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Vaxxed review – Del Bigtree fraudumentary dropped from Vimeo

I was given the opportunity recently to watch  Mr. Andy Wakefield’s fraudulent and self-serving anti-vaccination documentary Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Controversy, produced by the non-vaccine scientist, Del Bigtree. After getting physically ill and angry, I thought it was my duty to do my own Vaxxed review, something more in-depth than the general criticisms I’ve done with this piece of junk in the past.

I don’t have it in me to write about everything wrong with this “documentary” – to be honest, I heard not one single bit of science-based fact presented with respect to the MMR vaccines and autism spectrum disorder. The fraudumentary mostly presented lies, misinformation, anecdotes, and, notably, no real science. Worse yet, it tried to make Wakefield into a hero – maybe even a deity of some sort.

So, let’s be clear – this movie is about Wakefield. Not children. Not identifying real causes for autism. Not anything important.

There are a lot of excellent reviews of this “documentary,” including a recent one by David Gorski (you know, my doppelgänger according to certain crackpots on the internet) in Science-Based Medicine, “Read More »Vaxxed review – Del Bigtree fraudumentary dropped from Vimeo

Vaxxed bus tour

Vaxxed bus tour – one man trolling against anti-vaccine lies

I haven’t written much about the Vaxxed bus tour, except in the context of how Australia has banned entry of a couple of the anti-vaccine participants from re-entering the country in the future. In case the Vaxxed bus tour isn’t at the top of your daily reading material,  it is a gang of anti-vaccine radicals have been traveling in a bus across America promoting the anti-vaccine fraudumentary, Vaxxed.

The movie, directed by the cunning con-man Andrew Wakefield, promises to feature “revealing and emotional interviews with pharmaceutical insiders, doctors, politicians, parents, and one whistleblower to understand what’s behind the skyrocketing increase of autism diagnoses today.”

This bus tour pushes pseudoscience and vaccine lies to gullible audiences across America. And the Vaxxed bus tour was heading to Australia to promote that unscientific nonsense to the continent down under. But Australia did the aforementioned banning of the participants.

The Vaxxed tour bus has included some of the most unprincipled and shameless anti-vaccine radicals. The fraud, Andrew Wakefield. The loon, Suzanne Humphries. The crackpot, Polly Tommey. All of them making the unscientific claim that vaccines cause autism.

Except, we know that vaccines are not linked to autism. Real science is searching for the real causes of autism, and they still have concluded it’s not vaccines. Read More »Vaxxed bus tour – one man trolling against anti-vaccine lies

Australia blocked anti-vaccine

Australia blocked anti-vaccine radicals from re-entering the country

For those of you who don’t follow these shenanigans, a gang of anti-vaccine radicals have been traveling in a bus across America promoting the anti-vaccine fraudumentary, Vaxxed. They push their pseudoscience and vaccine lies to gullible audiences across America. The Vaxxed tour was heading to Australia to promote their unscientific nonsense to the continent down under. Lucky for the citizens of the fine country, Australia blocked anti-vaccine radicals from returning to that country.

Let’s backtrack a bit and talk about the Vaxxed bus tour. It includes a rotating cast of deplorable characters including the fraud Mr. Andrew Wakefield, the pseudoscience pushing Suzanne Humphries, Vaxxed producer Del Bigtree, and the reprehensible Polly Tommey.Read More »Australia blocked anti-vaccine radicals from re-entering the country

vaxxed misinformation

Vaxxed misinformation – legal remedies for those harmed?

The documentary Vaxxed uses misrepresentation to scare people from vaccinating and protecting their kids from disease. For example, it strongly suggests that MMR causes autism, and doesn’t mention that studies from all around the world show otherwise. Scientific research solidly refutes any link between vaccines and autism. I think it is time to examine if there are any legal remedies for those harmed by Vaxxed misinformation.

The documentary claims that there is a conspiracy by the CDC to hide the link between MMR and autism, even though the documents supposed to support that conspiracy do not support such accusations. In spite of the fact that even if the CDC wanted to hide such a link, it couldn’t control studies done in other countries looking at the issue (and finding no link). It makes untrue statements about vaccine testing, like falsely claiming that vaccines are not tested in combination.

In addition, in several cities, the Vaxxed team – discredited scientist Andrew Wakefield, his collaborator Polly Tommey, and producer Del Bigtree, and occasionally others – followed certain screenings with a question and answer session. In those sessions they made false claims that could mislead parents away from protecting their children by vaccinating.

The Vaxxed team claimed that preventable diseases were not prevented by vaccines. Among other things they claimed that vaccines were both ineffective and unsafe, ignoring abundant research showing the opposite: modern vaccines are extremely safe and effective.

Del Bigtree falsely described the hepatitis B vaccine – that protects against a virus that can cause liver disease and cancer – as “injecting a sexually transmitted disease”, potentially scaring parents off protecting their children against this dangerous infection. Finally, the Vaxxed team warned listeners against seeing pediatricians, because they can’t be trusted (see here and here for more of their misrepresentations and misinformation).

If a viewer watches Vaxxed and listens to the team’s advice, decides not to vaccinate based on this misleading information, and their child gets a preventable disease and is harmed by it, can they sue for money damages in torts?

What if their unvaccinated child infected a third party who was harmed? Read More »Vaxxed misinformation – legal remedies for those harmed?

anti-vaxxer

Anti-vaxxer personal attacks – embracing hatred and ad hominems

The anti-vaxxer cult, also known as vaccine deniers, are infamous for their ad hominem personal attacks on anyone who disagrees with their pseudoscience, anti-science beliefs. I’ve documented a tiny percentage of their vile hatred towards us, but I don’t have enough time to keep up with their hate speech.

These anti-vaxxer crackpots were beside themselves recently, when the New York University Langone Medical Center hosted a lecture and panel discussion entitled “Confronting Vaccine Resistance – Strategies for Success.” Sounds like a great one to attend.

But what must have caused arteries to burst across the anti-vaxxer world are the list of speakers – Dr. Paul Offit, Dr. Richard Pan, and Prof. Dorit Rubinstein Reiss. If you’re unfamiliar with these three, at which point I would have to ask why you don’t know them, let me spend a minute just telling you about them.

Dr. Offit is one of the leading authorities on vaccines on this planet. He has committed to world-class research and training to understand all facets of vaccines. His left pinky finger probably knows more about vaccines than the whole lot of the anti-vaxxer cult. He invented a vaccine for rotavirus, which is the source of all sorts of anti-vaxxer attacks, ignoring the fact that hundreds of thousands of lives are saved every year by the vaccine.

Dr. Pan is a California State Senator who lead the fight for California SB 277, which mandated vaccines for children in school. Of course, the anti-vaccine movement did not appreciate this effort to save lives of children, so they attacked Dr. Pan in some particularly filthy ways.

Finally, Prof. Reiss, a tenured professor of law at University of California Hastings School of Law, is a regular contributor to this website. She is an expert on vaccines and the law and is one of the most civil individuals I know in spite of withering attacks on herself, her family, her education, and yes, her ethnicity. She has to deal with disgusting and disturbing anti-semitic attacks, along with just about every other personal attack one could imagine.

So these three are together in New York discussing how to overcome vaccine resistance. I’m almost certain that the anti-vaxxer cult will will think these lectures are presented in the Gates of Hell by three demons. Nah, I’m sure I exaggerate, they will hardly notice.

Read More »Anti-vaxxer personal attacks – embracing hatred and ad hominems

Vaxxed distributor threatened

Vaxxed distributor threatened Fiona O’Leary – they’re afraid of facts

On 19 July 2016, autism self-advocate Fiona O’Leary, an Irish mother of five children, two of them autistic – a powerful and long-time fighter against alternative treatments of autism and the myth that vaccines cause autism – posted a video to her Facebook page. In the 15-minute self-interview, Ms. O’Leary called out certain statements made by a team of the creators of the anti-vaccine “documentary” Vaxxed as they travel the United States, holding question and answers session with viewers. In response, the Vaxxed distributor threatened her.

What prompted Ms. O’Leary to speak out is that the Vaxxed team are forming groups to bring the film to Ireland and the UK.  On July 19, Ms. O’Leary started a petition calling on the Texas Attorney General to act against the movie and the statements by its team.  and published her Facebook video to YouTube.

On July 21, 2016 Phillippe Diaz, CEO of Cinema Libre, the company distributing Vaxxed worldwide, sent Ms. O’Leary a letter claiming that her statements were defamatory.  Also, the Vaxxed distributor threatened her with a defamation lawsuit if she didn’t stop talking about Vaxxed and its team. The team includes disgraced former scientist turned film director Andrew Wakefield, producer Del Bigtree, and their associate Polly Tommey. There is no indication a lawyer saw the letter beforehand, though an attorney is copied.

On July 22, 2016, the Australian science blogger Reasonable Hank published six of the videos from the Vaxxed team, validating Mrs. O’Leary’s claim that the Vaxxed team has indeed made the reprehensible statements. Diaz’s letter is therefore clearly an attempt to intimidate Ms. O’Leary.

She interpreted the letter as a clear attempt to intimidate, as she explains in a second video.

This post will touch on some of the legal issues.Read More »Vaxxed distributor threatened Fiona O’Leary – they’re afraid of facts