiers with Hep C. No one else; not other units, not the local population, just dozens out of hundreds. Of course they were connected. Vaccines have great value but are wildly worked to besiege an immune system rather than enhance its Memory Cells/library of previously exposed antigens so it can uniquely murder infections. Of course vaccines are a culprit in the autism etiology.

The last statement above presupposes vaccine noncompliance causes widespread or even any problems. This I would love to see the data on. Its does not deserve a place as a closing sentence.