Tribeca Film Festival wrap-up: Andrew Wakefield’s “brilliance” and spies and Nazis, oh my!

Well, now if Anne Dachel ends up shot with a crossbow, we’ll know who’d have ordered the hit.

The novel is The Autism War and it has an eponymous website. It was reviewed at both AoA and TMR. The story involves a cop, whose son has autism, who manages to untangle the knotted web of deceit covering up the Truth.

Some psychologists believe that written and graphic representations may disclose underlying beliefs and motivations of the people they study. Both Conte and Stagliano have written novels wherein their alter ego characters unlock hidden mysteries about the crimes surrounding vaccination- in other words what they think that they’re doing every day in their reportage.

thereby perpetuating the circle of violence upon which these non-profit front groups depend for their funding and stature.

Like BigPharma is giving cancer to people so it can sell them cures and climatologists are using antimatter bombs so they can get more funding into AGW research. Got it.

Like there is any chance we will be lacking in acts of mass violence any time soon.

It’s infuriating, this need to see evil everywhere. Everything Mike touches, he rots it. Well, it’s his business model. He must sow fear and presents himself as the the only savior on this doomed Earth.

Speaking of perpetuating a circle of violence to pad one’s bank account; projecting much, Mikey?

This morning on CBS, a case of measles has been reported at the Yuba Charter School in Nevada City CA. Looking up the vaccination rate of that particular school, it turns out to be 70% unvaccinated. The chickens have come home.
Turns out the number one unvaccinated school at 90% ( Grace Family Christian School) is only a couple blocks from where I live.
We’re #1. We’re # 1.

Denice says “Maybe I should start naming articles in French since I have a vaguely French first name.”
And here I thought you were the sister of Denephew.

MI Dawn, I don’t worry about the Hitler Zombie for myself. He would never eat the brain of an untermensch such as myself, especially an autistic one.

Seems to me, you’ve just the type of brain he’d enjoy.

Now I am a-scared. Does he like nuts?

I was not part of the action sparked by the IAC list-serve. I cannot speak for Tara Haelle but she was all over it; the article linked below evidently moved the dial some.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2016/03/25/robert-deniro-just-broke-my-heart/#214b2e4a3539

if nothing ELSE this person has INSPIRED me to randomly CAPITALIZE everything from NOW ON and commit ACTS of ELLIPSIS abuse . . . just sent a SKYPE to Mr. Delphine .. “have you PAID the PROPERTY tax bill or was I supposed TO DO that, also LET me know HOW many eggs we have LEFT in the fridge PLEASE and thank you!!!!!!!”

Oddly, he titles the article is Italian I suppose because both he and Mr De Niro have Italianate surnames. I suppose that that makes sense to him. Maybe I should start naming articles in French since I have a vaguely French first name.

That makes about as much sense to me as if I were to put article titles in Danish, Swedish, or Norwegian because I have a name consistent with origins in that part of the world[1] and I have colleagues/collaborators in all three countries. In reality I don’t know enough of any of the Scandinavian languages to pull it off, and besides, most of my audience is from countries that don’t speak any Scandinavian language.

[1]I am indeed of Danish/Swedish ancestry; however, all of my grandparents were born in the US.

“I’m not part of the IAC and have, as far as I can remember, never been invited to be part of the listserv described in the article.”

It has been a good source of data since I can remember:
http://www.immunize.org/

It makes sense that they would have a listserv of members, probably public health employees, researchers and medical folks.

Not part of that listserv either and didn’t know about it until the Guardian article Brian linked to. I commented on my own time and dime but damn I wish my check would come through to do what I am so oft’ accused of doing.

Near the end of his interview, he complains mightily about how much criticism there has been of his film by people who have not seen it but have seen only the trailer.

Now, I wonder why that would be? Could it perhaps be because Wakefield et al have actively sought to prevent neutral parties from viewing the film? At ConspiraSea, the movie was screened, but reportedly journalists were *explicitly* barred from seeing it.

And now they claim that people aren’t reviewing it based on anything more than the trailers? Well gee golly, maybe they should let journalists actually see it, then. Unless, of course, they’re concerned about getting very negative reviews. That is, after all, precisely the strategy Hollywood employs when they know they’ve got a massive bomb on their hands but they’ve invested a lot so they need to get as good an opening weekend as possible before word of mouth gets out and people stop coming. Like that abomination called “The Avengers”. (No, not the recent Marvel movie. The one in the 90s based on the old TV series. Dear god, could Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman *be* any more wooden?)

Always be wary of a movie that won’t let reviewers see it. Always. Be even *more* wary when they object to people criticizing it based on the trailers. Dude, if the trailer’s all you let people see, and even that sucks, it’s *your* fault if they don’t like it.

The newspaper I read has once a week a kind of reading advise for someone who is in the news and it has mostly something to do with things they have said or done. My reading advise for those people, complaining about n*zi’s and suppression would be: ‘Every man dies alone’, by Hans Fallada
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Every_Man_Dies_Alone

seriously cancelling VAXXED makes me want to learn more, they are obviously trying to HIDE something… I am now ANTI VAXX because of THIS cancellation.. way to make it backfire, if you have NOTHING to hide it would not be an issue!!!!

I am doing STUPID things NOW and being an EEDJIT and it’s all De Niro’s FAULT and I bet he’s SORRY.

Heh; I’d love to see his response to that, Orac, although I rather suspect it will of the “LALALALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” variety.

Seriously, though, there is nothing whatsoever stopping them putting this video out on YouTube. If, that is, they’re *really* interested in sharing it, rather than just sharing rumors about it. I saw several anti-vax commenters (who were otherwise repeating party line) crowing about how we’d be sorry once the video went up on YouTube. Which, of course, begs the question of why, if “censorship” is really Wakefield’s problem, they haven’t just posted it already.

Anyone think this outcome is actually what these (insert appropriate adjective) people may have wanted? They have received national and international sound bites.

I could certainly see how it could be seen as a blanket action against anti-vaxx activity but upon closer reading several quotes stood out to indicate that it was about challenging conspiracies involving vaccines causing autism. It would have been nice to see the factual inaccuracies present in the trailer and the entire premise of the film discussed more but we don’t know what the IAC conversation actually was.

Orac: “I saw it more as saying that there was a network of scientists and activists who are on the lookout for blatant misinformation and conspiracy theories about vaccines making it into the mainstream and work to counter antivaccine misinformation when they see it.”

The listserv could be nothing more than folks that are listed under their super secret “About us” pages. Let’s see there is a list of their Advisory Board, the Board of Directors, Staff, Funding and Corporate Membership Program.

Uh oh… the last one. Oh no! Could it be Big Pharma!

Supposedly le Grand Fakir, Andy, will appear later tonight on the Progressive Commentary Hour at prn.fm:
the woo-centric host vows to get the film shown so that *more people will see it than would at Tribeca* ( paraphrase)- which should be easy. The latter fraudster has a history of premiering his so-called documentaries to raise funds for a non-profit radio station and himself- usually, admission is about three times the going rate for normal movies in that area.

I’ll listen in as an hour or two of pure tripe has yet to harm my psyche ( although I have to be careful so that I don’t grind my teeth too much).

Below is another probable nail in vax/autism coffin. Of course they’ll say that vaccines induce the genetic changes.

Genetic Changes That Cause Autism: Spontaneous mutations to ‘jumping genes’
Posted by Press Release on March 28, 2016 // Leave Your Comment

The types of gene mutations that contribute to autism are more diverse than previously thought, report researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine in the March 24 online issue of The American Journal of Human Genetics. The findings, they say, represent a significant advance in efforts to unravel the genetic basis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

To conduct their study, researchers enrolled hundreds of volunteers from families with one child affected by ASD and sequenced the complete genomes of every family member, including the parents and typically developing siblings. The researchers then looked for de novo mutations, gene alterations that appear spontaneously in one’s offspring and are due to a mutation in a father’s sperm or a mother’s egg. Based on the authors’ previous discoveries, it is known that de novo mutations contribute to risk, particularly in sporadic cases where there is no family history of autism.

The most common type of de novo mutations are spelling mistakes that change a single letter of the DNA code. However, in their new study, the researchers discovered many other mutations that introduce changes that are more complex. Called structural variants, these alterations involve the insertion or deletion of entire words or sentences of the DNA code.

The research team found a surprising variety of spontaneous mutations, from simple deletions or insertions to “jumping genes” – elements of DNA that copy and paste themselves into other parts of the genome. They also found that structural mutations sometimes occur in tight clusters where a combination of different mutations occur all at once.

“These mutations can insert, delete or in some cases scramble the DNA sequence,” said senior author Jonathan Sebat, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and cellular and molecular medicine and director of the Beyster Center for Genomics of Psychiatric Disease at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

Sebat and colleagues discovered that spontaneous structural mutations occurred at a surprisingly high rate in individuals – 20 percent – and mutations in autism tended to disrupt genes. “Children with autism do not have more mutations overall,” said Sebat, “but their mutations are more likely to disrupt genes involved in brain development.”

The study, Sebat noted, highlights several genes that could play a key role in brain development. For example, the scientists identified a deletion in one gene called “stargazin” that is required for regulating the transmission of signals between neurons in the brain.

“Mutations in stargazin are very rare,” said first author, William Brandler, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in Sebat’s lab, “but they point us to a biochemical pathway that may be important for social development. In the future, discoveries like this could lead to more effective personalized treatments for autism.”

Cat@30

Anyway isn’t it tbe antivax brigade who are in favour of eugenics?

Indeed. Diseases being necessary to cull the weak is a truly awful but rarely stated part of the AV worldview. Nevermind that this implies vaccine efficacy (time and again I’m reminded that internal consistency is not their strong suit).

The flip side of this belief is that their superior genetics protects them and their children. This is related to the belief their children must be perfect and when they are not it must be that some outside factor “damaged” them and “stole” their perfect child.

Every time I stop to think about AV beliefs I’m reminded how vile and fractally wrong they are.

Is it not quite telling that the alleged whistleblower has not come forward to back up the claims being made.

^^^The qoute from Brian Deer ends at “acknowledged as inappropriate.” The rest is mine, excpept for the remaining marked quotes, of course.

Brian Deer,

While not being involved in the IAC listserv (not being an expert in that area and all), if this is like other e-mail lists of experts that I do belong to, it has been set up as a way of quickly sharing information about media opportunities and stories among a group of experts.

The traffic may be as simple as someone has been approached for an interview on a topic they don’t feel confident in handling and pass the invitation around to see who might be willing to do it, to discussions of how the media is dealing with the science in the topic area, what resources might be needed to help people understand the science, to occasional activism.

In my experience, the vast majority of contributors are researchers and don’t have much time to devote to dealing with the media or the public and this is a way of being able to contribute in a more strategic manner without having to do all the legwork themselves. The groups tend to be closed to outsiders (that is you have to be invited to join) to reduce the amount of e-mails being received and to reduce the noise in the messages.

I have been involved in groups that have coalesced from a few scientists deploring the way the media deals with science stories and deciding to do something about it, but also groups strategically set up by scientific societies.

Re: Orac @ #49

It’s more disingenuous than you might guess. Few docos recoup production costs via distribution. The economic model, to the extent there is one, is that the film is a kind of ‘loss leader’ that generates revenue for the maker in other areas. E.g. at my low level, if you’ve made a film that’s been screened at festivals, it’s easier to get a teaching job. Wakefield would make more $$ from the “side-effects” of ‘Vaxxed’ if it’s widely seen than he would if it’s narrowly seen in theatrical distribution.

The benefit of theatrical screenings would not be so much direct income, but increased publicity, creating a potentially larger audience for when it’s later offered for free on the web. The company distributing Vaxxed wprks primarily through loss cost (~$3 – $4) Vimeo pay-per-view/download.

I conclude Wakefield and Bigtree absolutely do NOT want the widest possible audience to see the film, but want to spread it through the anti-vax subculture while hiding it as much as possible from critical eyes. As such, I have suspected from the beginning that they never intended to screen the film in front of a open audience at Tribeca. If they weren’t going to have a friendly audience (hah! they can’t be THAT dumb, can they?), they would have come up with their own excuse to pull out claiming ‘repression!’ or whatever. Something like “due to the Big Pharma shills stirring up their goons, we feared for Dr. Wakefield’s safety, but would have braved it anyway had we not received a credible threat, conformed by an anonymous tipster’ yada yada yada.

Along similar lines, my guess is that RDN promised to show Andy’s then work-in-progress sight unseen, Andy promised to send him a screener, but never did, making a series of excuses for not doing so. That’s how con games work: the promised object never appears, but always remains a chimera. It’s actually not totally outside film festival practice. I’ve had work accepted on the basis of a rough cut, and worked on the ‘final’ cut up until the night before the screening… Thus, Andy’s film buddies could have helped him come up with at least semi-plausible excuses for never showing TFF the ‘finished product’.

MI Dawn: Thank you for the kind words. However, I am a Jew, an autist, a political liberal, and something else, that would make me an untermensch, a life unworthy of life, an enemy of society, and a dangerous deviant. I agree with you that I am intelligent but I would never say so. It would of course run counter to my prize-winning humility.
Everyone, more or less: A trailer is composed to show some big moments of the film – a good gag, a splashy action scene, a dramatic exchange. If the trailer gives a negative impression, it’s a strong indication that either the film is crap or ineptly promoted. In other words, the poor reception of the trailer is their own damn fault.
Troublemaker: Even if they gave everyone a sack full of cash to watch their movie, anyone who watched would still pay for it.
Everyone, again: If I wanted to depopulate the world, I would take the less expensive course of giving a Kalashnikov and a thousand rounds to everyone in the target region capable of lifting one, after taking away their planes and boats so they couldn’t reach me.
Lastly, just for the lulz (always wanted to say that), here’s a take on conspiracies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6MOnehCOUw

Oh well, that’s two hours I’ll never get back.
I’d better get paid.

I listened to tonight’s
Progressive Commentary Hour/ prn.fm show with Andy, Del Bigtree, Polly Tommey and Celia Farber’ It will archived there. Not much new.

First hour:
Andy claimed that recent events were an ” attack on first amendment rights and freedom of speech” His film contains “hard evidence” etc.

Del, who calls himself a “medical journalist”, details his interest in stories about GMOs and glyphosate. He said that De NIro’s problem was not just with the TFF’s sponsors but went “higher up” .. to “corporations and government”

Both men, when asked to discuss the film, said that it needed to be seen – it’s very visual…

Polly discussed her parental experiences with autism

Celia talked about the media wherein “reporters are trained as attack dogs” and sent to “bizarre schools”; the government’s public health “tentacles’ get into the press, movies and documentaries.
She discusses her experiences with Harper’s surrounding her denialist articles about hiv.

Second hour:
the ridiculous host played excerpts from a film featuring parents of AJW’s subjects ( Edwards, Thomas etc) and highly select clips of Brian Deer speaking to some of them outside the GMC hearings- which we’ve seen before .

Next, we hear a recording of Mr Posey, the congressman, reading the statement- we’ve seen that too.

Finally, the host promises that he will rent a theatre in NY bringing in the principals ( e.g. Hooker) and showing the film and that he is talking to his lawyers. He will post a new article tomorrow about the affair on his websites

Fortunately, I didn’t have to be anywhere or have any visitors so I had some wine, tried on my new Italian shoes and spent quality time grooming the cat who really needed it. So not a total waste of time.

@ Shay #64–The true believers already believe in some vast “machine” of a conspiracy. You can’t talk them out of it. I think too many people are worried we’re somehow making them more of a believer (as if that’s’ possible) by actually organizing to take them on for realz, instead of just inside the vast empty paranoid spongiform spaces in their craniums.

Pedantry warning!

And you know what Orac thinks of pedantry.

Narad’s no pedant, he’s just Narad.

What can I say, I have an abiding love for those who would take in strays.

JP, it is okay to be irritated by those you love. I really admire Narad, but sometimes he just gets on my nerves.

@ Science Mom:

No, I don’t spend that much on shoes because I would bring them home, wear them twice and find I didn’t like them or they hurt so I’d have to donate them to charity. Strictly moderately priced.
But they have to be leather.

Apologies everyone, it’s my team of medical scientists that are responsible for the global collusion against pseudoscience. We are legion. Resistance is futile.

@ Science Mom:

Altho’ I did see a pair by Prada with 2″ heels that looked like something Marie Antoinette would have worn. I could also.

https://twitter.com/baskett_case
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

How apropos 😀

Al

Hi Alain, nice to see you.

It’s baaaaack. Hot date night!

VAXXED – Exclusive One Week Engagement
Friday, April 1st, 2016
Angelika Film Center
18 W. Houston St., New York, NY 10012
(212) 995-2570
Show times: Friday (4/1) thru Thursday (4/7): 11:00a, 1:15p, 3:30p, 5:45p, 8:00p, 10:30p
A special group ticket price is available for $8/ticket for groups of 25 or more, however tickets must be purchased in person at the box office.

There will be Q&As following the 8:00pm shows on Friday (4/1) and Saturday (4/2)

“Bigtree did say that the CDC conducted the 2004 MMR study because of what Wakefield had done, ‘and it appears they found the exact same thing that Andy Wakefield did. And when they saw it, what they decided to do was hide it and cover it up.’”

For the less knowldgeable, this quote suggests that Mr Bigfoot has not the slightest clue what he’s talking about. Not the slightest.

If Wakefield does to him what he’s done to previous collaborators, Mr Bigfoot will rue the day he ever got involved.

the amount of doctors I’ve spoken to

“Amount”? He was measuring them by the kilogram?

Both being Andy and…?

@ hdb

“Amount”? He was measuring them by the kilogram?

More likely by the pound; the principals are British or American, after all.
Plus, this unit neatly doubles the considered amount.

Now, there is this charming English saying about being weighted and found wanting…

Rebecca @ 90, good catch.

OK folks, these screenings definitely deserve some insolence, up close & personal.

Yes, I’m suggesting it’s worth spending the money to get one person into the Friday and Saturday 8PM showings, who can ask a carefully-worded question that will hopefully have a beneficial effect on the audience. It will need to be a different person each time. This part should be easy.

Also it’s worthwhile to have a small number of demonstrators out in front with signs & leaflets, at every single showing. Two people on each side of the theater should be sufficient, though a third is recommended on each side in case someone has to take a bathroom break.

One way to arrange logistics for bathroom breaks is to recruit a friendly nearby restaurant owner, by way of “We’ll all be coming in for dinner in between the evening showings, and we’d like bathroom privileges during the day.” Then every evening, you get to eat out while you discuss the day’s activities. This is also a potential educational opportunity with the restaurant owner as to why you’re holding a demonstration.

To stay friendly with local police, you’ll want to a) not block the sidewalk or traffic, b) keep the signs to a reasonable size that can be held without need of a stick, and c) not set up tables. The arrangement of three people on each side of the theater enables having two holding signs and one holding the leaflets, and improvising slightly when someone takes a break.

Suggestion: don’t ask people to boycott the theater, that’ll only cause hostility with the owner and regular patrons, which is a distraction from the main point of the action. There are ways to phrase the signs & leaflets that won’t “go there” but will still get the message across.

The street demonstration is also a great educational opportunity for reaching the general public who aren’t looking to see the film.

Oh we must be scared, must we? And there I was thinking that we’re just irate that a “documentary” riddled with demonstrable falsities was going to be aired. Marsha, you’ve opened my eyes.

Hellanthus @ 91: I think he was measuring doctors by the gram, as in, “A gram is better than a damn.”

Re. conspiracies and networks of spies: Sure, we’re a great big conspiracy and a network of insidious spies with high-tech spy gear and death-rays disguised as ball-point pens.

According to “some people,” we took out Andrew Breitbart in 2012 and made it look like his bad diet & drug habits. According to “some people,” when Andrew Wakefield goes to the big measles outbreak in the sky, it will have been our doing. And according to “some people,” crop circles are our doing as well.

We’re the same conspiracy that reminds people to wash their hands after they poop and before they prepare food or eat, reminds people to empty anything in their yard with standing water in it and keep the lids on their garbage cans, and writes bad reviews of restaurants that are infested with cockroaches, rats, flies, etc.

We are everywhere. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget.

@Eddie Unwind:

Orac has divined that you cannot be moderate in your take on vaccines

Please google “argument to moderation”. You have just committed that fallacy.

[Wakefield] is almost certainly sincere in his advocacy for a single measles vaccine.

No he isn’t.
Wakefield only cares about Wakefield. He took money from a lawyer to build a case against the MMR Vaccine, subjected vulnerable children to invasive medical procedures to get the evidence he required (committing numerous ethical violations in the process), cooked the data when it pointed away from a vaccine autism link, attempted to set up businesses to benefit from the scare he helped engineer, including a measles vaccine he tried to create and failed to disclose his multiple conflicts of interest.
Wakefield is not sincere at all.

@Julian Frost: well, he *could* have been sincere about the single measles vaccine if his patent hadn’t lapsed (I think that’s what I read about it recently).

Wow, you guys must be really scared of what’s in the film and being exposed to go to those lengths!

Reading comprehension isn’t your strong suit. Come to think of it, that is so with the vast majority of anti-vaxxers. We would Love to see Wakefield’s little flick. Holding a demonstration to bring to light the rank fabrications it has =/= scared.

Marsha@94: Bless your heart.

Andrew Wakefield couldn’t give a toss about his single measles vaccine

Emphasis on “his”. He initially positioned himself to sell a cure of his own making for the vaccine ills he was set on discovering.

When the whole affair became wahoonie-shaped, he quickly dropped anything which could have slowed him down, including his project of an alternative measles vaccine, crossed the Atlantic, and started anew in the US.
He then jumped on the bandwagon of “Too many, too soon”. And any other antivaccine bandwagon, really.

@ Notchka:

Hot date night indeed.

I can just imagine all of the downtown trendsters lining up to get into a showing of this earth-shattering marvel of directorial *je ne sais quoi*

It is getting free advertisement from prn, Natural News, AoA and other woo-tinged internet outlets.

I don’t know how many of the principals of anti-vax live nearby enough to attend- TMR’s Professor, AoA’s Kim Stagliano, Louise Kuo Habakus and Barry Segal *et famille* of Focus Autism/ Health . Obviously alties like Null ( part time NY) and Farber will be around.

It should be quite hilarious.

Has, if you really follow the money, you’ll find charlatans like Andy and the others we discuss.

@Notchka: I tried to see what regular advanced sales ticket prices would be for Vaxxed, but no luck. And I refuse to pay to go into Manhattan, and get down to Houston St, and find they are $15+ at the door. It’s way too costly for me.

Notchka @ 112:

The way I’d suggest to do this is, write down your question a few days ahead, and practice reading it until you have it memorized. Then practice saying it in a conversational voice. Do it over and over until you can give a performance worthy of live theater.

The best questions are ones that cause Wakefield to have to put his foot in it bigtime, and make a fool of himself in his own words, rather than rants that come off as attacks that will cause others to sympathize with him as the victim.

For example ask about how those FDA numbers that were used to claim MMR/autism link for black kids, showed no relationship for white kids, so how do you square that with your own data claiming a relationship for white kids?, etc.

It might be useful to have someone in the audience who plays the role of a sympathizer but whose question actually has the opposite effect, for example by pitting various anti-vax factions against each other. “You can’t both be right, so who should I believe?”

With good organizing, you could have a half dozen or more different people at each showing.

It might also be fun to have one very vocal skeptic from the first showing, come to the second, and upon being dis-invited at the door, thereby hand another person the opening to play sympathizer but ask about “censorship just like at Tribeca.”

Think of it as political theater with a live audience;-)

Iiiii live in Manhattan. But I’m not sure I want to pay $15 for this nonsense…

I do hope the Q&A is challenging.

It won’t be; this is Wakefraud here he’s going to control the Q & A. And then use that as promo he weathered critical-analysis spectacularly. He’s a performer not a scientist.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit comedy.

Notchka@83 NO NO NO, they are poisoning my favorite NYC theater that has delicious popcorn and wonderful movies. If I did not have a convention this weekend I would be there. It is on Houston and a short walk from sooo many good places to eat, just cross Houston and start wandering.

Respectfully, Orac, I’d suggest that the reasons for cutting the time of your interviews are quite different from those concerning Bigtree.

@Kochanski. . . I know. I’m an ex West Villager. Lower Manhattan has a huge place my heart!