This week on the Deep Hurting Project: Andrew Wakefield's Vaxxed.
For those of us who don't know, Andrew Wakefield was a British doctor who claimed that he found a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, and nobody was able to replicate its results. People studied the MMR vaccine and weren't able to replicate his results; even when Japan withdrew it altogether, the incidence of autism still rose. Then they latched onto Thimerosal, and when many countries (including the US) phased it out, autism cases still grew. Then they decided it was down to the over-busy vaccine schedule, and even when some other countries changed theirs, cases of autism still rose. Then, over a decade after Wakefield's study was published, people realised that the reason Wakefield's results couldn't be replicated because he manipulated the data, and his previously acknowledged conflicts of interest led to the thing being entirely retracted and Wakefield being struck from the medical register. So, with his credibility buggered and celebrity fans like Jenny McCarthy and Robert DeNiro (ROBERT FUCKING DENIRO, WHO ACTUALLY PUT THE FILM ON THE 2016 TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL SCHEDULE), he managed to put a documentary together about his pet theory.
Naturally, there's a lot of bullshit bandied about in this film, and it's what you'd expect:
As a film, it's competently put together. It looks professionally made, and one wouldn't suspect that this was the work of a first-time director like Andrew Wakefield is; even the scenes where a phone call with William W. Thompson is heard, I have to admit I like the fact that he had the soundtrack represented by these squiggly lines that looked like multi-coloured cigarette smoke.
On the other hand, well, there is no excuse whatsoever for a documentary to fuck up the facts this badly. And for a documentary to do so for such a despicable cause, being cavalier about the rise of potentially deadly diseases because you seriously think autism is the greater evil than, well, pick a fucking disease. That said, there are two movies, The Other Side of AIDS, and House of Numbers, that promote similar denialism, denying that HIV causes AIDS. The former film includes a woman who was HIV+ and breastfed her daughter. In the time between the release of the two documentaries, the daughter and mother both died... of AIDS. Those two films may objectively cause more damage than this one, especially in developing nations, but I have autism and I don't have HIV. So, I'll just let Jon Stewart and this gospel choir he hired for this purpose explain my final verdict:
Also, apparently, according to the film, they expect half of all children born in 2032 (and 80% of boys) to have autism at the rate it's been "increasing." I look forward to laughing at this statistic in about 15 years.
For those of us who don't know, Andrew Wakefield was a British doctor who claimed that he found a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, and nobody was able to replicate its results. People studied the MMR vaccine and weren't able to replicate his results; even when Japan withdrew it altogether, the incidence of autism still rose. Then they latched onto Thimerosal, and when many countries (including the US) phased it out, autism cases still grew. Then they decided it was down to the over-busy vaccine schedule, and even when some other countries changed theirs, cases of autism still rose. Then, over a decade after Wakefield's study was published, people realised that the reason Wakefield's results couldn't be replicated because he manipulated the data, and his previously acknowledged conflicts of interest led to the thing being entirely retracted and Wakefield being struck from the medical register. So, with his credibility buggered and celebrity fans like Jenny McCarthy and Robert DeNiro (ROBERT FUCKING DENIRO, WHO ACTUALLY PUT THE FILM ON THE 2016 TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL SCHEDULE), he managed to put a documentary together about his pet theory.
Naturally, there's a lot of bullshit bandied about in this film, and it's what you'd expect:
- that somehow there's a link between autism and vaccines, and that if someone seems to develop symptoms of autism after getting a vaccine, it's because of the vaccine and not because these symptoms just become more obvious to the untrained person around the time they get it. At the Autism Omnibus trial, the closest thing these anti-vaxxers have had to a class-action lawsuit, they showed a video of how a certain child used to be a "normal" baby until she had a vaccine, and points out that even in the video they used to show this point, she STILL showed pretty obvious (to a specialist) symptoms of autism.
- that the actual incidence of autism is growing and that somehow, our increased understanding of autism and that people have finally figured out we don't all act like Raymond Babbit isn't related to it.
- Parenthood overrides the invalidity of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy.
- People can somehow "regress" into autism.
- Autism is more or less an intellectual dead end, and the fact that people on the spectrum can range in functioning from the sort of profoundly effected kids Autism Speaks likes to trot out all the way up to physicists whose contributions to the field rival Einstein.
- Autism somehow has an effect on gastrointestinal function.
- Wakefield's discredited paper isn't the only study to document this "rise," but also this other one which is also questionable.
- Surprisingly, it took halfway through the film before they brought up Big Pharma conspiracy theories. And, surprisingly or not, the fact that Wakefield was himself subsidised by Big Pharma companies like Johnson & Johnson, Merck, SmithKline Beecham, and Axcan Pharma Inc, at least until he became a liability.
- All three of the main theories are given significant play, and the mainstream hypothesis is explained only to dismiss it entirely.
As a film, it's competently put together. It looks professionally made, and one wouldn't suspect that this was the work of a first-time director like Andrew Wakefield is; even the scenes where a phone call with William W. Thompson is heard, I have to admit I like the fact that he had the soundtrack represented by these squiggly lines that looked like multi-coloured cigarette smoke.
On the other hand, well, there is no excuse whatsoever for a documentary to fuck up the facts this badly. And for a documentary to do so for such a despicable cause, being cavalier about the rise of potentially deadly diseases because you seriously think autism is the greater evil than, well, pick a fucking disease. That said, there are two movies, The Other Side of AIDS, and House of Numbers, that promote similar denialism, denying that HIV causes AIDS. The former film includes a woman who was HIV+ and breastfed her daughter. In the time between the release of the two documentaries, the daughter and mother both died... of AIDS. Those two films may objectively cause more damage than this one, especially in developing nations, but I have autism and I don't have HIV. So, I'll just let Jon Stewart and this gospel choir he hired for this purpose explain my final verdict:
Also, apparently, according to the film, they expect half of all children born in 2032 (and 80% of boys) to have autism at the rate it's been "increasing." I look forward to laughing at this statistic in about 15 years.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.