by Jefferey Jaxen
Health Impact News

Tribeca has come and gone in the minds of moviegoers hoping to see the documentary Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe. The machinations occurring around the film since it was pulled by co-founder Robert De Niro could fill a book. Harrowing twists, unexpected turns and victories for freedom of speech continue to dot the landscape wherever Vaxxed goes.

Film festivals that pull the film from their lineup — for whatever reason(s) — risk loss of publicity, integrity and ticket sales. In addition, the new trend appears to also be public protest outside film festivals deciding to remove Vaxxed from their menu.

Tribeca’s Vaxxed snub has become old news as the change.org petition to bring the film back to the festival fell just shy of 35,000 signatures. Tribeca’s total attendance for 2015 was 138,000 people. A quick calculation reveals that a potential 25 percent of the 12 day festival’s 2015 attendance was interested in just one film this year.

Vaxxed is simultaneously serving as the antidote and the poison for freedom of speech within the U.S. The film is uncovering and giving a platform to those that wish to defend the first Amendment while providing a discussion around government and health corruption.

At the same time, the film is also exposing deep bias within the mainstream media, government and the film industry in regard to pharmaceutical influence and censorship. The spotlight on compromised institutions stifling open discussion around the film and its message is serving to poison their integrity and trust within the public’s eye.

Government Officials in Texas Threaten Theater to Prevent Vaxxed from Showing

The latest additions to the conversation of censorship in the U.S. are the film festivals in Houston, Manhattan, Ocala and the Angelika theater chains in Plano and New York. After being pulled by the WorldFest-Houston International Film & Video Festival after Hunter Todd — the festival Chairman & Founding Director — reported that he received threatening calls from “high government officials.” Todd immediately sent a letter detailing the pressure to Philippe Diaz, Chairman of Cinema Libre who is distributing Vaxxed. Todd’s letter was released publicly by Diaz to allow discussion and action on the events happening behind the scenes:

“…after very threatening calls late yesterday from high Houston Government officials – we had no choice but to drop the film” Todd’s letter went on to state that: “Heavy handed censorship, to say the least…they both threatened severe action against  the festival if we showed it, so it is out. Their actions would have cost us more than $100,000 in grants.”

Amidst mounting public pressure, a statement was released to the press from Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner’s office saying:

The mayor asked that it be removed from the lineup. I believe Judge Emmett did the same. The film festival is being funded in part through a grant from the City of Houston. The mayor felt it inappropriate for the city to endorse an event that would be screening a film that is counter to the city’s efforts to ensure children receive vaccinations.

After initial hesitation to get involved, Texans for Vaccine Choice followed up with a public statement of their own adding: 

Judge Emmett has been quoted in news outlets as saying he was contacted by an unnamed person or organization that is active in promoting childhood vaccines in Texas, and that conversation included imploring Judge Emmett to get involved by pressuring organizers to rescind their screening invitation. A statement released by the mayor’s office says he concluded that endorsing the festival, had it continued with the screening, would have the unwanted effect of negatively impacting childhood vaccine uptake in the city. 

According to the filmmakers, neither Judge Emmett nor Mayor Turner have had a chance to actually view the documentary, yet they are assuming that it is either “anti-vaccine” or intended to steer parents away from vaccinating. Oddly, films featuring murder and sexual content are screened at city-sponsored film festivals regularly, yet city officials have never expressed concern that those movies would increase the murder rate or STD prevalence.

On the story since its inception, Ginger Taylor of HealthChoice.org found that Judge Emmett’s wife Gwen is a former chairwoman and currently sits on the executive committee of The Immunization Partnership. The organization develops and implements “strategies in order to achieve and sustain high immunization rates” as well as “supporting the Houston-Harris County Immunization Registry.” The partnership is also a key player in helping pass Texas legislation to “boost immunization rates,” “improve efficiencies for the immunization registry for Texas” and “increase immunization coverage among healthcare workers and childcare workers.”

Said another way, The Immunization Partnership believes in denying medical choice, ignoring vaccine injury, tracking personal vaccination decisions for later enforcement and punishment and walking lockstep into a future alongside greater pharmaceutical control.   

Taylor’s findings seem to be in line with the findings of freelance journalist Jon Rappoport who uncovered the following: 

Tribeca co-founder Jane Rosenthal’s husband, Craig Hatkoff, sits on the board of the NYU Child Study Center in New York—and that major, major center is deeply involved in the research, study, and treatment of child psychiatric disorders. In case you’ve forgotten, autism is officially listed as a psychiatric disorder.

With autism’s newly listed designation as a psychiatric disorder, the doors are wide open to prescribe and further endanger those suffering from it with pharmaceutical drugs.

Official statements defending censorship of the film begin to evaporate like vampires in the daylight when exposed to real investigative journalism. Conflicts of interest are ripe, pharmaceutical agendas are protected and new evidence or discussion is prohibited — it’s the old game of follow the money and business as usual. However, this time it’s different thanks to the courage and dedication of those individuals, theaters and film festivals who are protecting free speech and allowing public discussion around corruption and epidemic levels of autism in the U.S.

Viva La Resistance

In response, University of Houston Law Professor Peter Linzer warned that Houston Mayor Turner’s suppression tramples on free speech in an interview with FOX 26 local Houston news saying:

I got nothing against Sylvester Turner, but he’s doing the wrong thing here. The mayor has no business censoring films at a film festival.

The WorldFest-Houston International Film & Video Festival endured sustained protests demanding free speech and an end to censorship outside the event all three days it was scheduled.

Flordia Film Festival Stands Strong on 1st Amendment

Houston mayor’s North Korea-like film censorship wasn’t enough to make a dent in the decision of Florida’s Silver Springs International Film Festival to premiere Vaxxed. The film festival’s Director Greg Thompson’s response to someone asking him to pull the film was posted online for all to read. Among many strong points, Thompson additionally stated:

“…our relationship is with the 1st Amendment which protects our freedom of speech and expression.”

Thompson’s statement appears to be in line with popular thinking and his transparency — along with Hunter Todd’s — is serving to inspire other film festival’s to release information to the public.

Regardless of where the discussion goes after the public views the film, Vaxxed has become a symbol to rally around for defenders of free speech, a return to real journalism and open public discourse. The organization March Against Monsanto, boasting over a million followers worldwide, recently published an article backing the film and the discussion it is asking the public to have.

With the discussion being continually forced into the mainstream, it appears that when the public is confronted with real information they always side with free speech and push for open discussion.

Medical Doctors Opposed to Forced Vaccinations – Should Their Views be Silenced?

One of the biggest myths being propagated in the compliant mainstream media today is that doctors are either pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine, and that the anti-vaccine doctors are all “quacks.”

However, nothing could be further from the truth in the vaccine debate. Doctors are not unified at all on their positions regarding “the science” of vaccines, nor are they unified in the position of removing informed consent to a medical procedure like vaccines.

The two most extreme positions are those doctors who are 100% against vaccines and do not administer them at all, and those doctors that believe that ALL vaccines are safe and effective for ALL people, ALL the time, by force if necessary.

Very few doctors fall into either of these two extremist positions, and yet it is the extreme pro-vaccine position that is presented by the U.S. Government and mainstream media as being the dominant position of the medical field.

In between these two extreme views, however, is where the vast majority of doctors practicing today would probably categorize their position. Many doctors who consider themselves “pro-vaccine,” for example, do not believe that every single vaccine is appropriate for every single individual.

Many doctors recommend a “delayed” vaccine schedule for some patients, and not always the recommended one-size-fits-all CDC childhood schedule. Other doctors choose to recommend vaccines based on the actual science and merit of each vaccine, recommending some, while determining that others are not worth the risk for children, such as the suspect seasonal flu shot.

These doctors who do not hold extreme positions would be opposed to government-mandated vaccinations and the removal of all parental exemptions.

In this article, I am going to summarize the many doctors today who do not take the most extremist pro-vaccine position, which is probably not held by very many doctors at all, in spite of what the pharmaceutical industry, the federal government, and the mainstream media would like the public to believe.