Vaxxed-Have you seen it?

[YadaYadaYada]

I saw a screening of Vaxxed tonight which if you are not familiar, explores a CDC whistleblower's accusation of fraud in a study for the MMR vaccine. This film was pulled from the TriBeCa film festival and is showing in limited release and I believe you can now stream it to watch at home.

Here is the thing, the media coverage and reviews I have read so far label this as anti-vaccine propaganda, really this couldn't be farther from the truth. They actually told us when we sat down after a quick introduction it is not anti-vax. Basically it talks about the study and fraud surrounding it and then asks for the MMR to be given in three separate shots and for the law to be repealed that gives vaccine manufacturers immunity from injuries from a vaccine product. Seems fair, with any other pharmaceutical drug there is not a law that companies can dodge responsibility for their product, so vaccines should not be any different.

Interested to know if anyone else has seen it or plans to and what your thoughts are on the film?

 

[vintagelover229]

I plan on buying the dvd when it's out to watch, love adding weird stuff to our collection.
This will not be a popular thread, jut an FYI. You know those anti vax people are the reason we still have the mumps and their kids should be taken away bc they are hurting them and the rest of the population by not getting their shots don't you?

Glad to see a review, I was curious to what it would be covering. If you'd like to see how PS feels about those who don't vax there was a thread quite some time back. A search will bring it up.

Oh I'm fully vaccinated-figured I should state that since well, don't feel like getting a pile on.

 

[telephone89]

I'd heard of it, but didn't really know what it was about. After a few quick searches:

The film was directed by discredited anti-vaccine activist Andrew Wakefield, who committed scientific fraud under an undisclosed financial conflict of interest, for which his license to practice medicine in the United Kingdom was revoked.

Lol that just sets it right up for me.

In reaction to Cinema Libre's decision to distribute the film, Todd Drezner, the father of an autistic son and creator of a neurodiversity-themed movie that was distributed by Cinema Libre, wrote an open letter to Cinema Libre criticizing Vaxxed and Cinema Libre's decision to distribute it, writing: "By releasing Vaxxed, Cinema Libre is actively harming thousands of autistic people. While we should be discussing ways to best support autistic people and help them lead fulfilling lives, you would instead have us follow a discredited scientist and dishonest filmmaker down a rabbit hole that leads only to long-debunked conspiracy theories. I am profoundly disappointed."

I'm surprised you say it's not anti-vax, since it was written, directed and produced by THE biggest anti-vaxxer in the world!

I'm not saying I won't watch it (if it were on Netflix I probably would), but I take these with a giant grain of salt. Unfortunately most people who watch these sort of things (and believe that they aren't watching something anti vax?????) don't do any follow up research. "OMG a celebrity said it, lets all stop doing this!" Kind of thing. Not saying you are, but a lot of the people are.

 

[azstonie]

Vaccines.

I'm concerned about the co-constituents in vaccines. Thimerasol, for example, and then the UNSPECIFIED garbage in the injectate that Big Pharma won't disclose because "its proprietary."

There is a growing concern in the gastrointestinal community about vaccines and colitis/Crohn's/IBD.

I had an IRON stomach until I was given the flu vaccine on a yearly basis while I worked for Mayo Clinic. I was given the TdaP on a Friday and by Sunday I had unbelievable abdominal pain, fever and headache. My stomach has never been the same since. All you need, if you don't have contact with babies, is tetanus all by itself.

 

[Puppmom]

I vaccinate my children because I believe they work. I am open to research that indicates otherwise. The problem is it seems that there is not currently a source that the public can trust on this topic. That, in my opinion, is pathetic.

I don't know much about this film but the fact that they told you at the screening that it is not anti-vaxx propaganda is interesting and probably part of the propaganda itself. I would have been put off by that. It seems a little "brain washy" to me.

But, people are entitled to their opinion and I would not bash someone as unintelligent just because they think something different than me. And there's nothing wrong with a little skepticism.

 

[YadaYadaYada]

Yeah, I know that this is a hot topic and will either generate a lot of response or hardly any at all.

As far as the film goes the only way to know for sure if what they are alleging is true is to subpoena Thompson (the whistleblower) and run a full investigation into the CDC. I doubt very highly that will happen though. There was a congressman who pleaded with congress to look into this and it's been seven months so they are obviously in no hurry.

For myself, I was vaccinated as a kid in the 80's but haven't gotten any for almost twenty years and will not be getting any more. That's just my own personal decision for myself. I don't discuss my children's health history on any social forums so we will leave it at that.

I mostly agree that the film is not anti vax although they do really focus on the autism issue, it would have been more beneficial if they had looked at all possible negative outcomes across the board and not just autism and MMR and thrown in some environmental and genetic possibilities for good measure. Of course the main stream media will slam this as another anti vax film, how many people will that keep from even considering seeing it.....they are not stupid. Just think about how many commercials you see when watching tv for pharmaceutical drugs. Their dollars are in the pockets of every major news station, nobody is going up against them.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

When there is such effort to keep me from seeing it, you'd better believe I WILL see it! If anyone wants to trust Big Pharma/CDC on their healthcare decisions, more power to them. Not me, though! I would take no medication or vaccine without researching it thoroughly and weighing the risks.

I am pro-vaccine, but I have the intelligence to know that my babies would not have needed Hep B vaccine before leaving the hospital, for example. They need to be spread out more since there are about three times the vaccines given now then when my kids were little. Doctors are given bonuses by some insurance companies to give babies a certain amount of vaccines by a certain time, so MONEY is at the root of this thing from every direction!!!!

Here's the rental and the DVDs will be out in Sept.

http://vaxxedthemovie.com/stream/

 

[redwood66]

I have a coworker whose son now has a mild form of autism and he firmly believes that it stemmed from vaccines he received. Right after vaccination he had a reaction and was in the hospital with above 105 temperature. Before that the boy was developmentally on target for his age. His son is now 12 and has needed homeschooling for years as teachers cannot handle him.

 

[momhappy]

I'd heard of it, but didn't really know what it was about. After a few quick searches:

The film was directed by discredited anti-vaccine activist Andrew Wakefield, who committed scientific fraud under an undisclosed financial conflict of interest, for which his license to practice medicine in the United Kingdom was revoked.

Lol that just sets it right up for me.

In reaction to Cinema Libre's decision to distribute the film, Todd Drezner, the father of an autistic son and creator of a neurodiversity-themed movie that was distributed by Cinema Libre, wrote an open letter to Cinema Libre criticizing Vaxxed and Cinema Libre's decision to distribute it, writing: "By releasing Vaxxed, Cinema Libre is actively harming thousands of autistic people. While we should be discussing ways to best support autistic people and help them lead fulfilling lives, you would instead have us follow a discredited scientist and dishonest filmmaker down a rabbit hole that leads only to long-debunked conspiracy theories. I am profoundly disappointed."

I'm surprised you say it's not anti-vax, since it was written, directed and produced by THE biggest anti-vaxxer in the world!

I'm not saying I won't watch it (if it were on Netflix I probably would), but I take these with a giant grain of salt. Unfortunately most people who watch these sort of things (and believe that they aren't watching something anti vax?????) don't do any follow up research. "OMG a celebrity said it, lets all stop doing this!" Kind of thing. Not saying you are, but a lot of the people are.

I agree with your post.
I won't be watching it. It may not claim to be anti-vax, but it certainly seems to be.

 

[BeekeeperBetty]

This is something that is near and dear to my heart for many reasons. For one thing, I live in natural medicine ground zero. Secondly, my husband is in the medical field, so this conspiracy is essentially saying people like him are knowingly hurting children for money. Not cool. And lastly, I have a kid with autism as one of his diagnosis, and I have come across some pretty aggressive and cruel anti-vax people over the years. Including people who have told me that they'd rather have a dead kid from measles than my kid. He's a great kid, too.

The movie is absolutely anti-vax. And in addition, Wakefield edited the clips in such a way as to make it look like it is saying what he wants it to say.

Here's some more info about how the film was made and how it is essentially one big lie.

https://violentmetaphors.com/2016/03/31/vaxxed-from-coverup-to-catastrophe-to-cancellation-to-insignificance/
https://violentmetaphors.com/2016/06/13/vaxxed-reviewed-what-happened-inside-the-movie/
https://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2016/03/22/andrew-wakefield-releases-the-trailer-for-his-william-thompson-video-slick-production-and-dishonesty/
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/andrew-wakefields-vaxxed-antivaccine-propaganda-at-its-most-pernicious/

And I could go on and on. Essentially, this movie is based on what has come to be known as the CDC Whistleblower scandal. A CDC researcher had a serious mental breakdown, and started to have bizarre paranoid thoughts. He ended up in a mental hospital, and got some help, but in the interim he trusted a man he shouldn't have trusted, Brian Hooker, who is rabidly anti-vax. Unbeknownst to Dr Thompson. Hooker recorded all their phone conversations. Wakefield took these calls, re-edited them, and put them in the film. Brian Hooker also did some really bizarre "statistics" that he claims shows that African American boys are becoming autistic after the MMR (they're not).

A bit about Wakefield. Obviously he had a retracted study claiming that the MMR caused autism. He was on the payroll of some lawyers who wanted to sue and needed a study to back them up. In the meantime, Wakefield also wanted to patent his own MMR vaccination, so he falsified a study. He lost his medical license in the UK and his study was retracted. He moved to the US where he started a clinic called Thoughtful House in Texas. There he coined the phrase "Autism entercolitis" (which does not exist) and spent his time medically torturing young kids and fleecing their parents out of money. I have personally known people who took their kids to Thoughtful House, and the stuff these kids were subjected to is nothing less than medical torture. These kids were on starvation diets, chelated for heavy metals until their livers were failing, they had scopes, under general anesthesia twice a year, weekly IV's, heavy prescription doses of anti-fungal medications and so on. It's flat out wrong. He was finally fired from Thoughtful House.

So that's the background. It is nothing but anti-vaccination propaganda.

On another note, Wakefield was a featured speaker on the ConspiraSea Cruise. The whole series is really interesting, if you find this kind of thing fascinating, which I do.
https://violentmetaphors.com/2016/01/26/a-skeptic-on-the-conspira-sea-cruise-day-1/

 

[YadaYadaYada]

Beekeeper, you bring up some interesting points but if they did record Thompson without his knowledge (which they do admit in the film) and they edited the recordings together to get the result they wanted, why isn't Thompson suing Hooker and the creators of the film? That seems logical to me as he has a vested interest in protecting his reputation as a researcher.

I'm certainly not challenging any of what you said there but if someone did that to me you best believe I'm going to do something about it.

 

[BeekeeperBetty]

I'll have to dig it up, but Thompson's lawyers sent out a letter, and have advised him to stay out of the public eye. He is trying to piece his life and his health back together, so I think he has more serious things to worry about right now, and I don't know what his plans are as far as legal action. The full transcripts of the calls have been released, so one could read them and then see the movie and see where it was pieced together. The Right Brain Left Brain guy describes it in his blog.

There's also a lot of weirdness about Del Bigtree, who was a major player in the Vaxxed movie. For instance, telling people to use guns to rise up against the government because of vaccines.

https://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2016/07/19/del-bigtree-crosses-the-line-tells-vaxxed-audience-nows-the-time-for-guns/

I haven't seen the documentary myself, but it doesn't surprise me at all that it comes across as very credible, and to many not anti-vaccine. But I think once you dig further into the people who made it and the evidence, it falls apart.

 

[ksinger]

On another note, Wakefield was a featured speaker on the ConspiraSea Cruise. The whole series is really interesting, if you find this kind of thing fascinating, which I do.
https://violentmetaphors.com/2016/01/26/a-skeptic-on-the-conspira-sea-cruise-day-1/

Yes, I do too. Good blog. I shall keep an eye on it. Thanks for the heads up.

You probably already know about these but if not, you'll probably like them too.

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/