How would it be possible to libel Andrew Wakefield?
A US film studio has threatened to sue an Irish autism-rights advocate if she continues to speak out against its controversial anti-vaccine documentary, Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe.
West Cork-based mother, Fiona O’Leary, who wants to block the film’s release in Ireland and Britain, said she was outraged to receive a legal letter from California-based Cinema Libre Studios over the weekend.
The letter claimed that her public comments about the 90-minute film were defamatory and that her comments about the filmmaker were libellous.
They demand that she immediately shut up, or else.
“In the event that you do not comply with this demand, we intend to file an action against you. We will ask for punitive damages and financial compensation for all losses to our business directly resulting from your actions.”
The documentary alleges that the US government agency charged with protecting the health of US citizens destroyed data from a 2004 study that showed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.
It is directed by discredited anti-vaccine activist, Andrew Wakefield, whose controversial 1998 study first suggested a link between autism and vaccines.
Why is he discredited? Because his “study” was fraudulent. Wikipedia:
Andrew Jeremy Wakefield (born c. 1957) is a British former gastroenterologist and medical researcher, known for his fraudulent 1998 research paper in support of the now-discredited claim that there was a link between the administration of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, and the appearance of autism and bowel disease.
His fraudulent 1998 research paper. The “discredited” above is polite, given the facts. More Wikipedia:
On 28 January 2010, a five-member statutory tribunal of the GMC found three dozen charges proved, including four counts of dishonesty and 12 counts involving the abuse of developmentally challenged children.[12] The panel ruled that Wakefield had “failed in his duties as a responsible consultant”, acted both against the interests of his patients, and “dishonestly and irresponsibly” in his published research.[13][14][15]The Lancet fully retracted the 1998 publication on the basis of the GMC’s findings, noting that elements of the manuscript had been falsified.[16]The Lancet’s editor-in-chief Richard Hortonsaid the paper was “utterly false” and that the journal had been “deceived”.[17] Three months followingThe Lancet’s retraction, Wakefield was struck off the UK medical register, with a statement identifying deliberate falsification in the research published in The Lancet,[18] and was barred from practising medicine in the UK.[19]
He directed this dangerous film, and the film company has the gall to threaten a critic and tell her to shut up.
It’s Trump-level disgusting.
Ugh. And I keep seeing facebook posts from local liberal friends promoting this appalling movie, too.
This film is not only inaccurate, it’s dangerous. Some pseudoscience is laughable, but benign. This particular belief can cause deaths of many children.
If there isn’t already, it seems to me there should be a term for ‘gullible/played due to suspicion’. A general term for the vulnerability certain charlatans and demagogues make use of when you’re suspicious (with or without good reason) of someone or something else, at which point they come along to tell you: smart you! You’re right! The political establishment/big pharma/big agribusiness is playing you for a fool! So elect _my_ incompetent, self-aggrandizing, self-absorbed menace to society/buy my sugar pills/buy my biodegradable-earth-friendly overpriced cabbage! Slingshot gullibility maybe, or something like that…
Wakefield, of course, is part of just one prominent, cautionary tale as to why it’s trouble. In a crowded field, of late.
(Slingshot gullibility coined on the notion that, in fact, the damage done by it is likely to be worse than the prior suspicion opening it up avoided. You’re distracted by your anger at the guy you thought was gonna snatch your credit card… and so you stand there fuming at him, giving the ‘rescuer’ who shouted out the danger leave to carry off your entire wallet.)
Fiona O’Leary shouldn’t be outraged, lawyers produce threatening bullshit letters by the million, unfortunately more lawyers are needed to separate truth from crap.
The question is, in which jurisdiction? Presumably truth is a defence in Ireland.
The anti-vax mania has spread around the world, Wakefield will leave a toxic legacy. It’s the eternal problem of calculated and perceived risk, facts don’t matter. A few years ago one of my neighbors (while smoking his umpteenth cigarette for the day) explained to me the dangers of the new electricity smart meters. He’d padlocked his meter box and he was determined that those diabolical devices would never be installed in his house. He couldn’t cite any research that suggested that the meters were dangerous.
I wonder who’s financing these anti-vax campaigns?
How would it be possible to libel Andrew Wakefield?
By claiming he is a scientist and did actual sciencey things.
‘Trump level disgusting.’
Certainly an apt term. But in this intellectual atmosphere, the manufacture of Trump level dupes is the fastest growing industry in the world.
http://www.ageofautism.com/2013/04/statement-isabella-thomas-mother-of-2-lancet-study-children.html
Statement by Isabella Thomas, mother of two boys who were part of the Lancet Study
“It is now time for the truth to be told”