Robert De Niro pulls anti-vaccine film from Tribecca film festival

Well, interesting. Robert De Niro, one of the co-founders of the Tribeca Film Festival recently defended his decision to screen the infamous Andrew Wakefield's film "Vaxxed, Cover up to Catastrophe", stating:

"Grace and I have a child with autism and we believe it is critical that all of the issues surrounded the causes of autism be openly discussed ad examined. In the 15 years since the Tribeca Film Festival was founded, I have never asked for a film to be screened or gotten involved in the programming. However this is very personal to me and my family and I want there to be a discussion, which is why we will be screening Vaxxed. I am not personally endorsing the film, nor am I anti-vaccination; I am only providing the opportunity for a conversation around the issue."

But a day later, he's suddenly changed his tune altogether and pulled the film with the following comments:

"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,” the statement said. “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. 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. We have decided to remove it from our schedule."

Andrew Wakefield and the film's director have responded with:

“To our dismay, we learned today about the Tribeca Film Festival’s decision to reverse the official selection of Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe,” director Andrew Wakefield and producer Del Bigtree said. “It is our understanding that persons from an organization affiliated with the festival have made unspecified allegations against the film,” the statement continued. “We have just witnessed yet another example of the power of corporate interests censoring free speech, art, and truth. Tribeca’s action will not succeed in denying the world access to the truth behind the film Vaxxed.”

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Well, I find that to be quite a hasty retraction. Quite honestly, over the last several years, the amount of documentaries that have surfaced and not been pulled from their slots, despite controversy and despite the films' eventual inaccuracies make me wonder why it was so important to pull this film.

The climate around vaccinations has literally become one of NO DISCUSSION ALLOWED, plain and simple. All discussion must be relegated to conspiracy theorists, tin foil hat wearing forums only.

This is censorship 100%. Clearly, De Niro had seen this film before making either statement and would presumably have already carefully considered everything BEFORE his first statement defending the screening. He was already under pressure not to screen the film, so the pressure must have been stepped up.

There are people calling this film "dangerous", "putting the health of the world at risk", "anti-science." Well, to me, dangerous constitutes not considering all available information; putting the health of the world at risk, the same; anti-science: ignoring actual science, calling it anti-science if it doesn't fit with your agenda or current beliefs.

The FDA's own site cites autism as a possible negative consequence of vaccination, so when did the link between vaccines and autism become "debunked"?

It became debunked when Andrew Wakefield' was used as the poster boy for autism/vaccination holding no correlation. Yet what bothers me so much about this entire scenario is no one has ever heard both sides of this controversy. In fact, it's not even treated as a controversy, but is treated as incontrovertible: Wakefield was defrauded, his study debunked, his insinuations against vaccines for the purpose of financial gain, Andrew Wakefield: the father of the anti-vaccination movement. Yet it might surprise people to know that he is quite pro vaccine. He never actually set out to study autism/vaccination. The study in question originally had nothing to do with autism. The main charge leveled at him was that he had never received ethics approval for his research study.

First of all, it was a clinical study and you do NOT need ethics approval for a clinical study. Secondly, THAT being the main thing that "debunked" his study is tantamount to a murder trial having a video of who murdered the victim, but that video not being allowed into evidence for technical reasons such as the video was obtained through illegal means.

Thus, I would really like to have heard Andrew Wakefield's side of the story, NOT TO MENTION: the film deals largely with CDC "Whistleblower" William Thompson's allegations that he and his colleagues falsified autism/vaccine information, something that came out quite awhile ago, and barely brushed with mainstream media.

I'm very disappointed De Niro has pulled the film.

originally posted by: thebtheb
“We have just witnessed yet another example of the power of corporate interests censoring free speech, art, and truth.

Just shut up (the director, not the op). "There's no possibly way it could have actually been the film itself. They are trying to censor us! It's the Man!!!!!"

I feel like punching the guy...

Why can't things actually be what they are?

originally posted by: Ghost147

originally posted by: thebtheb
“We have just witnessed yet another example of the power of corporate interests censoring free speech, art, and truth.

Just shut up (the director, not the op). "There's no possibly way it could have actually been the film itself. They are trying to censor us! It's the Man!!!!!"

I feel like punching the guy...

Why can't things actually be what they are?

As I said though, obviously they'd already seen the film before they defended it.

From what ive heard about De Niro, hes not exactly an Illuminatti shill.....must have been leaned on somehow.....
Men in Black and all that.............

Umm maybe because there is no correlation. Think of it, millions upon millions of people get vaccines yearly and no cases of Autism in the millions yearly, hell even a 1000 or 100 yearly. Is there even 10 a year connected to vaccines?

Billions drink water daily and some of those people had heart attacks, strokes or even got the common cold, would you say there is a correlation there? Of course not.

Good catch.

Here is what I will contribute.

Read the first DeNiro paragraph, wherein he endorses "Vaxx".
Look at all the "I"s in that paragraph.

Then read the retraction paragraph.
There is not a single "I"
Each "I" has been replaced with "we".

Ditto for Wakefield. No "I"s.
No one.

The safety blanket...
It's how a committee kills.

# 604




a reply to: thebtheb

originally posted by: FullBloodedNative
Umm maybe because there is no correlation. Think of it, millions upon millions of people get vaccines yearly and no cases of Autism in the millions yearly, hell even a 1000 or 100 yearly. Is there even 10 a year connected to vaccines?

Billions drink water daily and some of those people had heart attacks, strokes or even got the common cold, would you say there is a correlation there? Of course not.

Not 100 or 1000 cases yearly? Have you been living under a rock?

a reply to: thebtheb

Where are they? Show us that there is direct correlation with vaccines. Show us five cases of autism that have been caused by vaccines. Real cases with real data.

a reply to: thebtheb

Well, good for De Niro for trying... I just wish he had tried harder.

It makes one wonder just what kind of pressure was put on De Niro and Tribeca to pull it. Telling us it will not further the conversation as he thought it would tells us nothing. Why? What's the problem?

So many weasel words... Big sigh...

originally posted by: thebtheb
The FDA's own site cites autism as a possible negative consequence of vaccination, so when did the link between vaccines and autism become "debunked"?

Where?

I've searched the FDA site and I can find no such citation.

Please provide the relevant quotes, and a link to where this is cited.

a reply to: thebtheb

There is no discussion when it comes to Wakefield, his study was bs and was shown to be. If you want a discussion stop trotting out his nonsense.

They made him an offer he simply couldn't refuse.

a reply to: Sremmos80

I concur. The man is a con artist through and through. Andrew Wakefield should not be given a platform to spew his dangerous lies for profit.

originally posted by: cuckooold

originally posted by: thebtheb
The FDA's own site cites autism as a possible negative consequence of vaccination, so when did the link between vaccines and autism become "debunked"?

Where?

I've searched the FDA site and I can find no such citation.

Please provide the relevant quotes, and a link to where this is cited.

Quite honestly, the links game is old. FDA

Notice of course that even though it says: "idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, SIDS, anaphylactic reaction, cellulitis, autism, convulsion/grand mal convulsion, encephalopathy, hypotonia, neuropathy, somnolence and apnea" were reported in their studies for this particular vaccine frequently enough to be noted that they then diminish the significance of it by saying that because these things are reported voluntarily, it is not always possible to establish a link to their vaccine. So they are bringing out the classic "correlation is not causation." Well, that could be used for their classic, "Diseases disappeared when vaccines were introduced thus that correlation means vaccines are what made these diseases disappear, even though there are no vaccines for scarlet fever, typhoid, chicken pox (until the 1990s) and several other diseases that also magically went way down during the same time period.

originally posted by: TheAmazingYeti
a reply to: Sremmos80

I concur. The man is a con artist through and through. Andrew Wakefield should not be given a platform to spew his dangerous lies for profit.

You will find people SAYING this, and no proof. Sounds to me like all you've done is believed what you heard. And it's not that that's such a bad thing, as we all do it.

originally posted by: Sremmos80
a reply to: thebtheb

There is no discussion when it comes to Wakefield, his study was bs and was shown to be. If you want a discussion stop trotting out his nonsense.

Again: the major thing leveled at Wakefield was that he had no ethics approval for his research. That shows nothing.

originally posted by: FullBloodedNative
Umm maybe because there is no correlation. Think of it, millions upon millions of people get vaccines yearly and no cases of Autism in the millions yearly, hell even a 1000 or 100 yearly. Is there even 10 a year connected to vaccines?

Billions drink water daily and some of those people had heart attacks, strokes or even got the common cold, would you say there is a correlation there? Of course not.

Of course there is a correlation. If you look for a correlation between breathing and dying, you will find a perfect correlation of 1.00. Everyone who has ever died has at some point breathed. The problem is the simpletons who confuse correlation with causation. Breathing doesn't cause death, notwithstanding the perfect correlation.

originally posted by: bandersnatch
From what ive heard about De Niro, hes not exactly an Illuminatti shill.....must have been leaned on somehow.....
Men in Black and all that.............

No these were men in green and gold who visited him.

Like…no more film festival buddy

No more major roles buddy…you are in your 70’s

Just play ball old man these are things beyond your scope

originally posted by: Ghost147

originally posted by: thebtheb
“We have just witnessed yet another example of the power of corporate interests censoring free speech, art, and truth.

Just shut up (the director, not the op). "There's no possibly way it could have actually been the film itself. They are trying to censor us! It's the Man!!!!!"

I feel like punching the guy...

Why can't things actually be what they are?

Then, what was the problem with the movie itself all of a sudden, when there was no problem the day before?

a reply to: thebtheb

Brian Deer, a co-author on the discredited Lancet Study, has blown the whistle on Andrew Wakfield.

How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed and How the vaccine crisis was meant to make money.

If the deck was really stacked against him and he was defamed - it should be easy to win in court...

Court Case 8/31/2012 of which you can read the full judgment here