By Dr. Mercola
Can vaccines trigger autism? This is the topic of the film "Vaxxed", which was originally scheduled to be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival, but was pulled from the lineup on March 26.
The decision has created so much blowback and publicity that whoever was pushing for its removal may have cause to regret it, because it has given the film a much higher public profile than if it had simply been screened as scheduled.
The Tribeca Film Festival was started by Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro and producer Jane Rosenthal in 2001 in an effort to revitalize lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks.
Strange as it may seem, according to Rosenthal, it was primarily other filmmakers that were threatening to pull their films out of the prestigious festival unless "Vaxxed" was removed. De Niro says he will look into who lodged the complaints, and why.
De Niro Brings Vaccine Safety Into the Limelight
While De Niro felt pressured to pull the film, he makes it clear it's a film people need to see, noting there are many issues relating to the way the CDC evaluates and monitors the safety of vaccines that are not being spoken about openly — and they should.1
De Niro has an 18-year-old son who is autistic, and he admits he has concerns about vaccines and autism. "There is a link," he says, and draws a parallel between people who have severe, even fatal, reactions to penicillin. De Niro points out that the same might be true for some people who react to vaccines.
He also makes the point that everyone really should have the choice whether or not to vaccinate their children.
Interestingly, while De Niro called for more discussion and more research into the safety of vaccines, Rosenthal appeared openly uncomfortable about the entire topic when she and De Niro were originally interviewed on NBC's "Today Show" on Apr. 132 and even more uncomfortable when she and De Niro appeared in a follow-up interview on the "Today Show" on Apr. 18.3
One of the potential reasons for her discomfort could be related to the fact that her ex-husband, Craig Hatkoff, is a board member of the NYU Child Study Center, which is involved with the research and treatment of child psychiatric disorders. As noted by journalist Jon Rappoport:4
"The NYU Center would never, ever, in a million years imagine that vaccines could cause autism ... A film that claims to show a link between the MMR vaccine and autism would be a hideous affront to the NYU Child Study Center, where Craig Hatkoff, co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival, sits on the Board."
Rosenthal's sister, Pamela Rollins, Ph.D. is also deeply involved in the field of autism, and is a member of the Texas Council for Autism.5 The conventional view is that whatever autism is caused by, it's NOT caused by a medical intervention like vaccines, and to suggest that it might be related simply isn't permitted.
Organic Consumers Association (OCA) has created a petition to encourage Robert De Niro to continue seeking the truth about vaccines. Click the button below to sign the petition.
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Vaccine Shills Coming Out of the Woodwork
A number of industry shills have already written derogatory articles about "Vaxxed." This includes Dr. Paul Offit, whose article6 places the focus squarely on Andrew Wakefield, the director of the film.
Taking aim, Offit makes sure Wakefield's character and qualifications are brought into question in order to try to discredit the information in the film.
No surprises there, as character assassination is part of Offit's modus operandi — regardless of whether he's got his facts straight or not. Offit does not have a good track record for being accurate in his assessment of the facts.
In at least one case, a newspaper was forced to issue a correction, noting that Offit's disparaging statements about CBS News Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson (who had written a report critical of vaccines) were actually found to be wholly unsubstantiated and/or false.7
The fact of the matter is, anytime you hear or read terms like debunked, discredited, quack, conspiracy theorist, the science is settled, the debate is settled, the scientific consensus agrees, or the poison is in the dose, you can be more or less assured you're reading agenda-driven propaganda.
The same can be said for anyone relying on Offit as the sole voice of what is true and what is not true about vaccine safety.
There are many respectable researchers out there who are well-qualified to speak about vaccine science, and I have interviewed a number of them. And contrary to what Offit proclaims, the science is far from conclusive when it comes to safety.
Science on Vaccines Is Nowhere Near Settled
Science has shown that when you overuse antibiotics, antibiotic resistance develops. So what is the science of mass vaccination with multiple vaccines? The truth is the science is nowhere near "settled" when it comes to the potential long-term risks of mass vaccination.
Moreover, vaccines are clearly not as effective as previously thought. For example, recurring outbreaks of whooping cough (pertussis) have been linked to vaccine failure, not lack of vaccination. Most recently, 56 people contracted whooping cough in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania and every single one of them was vaccinated.8
If you're like most people, you probably thought vaccines the government recommends have been scientifically proven effective.
But every year we hear about many vaccines besides whooping cough failing, including mumps, measles and chicken pox — with a majority of the outbreaks again being among fully vaccinated people. So if the science isn't settled when it comes to effectiveness, perhaps it isn't so settled when it comes to safety.
Just last year, researchers made the remarkable discovery that the brain is actually directly connected to the immune system via previously unknown vessels.9
According to researchers, the discovery of these new vessels has "enormous implications for every neurological disease with an immune component," and that certainly would include autism.
So just how does vaccination affect this system? Anyone who claims we have the answer is either uninformed or lying, as up until last year we didn't even know the brain and immune system were linked!
Every year we make new discoveries about how the body works, yet we're to believe that everything there is to know about how vaccines affect human biology was discovered decades ago?
Did Mass Vaccination Eradicate Measles in the US?
The day after De Niro's appearance on NBC's Today Show, the network issued a follow-up report to counter some of the statements and questions De Niro had brought up.10 For example, they claim that mass vaccination eradicated measles in the U.S. in 2000. Yet in 2014 it reemerged with 667 documented cases, and in 2015 there were 189 cases. According to the CDC, "the majority of patients were unvaccinated," NBC reports.
Here are some facts they didn't tell you: according to the CDC, no one has died from acute measles in the U.S. since 2003. Meanwhile, the MedAlerts database reveals 98 deaths following MMR or MMRV vaccinations occurred between 2003 and 2015. In addition to that, there were 694 reports of MMR or MMRV vaccinations causing disability in that time frame.
Considering the fact that less than 10 percent of vaccine adverse events are ever reported to VAERS, the actual number of measles vaccine-related deaths and disabilities that have occurred since 2003 could be as many as 980 deaths and 6,940 disabilities.
According to NBC: "While no drug or treatment is 100 percent safe, they say vaccines are far, far safer than the diseases they prevent." Considering these statistics, would you agree with the assertion that the MMR vaccine is "far, far safer" than the measles?
Ironically, it seems NBC did exactly what De Niro objected to in the first place — they downplayed the risks, casually tossing out a few reassuring statements, completely ignoring statistics such as the fact that anywhere from 98 to 980 kids died following measles vaccination compared to none from the actual disease. And that's how you know you're listening to propaganda.
Do Studies 'Conclusively Show' There's No Link Between Vaccines and Autism?
The NBC also made sure to note that while parents are "looking for answers," studies have "conclusively shown" there's no link between vaccines and autism. That sounds all good and well, but just because a statement is repeated does not make it true. I've interviewed a number of health and vaccine experts and researchers over the years, and the consensus among them is that safety studies are clearly lacking. As noted by board-certified pediatrician Dr. Lawrence Palevsky:
"… [T]hey are not following children long enough to know whether in three months, six months, three years, six years, or 10 years, there could be some autoimmune antibody or some immune challenge that happens to the body that lingers or that just sits there as a genotypic effect.
There's a change in the genetics, there's a change in the DNA, that doesn't necessarily manifest itself until years later because of other stressors, perhaps even from another vaccine that comes years later. None of those studies have been done, so I don't know how you can say that vaccines are safe.
… We're not looking at the micro-molecular levels to see, 'OK, was there an autoimmune antibody produced? Were there other inflammatory markers produced? Where did those markers manifest? Did they stay in the body? Did they manifest into clinical symptoms? How are they relevant?' None of that science is being done. But we're just saying that vaccines are safe because we've been doing it for so long. And anyone with a good scientific mind would say that's not adequate."
There are biological, genetic, and environmental differences among us, and that is why some of us get an MMR shot or experience measles and do not suffer complications while others do suffer complications and are brain injured or die.
Doctors cannot predict ahead of time who will be harmed by a vaccine or an infectious disease, and they cannot guarantee that those who have been vaccinated will not be infected or transmit infection. These are important points that are typically not shared with parents in the decision-making process regarding vaccination.
Even the studies that have been done are not nearly long enough to show what the long-term implications of vaccinations might be.
As mentioned earlier, we now also have brand new information regarding the connection between the brain and the immune system; a connection that may very well change the way we need to study vaccines and their impact on both brain and immune function. Clearly, De Niro is entirely correct when he says it's a complicated matter, and that there are still many questions that need to be answered.
Do Vaccines Deserve Their 'Safety Halo'?
Our genome is comprised of between 5 and 8 percent viral DNA, in what I consider to be a component of synergistic adaption with our environment. Microbial signaling plays a role that we still do not fully understand, yet our federal policies place a halo over all drugs called "vaccines." The assumption is that we understand everything that needs to be understood about them, and that without them we'd be worse off. But where's the proof? As noted by Rappoport:11
"[M]ajor media won't reveal medically-caused death numbers ... So we begin with a few citations ... Journal of the American Medical Association; author, Dr. Barbara Starfield, revered public health expert at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health; 'Is US health really the best in the world?' Starfield reported that the US medical system kills 225,000 Americans a year; 106,000 as a result of FDA-approved medical drugs ... Extrapolate the numbers to a decade: that's 2.25 million deaths...
BMJ June 7, 201212... Lenzer refers to a report by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices: 'It calculated that in 2011 prescription drugs were associated with two to four million people in the US experiencing 'serious, disabling, or fatal injuries, including 128,000 deaths.'' The report called this 'one of the most significant perils to humans resulting from human activity.'
...The FDA knows and it isn't saying anything about it, because the FDA certifies, as safe and effective, all the medical drugs that are routinely maiming and killing Americans ..."
If other drugs cause well over 100,000 deaths a year, where's the evidence to show vaccines don't have a similar track record? The reason why the media refuses to discuss these safety issues is because their pharmaceutical advertisers have the ability to punish them financially. But there's also the overarching issue of credibility. If these statistics were widely known and recognized, who would accept any assurance of drug safety anymore? As Rappoport notes, it would sound something like this:
"Well, the system I represent kills 2.25 million people per decade, and maims between 20 and 40 million more people per decade, but I want to assure you this vaccine presents no problems at all. It's incredibly safe' ... Every single pronouncement, on any subject, issued via the medical cartel's Ministry of Truth would fall on disbelieving ears, and only increase general outrage."
The Fight for Improved Vaccine Safety Continues
The fact of the matter is, there's still a lot we do not know when it comes to vaccines and their effects. Our knowledge is still very limited when it comes to the microbial world, as well as our own immune system.
To protect the vaccine program and the fantastic profits generated from it, any and all "cracks in the wall" must therefore be sealed, and the primary way this is done is by way of censoring, ridicule, and character assassination. They want mandatory vaccines from cradle to grave, and in order to implement that, all dissenters must be destroyed.
In the case of De Niro, they may have met their match, as he's not one to be intimidated and dismissed so easily — although a number of industry "bobble heads" have already tried to make it seem as though he's just another confused parent of an autistic child looking for a scapegoat.
They are wrong, of course, and efforts to paint De Niro as a fool just might backfire in the most spectacular way. In the end, as more and more parents see the tragedy of autism unfold in their own life, how long can the charade be maintained?