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Tribeca Film Festival, Robert De Niro Pull Anti-Vaccination Film
theodp writes: USA Today reports that one day after defending the scheduled screening of a controversial documentary linking vaccinations to autism, Tribeca Film Festival co-founder Robert De Niro announced that the film is being pulled from the event. The film, Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe, was scheduled to debut April 24. It is directed by Andrew Wakefield, known to many as the father of the anti-vaccine movement. Wakefield authored a 1998 report on vaccinations and autism that was later retracted, He also had his medical license revoked. The decision to include the film in the festival resulted in outrage from many who are upset that the film's inclusion could offer legitimacy to a study debunked by leading scientists. "My intent in screening this film was to provide an opportunity for conversation around an issue that is deeply personal to me and my family," said De Niro, who has a child with autism. "But after reviewing it over the past few days with the Tribeca Film Festival team and others from the scientific community, we do not believe it contributes to or furthers the discussion I had hoped for."
So what's the take away here. Do I take health care advice from movie actors or not. If the answer is yes then what about clowns and mimes?
Even if you're correct: Does it matter? Does any of this change the fact that, in the end, he did the right thing?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Yes, better to do the right thing in the end. Even better to do the right thing to begin with. It's a good reason to be leery of him.
"the father" is irrelevant. Anti-vax movement was born out of the need to blame someone for bad things. In this case, the evil vaccine overlords. That need is so compelling that the erroneous blame survives in the face of clear scientific evidence.
Locating by-State prevalence of autism stats over a decade ago, I started collecting by-State stats on hundreds of variables including vaccinations, mercury, diseases, econometerics, demographics, etc.
Three things stood out: 1) The best single-variable ecological correlation was mother's age at first live birth. 2) The best two-variable ecological correlation was Finnish ancestry and immigration from India. 3) Of all the variables, autism averaged the least powerful correlations with the wide range of by-State variables I had collected.
The mother's age at first live birth was a lower level of correlation than the 2-variable one, but it was more "robust" -- meaning that the scatter of points followed what you would expect from a "normal" distribution.
That was clear back in 2004.
I'm no pro, was not funded and didn't even have a relative with autism spectrum at that time (I do now). The fact that the CDC hasn't conducted an all-out statistical assault of like this at the county level given all the time, money and "big data" available is damning. They just don't care -- or don't want to know.
Seastead this.
Streisand Effect? of course. Nobody would have pressured for the removal of the film if it was about the Flat Earth Society.
"A Little Song, A Little Dance, A Little Seltzer Down your Pants" -Chuckles The Clown
"I'm going to tell these people they are stupid and type in all caps, that usually works pretty well."
I thought this was supposed to be a tech news site....in the past weeks....since dice took over...it's only mainstream crap...and wasn't expecting this from timothy.... maybe from that manishs guy...
You're a few years late there, buddy.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
They have a fall back position. They'll show films about the faked moon landing, and chemtrails.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I assume the reason that you were modded up
You assume incorrectly.
If you click on "(Score:1)" in his comment, you'll find it's a link that pops up a window with a list of the moderation done on the comment. In this case, it will pop up a message that says "No comment history available" because it hasn't been modded at all (at least not at the time that I'm posting this comment).
If you're going to accuse someone of modding their own comments up, you should at least do it in response to a comment that's actually been modded up.
I thought this was supposed to be a tech news site....in the past weeks....since dice took over...it's only mainstream crap...and wasn't expecting this from timothy.... maybe from that manishs guy...
The anti-vaccine issue is about science. About how some idiots will reject it, and endanger their children's lives.
Anti-vaxxers are just one teeny little step away from being the people who refuse to give their diabetic children insulin on religious grounds.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Unfortunately the carriers of these "dumb genes" not only risk their childrens' lives, but also the herd immunity of the local community. Thereby putting the immune-compromised, newborns, and the unlucky for which the vaccine didn't take effect or are allergic. Darwinism is fine until it risks the lives of others. We don't implement speed limits and gun control to protect one from turning himself into red paste, we do it to protect others from the ignorant choices of the few. Want to play solo Russian roulette with a semi? Go right ahead, its only a crime if there are other participants (Manslaughter, natch).
I think the mere fact that someone did anything to defend that charlatan demonstrates just how out of touch with reality the antivaxxers remain.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Vaccines contain adjuvants and preservatives. The preservatives prevent bacterial growth, since you wouldn't want to inject a toxic bacterial culture (which happened before stuff like thimerosal was used). Adjuvants induce a localised inflammatory response to increase the effect of the immune system against the virus you're innoculating against. Without it, it would have reduced efficacy, or maybe no effect at all. So the reason for their presence is absolutely logical, and was determined by empirical testing to quantify exactly how much was needed, after it was determined that they *were* needed.
You're right that these aren't "nice" things. But they *are* necessary. Like everything there's a tradeoff. In this case, the toxicity of the preservatives and adjuvant against toxic bacterial growth and then benefit of the immunity to viral infection, respectively. Given the tiny amounts used, the negative effect is absolutely minor, and it will mostly get flushed out of the body within a short time. Note that they have not been shown to be harmful. Given that the tradeoff for some of these vaccines is chosing not to have brain damage, die, or suffer other long-term debilitating consequences, any negatives from the preservatives and adjuvants are greatly outweighed. Put it this way: if vaccines did cause autism as claimed by this fraud (which they don't, but let's pretend it's true), then it would *still be worth vaccinating everyone*. Why? Because the tiny chance you would get autism pales in comparison with the ~1/1000 chance of death from measles, and the still higher chance of long-term disability or serious complications. The numbers don't lie. Even if these charlatans were correct, vaccination would still be the correct choice every single time.
Do you really think that the people developing the vaccines would add this stuff for the hell of it, or not be fully aware of the risks involved? Thimerosal usage has been greatly reduced or dropped entirely in response to public hysteria. But it can only be done in the first world where you can manufacture and distribute the vaccine in bulk for immediate usage, since it can no longer be stored. In the third world, or for less commonly-used vaccines, it's still used. And that's still absolutely fine.
As for flu vaccines, like all vaccines they use dead or attenuated virus. Of course it makes you "sick"; having a mild infection (or at least the effects of an infection without actually being infected) and consequently developing an immune response to it is the *entire point* of the vaccine. The attenuation means it's not going to spread significantly in your body or to others, but it *is* sufficient to develop an immune response. Then you'll be protected when a real infection hits you.
The fact is that Wakefield's con cost lives. There have been a resurgence in childhood diseases that were all but gone when I was a kid. This isn't someone defending Bernie Madoff, this if someone offering aid and comfort to an individual who happily perpetuated a medical con that hurt and killed innocent children and still is doing so for his own material benefit.
At this point I honestly don't give a fuck about whether Wakefield's supporters are grieving parents or not. Grief is not a license for propagating a lie.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
First there's Becky, then we get Rebecca, now there's a TRIbecca? What's next, Quadbecca?
What if he is? It doesn't change what he said. The spam catch was put in purposely to foil automated email harvesting and the person replying purposely and with intent stripped that out for no good reason. If the op needed to be referenced the moniker used to post under is not only sufficient but more accurate because he could hide his email and most people don't bother linking posts to email addresses.
I'll give the parents who fall for this crap a little leeway. Being personally effected by something like this is emotionally rough on people and they want to find answers to why it happened, a possible cure to make it better, or even just some kind of better understanding.
People like Wakefield (and the other snake oil peddlers like faith healers, psychic surgeons, etc.) take advantage and prey on those emotions in order to prevent people from thinking rationally. Being able to look past your emotions and realize that even though something might make you feel better, doesn't mean that it actually helps you at all takes character in its own right.
Perhaps you've gone your whole life without being wrong and then getting pigheaded about it because you were emotionally invested in an answer, but I doubt it. Those that tend to believe that they have are usually the ones who are horribly wrong about something, but absolutely refuse to admit it and will just bury their heads in the sand even deeper no matter how much evidence you show them.
Thanks for demonstrating my point.
I, personally, think the anti-vaxxers are idiots. However, my own personal opinion of them should not drive an attempt to force them out of every venue and censor them using any means necessary. Their hypotheses have been shown to be flawed and this is backed up with science - backed up via reasoned thought and the scientific method.
What you're doing is evaluating what the SJW / popular opinion hivemind would think about anti-vaxxers - that they're whackjobs (which I happen to agree with) - and immediately rushing to try to exclude them from everything and censor them up to and possibly including government stepping in to censor them. "It's not free speech if I disagree with their opinion and they need to be stopped / banned / arrested" is the rallying cry of your particular brand of idiocy.
I invite you to fuck off, because we already have enough censor-happy SJW idiots oozing around the internet.
Proper science doesn't censor incorrect results, it lets them speak for themselves.
If you're honestly asking the question, I can only presume you missed out on all of the statistics and biology classes you were ever required to take.
But in case you needed a reminder:
1) "Getting sick" does not necessarily mean "becoming infected with influenza." Many common colds manifest symptoms that are very similar to influenza. It's possible your coworkers mis-diagnosed themselves.
2) The flu vaccine developed each flu season is based on the expected mutations of the virus for the upcoming season. Since mutations are less predictable, the vaccine has a chance to match the season's flu strains poorly, well, or somewhere in the middle. If it matches poorly, more people get infected with influenza.
3) Looking at a small sample size - your coworkers - is a poor indication of the population-level efficacy of the vaccine. Influenza can be deadly to elderly, infants, and immuno-compromised individuals. If the influenza vaccine lowers the overall number of deaths each season by a statistically significant number, it is successful - regardless of whether your local pocket of coworkers were all infected or not.
De Niro was perfectly free to show the bloody film at Tribeca. It would have discredited his film festival, and damaged him pretty badly in the process.
Freedom of expression is not freedom from consequences. If you want to show a film defending a man whose self-serving actions has lead to harm and death, then go to it. But you'll be rightfully condemned for it, and may even suffer damage to your own reputation.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
First of all, demonstrate your claim. Produce the numbers,
Otherwise it's just an anonymous guy on the Internet making claims with absolutely no evidence.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
At least the anti-vaxxers can take credit for resurrecting diseases we thought had been eradicated.
That's right, thanks to the anti-vaxxer idiots, Measles, Mumps, Whooping Cough, and Chicken Pox are showing up once again.
Thanks, anti-vaxxer fuckheads, thanks a lot for your stupid anti-science delusions which now put everyone's children at risk.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
... this if someone offering aid and comfort to an individual who happily perpetuated a medical con that hurt and killed innocent children and still is doing so for his own material benefit
And he caused something that's even incrementally worse than the suffering and deaths of innocent children because their parents fell for the con: The suffering and death of innocent children whose parents DIDN'T fall for the con - but were nevertheless infected by those who did fall for it.
Immunizations aren't anywhere near 100% effective. So a substantial number of people, even though immunized, are still susceptible to the disease. They are dependent on "herd immunity" to keep their chances of exposure low. Creating a population of unimmunized offspring of suckers, large enough to switch the contagion exponential from decaying to expanding, creates the exposures that sicken and kill these innocent victims.
Then there are those who are exposed before the can be immunized, or before the immunity can build, or after it decays, or who can't be immunized for other reasons (such as a deathly allergy to a component of the available formulas), or who are immune compromized for any of a number of reasons, ...
So seeing through the fraud and doing the right thing is STILL not enough to avoid the risk of disease and death created by this jolly psychopath.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
How about: The Disneyland outbreak was in fact localized in the unvaccinated (or those whose status was undocumented.)
"Among the 110 California patients, 49 (45%) were unvaccinated; five (5%) had 1 dose of measles-containing vaccine, seven (6%) had 2 doses, one (1%) had 3 doses, 47 (43%) had unknown or undocumented vaccination status, and one (1%) had immunoglobulin G seropositivity documented, which indicates prior vaccination or measles infection at an undetermined time.
"Twelve of the unvaccinated patients were infants too young to be vaccinated. Among the 37 remaining vaccine-eligible patients, 28 (67%) were intentionally unvaccinated because of personal beliefs, and one was on an alternative plan for vaccination.
"Among the 28 intentionally unvaccinated patients, 18 were children (aged http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/previe...
"Ruthlessly pursuing the idea that the accordion is just another instrument."
Or is there a problem pointing to where it is wrong and illustrating that?
Yes, there is a very big problem with that. People pay attention to slick films peddling easy and absolute answers. They don't pay near as much attention to cautionary statements about a lack of correlation in articles published in boring scientific journals.
Lies have a big advantage over the truth. They can be simple, clean, and confident, and concise enough to fit on a bumper sticker or a tweet. The truth is always messy, complicated, and couched in doubt. After all, we can't prove that vaccines don't cause autism, the best we can do is say that there is no evidence for that.
I expect no less from someone who ascribes to that lunatic branch of our faith that thinks that the goat is wooly. The goat provides goat hair not wool. Die, heretic!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
It's all part of a government conspiracy. Follow the money it's all there. Big Pharma doesn't make anything off preventing a disease in the first place let alone curing it. It's all a cabal of 435 powerful individuals in Washington. They funded it, they're pushing it! And their shadow agenda? A healthier populace that can work and pay more in taxes!
Proper science doesn't censor incorrect results, it lets them speak for themselves.
Proper science is conducted in scientific journals, not through bad propaganda films.
As I once told our old friend APK, "I've seen scarier shit than you as the toy surprise in my breakfast cereal". So, no, not in the least bit intimidated. Just slightly taken aback that a simple question would elicit such a nasty response which I utterly fail to see any rationale for.
Anyhow, enough with the meta-bullshit, back to the question: FWIW, yes, I know that intentions and history do matter. Yes, it would have been better that a public figure had not lent any recognition to idiocy to begin with. But I can't go back and change the past, and neither can you, and neither can Robert DeNiro.
I was merely curious as to what others might think, and I honestly didn't know about DeNiro's involvement in the anti-vaccine nuttiness before seeing this story a few minutes ago. (I left the States at the turn of the century, and haven't paid that much attention to American media since then.)
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
While I'm not a virologist, I did do my PhD in an immunology lab and am fairly well grounded in how the immune system works. So it's not really "opinion", it's current scientific understanding (well, reasonably current, I've been working in another field the last four years). And it's not like the facts are not readily available. You can read about all this stuff with minimal effort. The basics are high school science (second year for me...); the more advanced stuff is in any immunology text, you can get a second hand copy of one for almost nothing, or you can look it all up online.
Regarding the outbreak, I'll defer to the other comment here regarding the numbers. However, I'll just add this: being vaccinated *does not mean you won't get infected*. It *does* mean that the body is prepared to mount a rapid secondary immune response when infection does occur. Unlike a primary immune response, which occurs on the first infection (or when mimicked with a vaccine) and takes days or weeks to elicit a response, the secondary response is much quicker since you already have the necessary memory cells waiting to be called into action, and it's also much more effective for various reasons (e.g. affinity maturation and isotype switching). You'll get over the infection quickly, and you'll likely not be as infectious to others, but you'll still have an infection for a brief period and you're still at risk of complications, though significantly reduced from an unvaccinated individual. Example: I had measles twice as a child, despite being vaccinated; the difference was it was a few days with spots feeling slightly miserable, rather than spending a fortnight seriously ill getting long term organ damage. Seriously, look up and read about herd immunity. Loss of that is a risk to the entire population, but most especially to the children of uninformed idiots who opted out of getting vaccinated. Vaccination prevents the spread of serious diseases through the population, and the stuff we vaccinate against *is* serious; don't forget that before vaccination programmes, these were routinely killing and maiming hundreds of thousands every year and child mortality was common, rather than an exception. I.e. worrying about a one in a million chance of autism when there's a one in a thousand chance of death or an even higher chance of brain or other organ damage is totally illogical.
Immunology is a fascinating field; there's a huge amount being discovered all the time, but this stuff has been well understood for many decades. There's not any doubt about any of the above, it's been studied extensively by many hundreds of thousands of researchers and medics around the world. We continue to discover new cell subsets which add extra details to the picture, and which expand our understanding of specific diseases and autoimmune conditions, but the basics were nailed down comprehensively a long while back. It's not like vaccines are new or that the way they work isn't understood. We understand how the whole lots works at the molecular level, from all the components of a virus, to how it controls the cellular machinery, to antigen presentation and detection and the selection and expansion of the immune cells to counter it, including how T and B cells vary at the genetic level, even by single base pairs, to do the affinity maturation and isotype switching I mentioned above.
What I do find incredible is that people are totally uninformed about what vaccines are, how they work, and why they are important. Not only because it's taught to everyone (it certainly is in the UK), so you don't have an excuse not to know, but also because it's trivial to *get* informed. As the comment I originally replied to showed, there's a lot of misinformed opinions flying around, partly due to irrational fear, partly due to media attention despite there being zero evidence for any problems, and partly due to irrational nutjobs. Whatever the reasons, it's takes very little effort to educate yourself about the *reality* of how this stuff works should you choose to do so, and given that the "debate" over this stuff is without any merit whatsoever, it's clear that education to get people informed is definitely needed.
I don't see the problem with showing the film in the first place. It would only bring attention to it so pointing to the fraud could be easily countered and illustrated when people start to fall for it.
Or is there a problem pointing to where it is wrong and illustrating that?
Yeah, I'm a little leery of censorship. I know how gullible people can sometimes be, yet ideas should be able to live or die on their own. I'm not sure how I feel about this. It seems a bit paternalistic, an implicit assumption that people won't be able to think for themselves. It certainly bothers me when people with unpopular ideas are prevented from speaking on college campuses. I'm not sure this is any different.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
I realize what you're saying and that you support vaccination, but the phrasing here made me cringe. Its the kind of thing anti-vaxxers jump on, along the lines of "Even supporters agree that they're nowhere near 100% effective."
Most vaccines are in the nineties when it comes to percent effectiveness, and some of them do near 100% effectiveness. I'd call even 90% effective "nearly all" because, with sufficient portions of the populated being vaccinated, an infection is not likely to get very far.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
The problem with this comparison is that the merits of Guantanamo Bay can be debated. There is no merit or truth to the anti-vaxxer position.
So, you're a secret Fascist?
The truth fears no investigation.
Unfortunately we've seen over and over again, as Johnnie Cochran pointed out, it doesn't matter who has the best facts on his side, what matters most is who has a compelling and interesting story.
Yeah, I'm a little leery of censorship.
This is NOT censorship. The vaxers have a right to speak. They do NOT have a right to be given a forum at a private event. You are not being censored if I refuse to promote your cause.
Most vaccines are in the nineties when it comes to percent effectiveness, and some of them do near 100% effectiveness. I'd call even 90% effective "nearly all" because, with sufficient portions of the populated being vaccinated, an infection is not likely to get very far./
Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and call them 95% effective.
Now apply them to the population of the US - cal it 300 million. (Just the states were 308 as of the last census.) That's 5 million susceptible people due to vaccine failure.
Consider only the age 5-20 school-age cohort: Cut it to 20% of that (20.6% by the same census). You're still talking over a million susceptible individuals.
For epidemiology the NON-susceptible are background noise: A disease only spreads among those who can catch it, so only that population counts. Others might as well be furniture.
Even spread out among the whole country (but then re-concentrated in classrooms, school events, and schoolkid hangouts), that many human culture media are making the "herd immunity" thing a little iffy. Throw in another couple million unimmunized due to this health fraud, though, and it's a whole different ballgame.
I'm not going to shut up for fear that an anti-vaxxer might use excerpts from my (pseudonymous) rantings in their propaganda. The antidote for a lie is truth, and the main way these frauds succeed is by spreading faster than the truth can catch up with them - so shutting up makes it worse. If parts of the truth are inconvenient, that's tough.
Meanwhile, if they're fool enough to quote me, that just means more people will be led by search engines to my actual statements.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
http://howdovaccinescauseautis...
Silence is a state of mime.
You're confusing "censorship" with "first amendment violation." This is not the latter, but it most certainly is the former. A private party is not required to allow the airing of an idea--I think we can all agree that there is no problem with that. But the case we're talking about is specifically banning a movie based on the fact that many people find the point it makes to be objectionable. This is the very definition of censorship.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
I mean is it really so hard top understand that it's government who is supposed to be forbidden from censorship. It's not a difficult concept, but people fail to comprehend it all the time.
The thing people fail to comprehend all the time is the idea that only the government is prevented from allowing you to exercise your right of free speech. In this instance, the event is censoring this film, because of public backlash against the idea. They're perfectly free to censor the film, of course, and I fully support their right to do so, but just because it's a private venue doesn't magically make it "not censorship."
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
Or is there a problem pointing to where it is wrong and illustrating that?
Yes, there is a very big problem with that. People pay attention to slick films peddling easy and absolute answers. They don't pay near as much attention to cautionary statements about a lack of correlation in articles published in boring scientific journals.
Oh. So you mean like "An Inconvenient Truth"? You mean like that? Of course you do. Sure.
Lies have a big advantage over the truth. They can be simple, clean, and confident, and concise enough to fit on a bumper sticker or a tweet. The truth is always messy, complicated, and couched in doubt.
Oh. So you mean like Climategate? You mean like that? Like East Anglia and all that they did? Like that? Of course you do. Sure.