Trace Amounts and a Social Media Lynch Mob

I recently purchased Trace Amounts, a documentary that explores the link between mercury and autism. Knowing that others might appreciate the information, I posted the following in a community social media group:

Documentary: Trace Amounts
Has Mercury Caused One of the Worst Health Crises in American History?
During the past 20 years, the frequency of autism occurring in children has skyrocketed from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 68, and the scientific community is no closer to determining a cause. Trace Amounts is the true story of Eric Gladen’s painful journey through mercury poisoning that he believes resulted from a thimerosal-loaded tetanus shot. His discoveries led him on a quest for the scientific truth about the role of mercury poisoning in the Autism epidemic.

I own this DVD and will happily lend to anyone in Sitka.

Aside from one woman who said she wasn’t offended by my post and that she’d like to see the film, the comments were unanimous: Trace Amounts was trash and I was a schmuck. I assured the members of the group that Trace Amounts is not anti-vaccine, it’s anti-mercury. Regardless, the trash/schmuck label remained intact.

Two weeks of negativity later, I posted the following:

The resistance nearly everyone has expressed to watching Trace Amounts is not unexpected. You read your lines and played your parts according to the script the industry gave you with the perfect blend of prejudice, ignorance, fear, and hostility. Your performances were bland and predictable.

I realize that most of you will never watch Trace Amounts. Your pride will never allow it. You will continue to worship in the church of the vaccine, never realizing that the chemical concoctions you worship are created and marketed by criminals. Fraud, sham research, threats, racism, fascism, corruption, and cover-ups are the order of the day in your church.

And in your willing ignorance, you maintain the status quo in this criminal network.

And in your ignorance, you’ll never understand that those dreaded anti-vaxxers are nothing more than parents of vaccine-injured children. Before their children were injured, they worshipped beside you. Before their children were injured, they shamed non-vaccinating parents as trained.

As their numbers grow, so grows the remote chance that they will restore accountability and liability to this corrupt industry. And by doing so, the people you fear the most may one day be responsible for forcing the industry to give your posterity safer vaccines.

My hat is off to Martti (**all names are changed**) for actually watching the documentary. I am still holding out hope that he will complete his review of Trace Amounts. Will he admit that he was wrong? Will he acknowledge that the vaccine industry and the CDC were aware of the mercury/autism link since at least the year 2000? Or will he join with the CDC in covering up that link?

Regardless, at least he had the gumption to watch it. The rest of you can go on dismissing with certainty that which you will never have the courage to see. On this issue at least, you are prejudice personified.

If you don’t like that fact, then face your fear, put away your pride, and open your eyes.

The people who have the power to create a safer vaccine system are the people who realize that the current vaccine system is broken. Join us if you dare.

Watch Trace Amounts.

Cheers,

A short time later my post was banned with this comment:

“Please refrain from personal attacks. Difference in opinions are welcome here, but calling someone ‘ignorant’ because they don’t agree with you is against (group) rules.”

One group member, Jimmy, took particular offense at my “use passive-aggressive ad hominem attacks,” “accusations of ignorance,” and “salacious attacks” in my banned post. He asked me to add context to the information I provided.

In honor of Jimmy’s request for more information, I offer the following to Jimmy, to the other group members, and to the world:

Prejudice is defined as “an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason” and “any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favorable or unfavorable.

My use of the words “prejudice” and “ignorance” was neither passive nor passive aggressive. By definition, prejudice—both favorable and unfavorable—and ignorance have defined this thread from the beginning.

When no one challenged Shirin for making her dogmatic claims that autism is not an epidemic, it does not require a cure, and it has nothing to do with vaccinations and no one challenged Martti for making his unscientific claim that there is no controversy among scientists on the safety and efficacy of vaccines, it was apparent that this thread would be dominated by prejudice, ignorance, and hostility. I was found guilty of wanting to eradicate an entire group of people based on their neurological differences, guilty of having little respect for autistic people, and guilty of being a snake in the grass. When no one challenged these accusations a mob was formed. Throw in a rope and a tree and you would have had a lynching.

This vaccine related social media mob was not unexpected and not without precedent. In fact, it is merely a microcosm of the institutional vaccine related mob system. This system is built upon an irrational fear of infectious disease, an irrational belief that any and all vaccines—past, current, and future—safely and effectively prevent infectious disease, and irrational hostility toward anyone who questions these irrational fears and beliefs.

These fears, beliefs, and hostility are the products of one of the most profitable psyops ever unleashed upon the world. Follow the money and you’ll discover the manufacturers and marketers of the vaccine psyop. From research, medical education, industry, government, and media, this psyop controls the vaccine story and the vaccine/autism story.

The psyop is now failing. Psyop casualties—Moms, Dads, doctors, nurses, scientists, lawyers, whistleblowers, independent media, and others—are waking up, opening their eyes, and refusing to entrust themselves and their families to the care of a system based on profit, corruption, fraud and devoid of accountability and liability. The writing is on the wall. But billion dollar industries don’t just roll over and play dead. They adapt to current circumstances. If they can’t get the public to vaccinate voluntarily, they’ll do it by legal mandate. The industry is now using the so-called Disney measles outbreak to stir up a frenzy of irrational fears and beliefs to move the nation ever closer to a mandatory cradle-to-grave vaccination system. (“National Adult Immunization Plan,” National Vaccine Program Office, February 5, 2015, http://www.hhs.gov/nvpo/national_adult_immunization_plan_final.pdf) (H.R.2232 – Vaccinate All Children Act of 2015, https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2232/text)

Some of those irrational fears and beliefs played out in our recent social media mob. Examples follow:

“Autism is not an epidemic, it does not require a cure and it has nothing to do with vaccinations. Your post and its assertions are an insult to all Autistic people.”

If autism continues to grow at the current rate, one in two children born in next ten to twenty years will be born with or regress into autism. Would it THEN qualify as an epidemic? What right do you have to declare that suffering children do not need to be cured? And if vaccines have nothing to do with autism, why does the CDC destroy the evidence of this very link and why does the government compensate parents for their children’s vaccine-induced autism? Finally, you do not speak for all autistic people and your claim that my post and its assertions are an insult to all such people is an insult to millions who don’t share your dogmatic and deeply prejudicial opinions.

“I would hate to see any credibility given to information based on one, very flawed study published a very, long time ago.”

Assuming that Trace Amounts is based on Dr. Wakefield’s case series is an opinion “formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.” Textbook prejudice. And assuming that Wakefield claimed that the MMR vaccine causes autism is once again based on prejudice and ignorance. He and his 12 colleagues made no such claim. They merely reported, “Onset of behavioral symptoms was associated by the parents, with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination in eight of the 12 children . . .” As scientists do, the 13 authors called for further research to investigate such a link. “We have identified a chronic enterocolitis in children that may be related to neuropsychiatric dysfunction. In most cases, onset of symptoms was after measles, mumps, and rubella immunization. Further investigations are needed to examine this syndrome and its possible relation to this vaccine.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id_AxZ3zHAc

“… and the type of mercury in thimerosal cannot be extracted from the compound by the human body, so cannot give mercury poisoning.”

Powerful statement from a man who later writes, “Plenty of research indicates that mercury is neurodegenerative.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja_7rsLfzzE

“Vaccines work. There is no controversy among scientists on this point. Vaccines are safe. There is no controversy among scientists on this point.”

Welcome to the Church of the Vaccine. Dogma is welcome. Rational thinking is forbidden. You and all who align with you on these unscientific claims render suspect anything you have to offer on the subject of vaccines.

“The rising rate of autism has a lot to do with better diagnosis, leading to a false appearance of rising rates.”

This is one of the psyop’s most successful lies, a lie repeated ad nauseam on industry-controlled media outlets. The great diagnosticians of the 1800s and early 1900s could not have missed a condition affecting 2% of the population. Ph.D. scientists of the 60’s report that they had never heard of autism until well after they finished school. Today, virtually every middle-schooler has heard of it and probably has autistic peers.

“People probably get more mercury in the tuna and seafood they eat than in all the vaccines they get.”

To be within acceptable EPA limits, a person would have to weigh 551 pounds to safely absorb the mercury in the standard Thimerosal-containing vaccine. That standard is based on ingestion, not injection. Injection results in a 100% absorption rate. It’s also based on methylmercury (in fish), not on ethylmercury (in vaccines). An Italian study found that that ethylmercury is 50 times more toxic than methylmercury. Dr. Boyd Haley writes, “It has been well documented that ethylmercury is not only just as toxic as methylmercury (found in fish) but it is actually more toxic. This is because a larger percentage (34%) of ethylmercury will convert in the brain into ionic mercury as opposed to 7% with methylmercury. Ionic mercury is the most toxic form of mercury and is almost impossible to remove from the brain.” The EPA limit does not take into account the fact that many vaccines contain aluminum. The synergistic toxicity of mercury and aluminum is well documented. Neither does the EPA limit consider the fact that many babies are conceived in toxins from vaccines, pesticides, and a host of other environmental sources, all present in their mothers’ bodies. The fact that mercury and other toxins are present in multiple environmental sources would suggest an increased need for vigilance in reducing all exposures, regardless of the source.

“Just a thought, but let’s say for example, you’re discussing a conspiracy about the mafia, and someone hands you a debunking article that was written by the mafia, it doesn’t seem like it should take a rocket scientist to look at this article with serious criticism.”

Just a thought, until you’ve seen Trace Amounts any criticism of its content is based on prejudice and ignorance. But speaking of the mafia, the pharmaceutical industry makes the mafia look like play ground bullies. In the past five years alone, drug makers have paid the U.S. government $19.2 billion in criminal and civil fraud penalties. Richard Smith is not a rocket scientist, however he was the editor of the British Medical Journal from 1991 to 2004. Smith said, “Most of what is published in journals is just plain wrong or nonsense.” Harvard Medical School’s Dr. Marcia Angell shares the same opinion. “It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.”

“Anyone who thinks this documentary has anything to teach them about autistics needs to go and research autism from the actual experts; autistic people.”

Inasmuch as you’ve never seen Trace Amounts, you have no idea what it may or may not teach people “about autistics” and your opinion is based entirely on prejudice and ignorance.

“Autism isn’t something to be scared of; communicable diseases are.”

Countless parents of chronically suffering autistic children from around the world would want to throttle you for merely thinking such a thought. Long before your time, parents got their kids together for chicken pox parties. Now, we’ve traded lifelong immunity from this benign childhood disease for temporary and partial immunity with an increased incidence of shingles.

Long before your time, measles was joked about on TV. Now, we’re terrified of measles, ignorant of the fact that babies born to vaccinated mothers are at increased risk of dying from measles. The same is true of pertussis. “There is growing evidence that measles vaccine–induced antibody levels wane over time, raising a concern that such a decrease in antibody levels could affect maternal passive immunity when vaccinated women reach childbearing years.9,10 Thus, the window of vulnerability of an infant may be even greater in vaccinated women than in with women with natural measles infection.” (Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 79(5), 2008, pp. 787–792, http://www.ajtmh.org/content/79/5/787.full.pdf). The Israel Vaccine Research Institute wrote: “We rely on herd immunity and passive immunity to protect young infants before they can be protected directly by vaccination [26]. Diminishing maternal immunity increases the risk of infection among the youngest age groups.” (The Return of Pertussis: Who is Responsible? What Can Be Done?, https://www.ima.org.il/FilesUpload/IMAJ/0/48/24097.pdf). Rather than fear infectious disease, fear the criminals who create, exploit, and profit from your fears.

“I’m not the one who wants to eradicate an entire group of people based on their neurological differences.” “You don’t get to decide whether or not their lives are worth living and neither do their parents. Our humanity is not measured by whether or not we speak or smear feces on walls.” “I see now how little respect you have for autistic people.”

These statements are so prejudicial, indeed, so bizarre in nature, they would be better suited for a Twilight Zone thread.

“Informed decision is what we’re asking. Facts, rather than fear mongering propaganda is what parents should be presented with.”

Calling for “informed decision” when you refuse to inform yourself is ludicrous. Until you’ve seen Trace Amounts, any accusation of “fear mongering propaganda” is based on prejudice and ignorance. You, in fact, are spreading “fear mongering propaganda” about a documentary you refuse to see.

“100% of the people who watch Fox “news” think Fox is “fair and balanced.” “Customers also love Chuck Tingle.” “100% of kids who believe in the tooth fairy think the tooth fairy is real.”

Mocking people who value Trace Amounts, when you’ve never seen Trace Amounts, is based on prejudice, ignorance, and mean-spiritedness. Your collective review of Trace Amounts would read, “We’ve never seen it, but we know for a fact that it’s garbage and those who disagree are idiots.” Prejudice personified.

“I’m worried about your attempt to spread dangerous misinformation and pass it off as community education when you aren’t educated in the fields of science-based medicine relevant to this topic.”

Until you’ve seen Trace Amounts, any critique of its content is based entirely on prejudice and ignorance.

“I’d think you should be familiar with the concept of confirmation bias, which those review stats are a great example of.”

The difference between the reviewers’ confirmation bias and yours is that they actually watched the documentary. Until you’ve seen the film, your categorical denouncement of its content is based on prejudice and ignorance.

“I hope no one here watches your documentary and decides they’re too worried about some of the (completely disproven) risks of vaccines of vaccines and someone in Sitka becomes sick or even dies from a preventable illness.”

You and the CDC share the same mission: hide the truth to maintain vaccine compliance. If the risks are “completely disproven” why did the government grant blanket immunity to vaccine manufactures and doctors? Why has the government paid out over $3 billion tax payer dollars to the parents of dead or vaccine-injured children? Why does the CDC manipulate its studies and destroy evidence linking vaccines to autism, ADHD, tic disorders, seizures, etc.? Withholding information from your patients about the risks of vaccines violates the principle of informed consent. People have the right to abstain from vaccinations because of those risks. The industry is to blame for creating a corrupt and dangerous vaccine system. The industry is to blame when parents opt out of that system.

“I love medical science and the great things it can do for humanity.”

Love is blind. Your love of medical science sees only its successes, but it has rendered you blind to its warts, greed, and corruption. While improving many lives, the modern medical establishment is also the USA’s third leading cause of death.

“The spread of misinformation like this is a direct insult to what I’m trying to contribute to society with my future career.”

Having never seen Trace Amounts, your claim of misinformation is a direct insult to the scientific method of learning, which you claim to love.

“the doctor who originally claimed to have proved the link between vaccines and autism had his medical license revoked because he admitted that he falsified the information in the study to get the results that he wanted.”

Wakefield again and again and again. Repeating propaganda about Wakefield belies your intelligence and demonstrates a dearth of knowledge on the subject of vaccines and autism. If you had done your research, you would know that Wakefield was lynched by billion dollar industries for violating the Hippocritic Oath: “First do no harm to the vaccine schedule, vaccine compliance, and pharmaceutical profits.” In 2011, Wakefield addressed the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Do you think such a body would risk its reputation by inviting a fraud to speak to them? The audience applauded his presentation, they asked questions of him. Not one doctor challenged him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l67fWVrw8xU

If you had done your research, you would know that Wakefield’s colleague appealed the General Medical Counsel’s ruling and the court found that the GMC’s ruling was based on “inadequate and superficial reasoning” and “wrong conclusions.” The judge concluded, “The panel’s determination cannot stand. I therefore quash it.” (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2111481/Doctor-struck-MMR-controversy-clears-GMC-dismissal-ruled-High-Court.html#ixzz1oXzgkyLA) If you had done your research, you would know that Wakefield never claimed to have proved the link between vaccines and autism. If you had done your research, you would know that the CDC, not Wakefield, substantiated the link between the MMR vaccine and autism. If you had done your research, you would know that the CDC also found and buried the link between Thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism. And if you had watched Trace Amounts, you would know that, aside from one brief mention, Wakefield gets no play in the documentary. The mercury/autism saga extends back at least five decades, much longer if you include the “mad hatters.” The Wakefield lynching is merely a blip on a vast landscape of mercury-induced neurological harm and vaccine-induced neurological harm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VgZszilk7A

“Now the leaders of the cause are not doctors or scientists, but lawyers and a former playboy bunny.”

This, from a man who later accuses me of “intellectual dishonesty”? Do you honestly believe there are no doctors or scientists advocating for safer vaccines? Do you honestly believe that only “lawyers and a former playboy bunny” advocate for safer vaccines?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LB-3xkeDAE

Don’t you want safer vaccines? If you do, then you’ve aligned yourself with “lawyers and a former playboy bunny,” as well as numerous scientists and doctors. If you don’t, then your future may include a lucrative career in fraudulent vaccine research.

“Methylmercury is the type of mercury found in certain kinds of fish. At high exposure levels methylmercury can be toxic to people.”

The CDC is a cesspool of corruption. Quoting the CDC is quoting a cesspool of corruption. After telling subordinates in the CDC to lie about the link between vaccines and autism, Julie Gerberding went on to be the president of Merck’s $5 billion dollar a year Vaccine Division. The CDC is in the business of marketing vaccines. Marketers talk up the benefits and minimize the risks. Claiming that methylmercury can be toxic “at high exposure levels” is marketing propaganda. Scientists have known for decades that methylmercury is toxic in parts per billion. Your skepticism would be better focused on the CDC rather than on a documentary you refuse to watch.

“I think a huge problem with scientific literacy esp regarding toxins is that many people hear a scary word like ‘mercury’ and don’t realize that ‘just a few atoms difference’ doesn’t mean two compounds have the same properties.”

I think a huge problem with scientific literacy is ignoring the decades of research, documented injuries, and deaths due to Thimerosal. Robert Mendelsohn, M.D. wrote, “Some doctors are worried about scaring their patients. . . . I think you should be scared. You’re supposed to be scared when your well-being and freedom are threatened. And you are, right now, being threatened.”

“Education is the key here.”

Unless that education crushes your bias. Then the key is hiding from and discrediting information you can’t possibly discredit because you deny yourself your supposed key: education.

“I wish more science were required too – at least enough that more people might get past the mindset of ‘chemicals are scary!’ because that absolutely depresses me. Better living thru chemistry is real, if you take the time to understand it a bit without getting paranoid.”

While adding to the curriculum, how about including a few courses in critical thinking, logic, and propaganda awareness. Yes, chemicals can be wonderful. Some might even help you with your depression. But paranoia is a normal response to industries based on profit, fraud, and corruption. In 2000, the Journal of the American Medical Association published Dr. Barbara Starfield‘s review in which she wrote that 106,000 people die per year from FDA-approved medical drugs when taken as prescribed. That’s more than a million deaths per decade. That may not be scary to you, but it’s a wee bit scary to the families of those dead Americans. Long before you were born, Robert Mendelsohn, M.D. wrote: “Modern Medicine has succeeded in teaching us to equate medical care with health. It is that equation which has the potential to destroy our bodies, our families, our communities, and the world.” Leo I. Jacobs, M.D., former Medical Director of Forest Hospital, wrote, “The art of medicine flows from the physician’s ability to be introspective and to understand the patient as a human being with certain feelings, thoughts, attitudes, interpersonal relationships, aspiration, and expectations rather than a mere symptom carrier. Such a physician tends to see that patient, and not himself, as the primary person responsible for maintaining health, by leading a meaningful life in which proper nutrition, exercise, and stress management combine with an appropriate balance of love, play, and work within a harmonious family. Such a physician will resort to drugs or surgery only after his understanding of the patient’s predicament has ruled out non-invasive or education, psychological, or social approaches.”

“But I’m in a medical science program (where I’ve learned about vaccines and their associated diseases) and the risk to our community posed by spreading this poorly sourced pseudoscience is what worries me most.”

As long as you refuse to watch Trace Amounts, you’ll remain ignorant of the sources of “this poorly sourced pseudoscience” documentary you’re so worried about. In 2009 the New York Times ran a story about the influence of drug companies in Harvard’s educational curriculum. Harvard medical students were not nearly as impressed by their education, as you are yours. One student said, “We are really being indoctrinated into a field of medicine that is becoming more and more commercialized.” Another said, “Before coming here, I had no idea how much influence companies had on medical education. And it’s something that’s purposely meant to be under the table, providing information under the guise of education when that information is also presented for marketing purposes.” According to the author, “The students say they worry that pharmaceutical industry scandals in recent years — including some criminal convictions, billions of dollars in fines, proof of bias in research and publishing and false marketing claims — have cast a bad light on the medical profession. And they criticize Harvard as being less vigilant than other leading medical schools in monitoring potential financial conflicts by faculty members.” If Harvard’s educational curriculum is tainted, what might that suggest about yours?

“FYI, Dr. Gerry Curatola is a celebrity cosmetic dentist. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a lawyer. Just extra info for anybody who is curious.” “Former Congressman Dan Burton is currently a lobbyist for the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, established by the Church of Scientology to lobby against the use of modern medicine particularly relating to psychiatric medicine.” “Generation Rescue is Jenny McCarthy’s organization. Playboy bunny and one of the early proponents of the work of Dr. Andrew Wakefield who was the British Doctor that had his license revoked for falsifying his study on vaccines causing autism.”

Your commentary reveals much about your prejudice against celebrity cosmetic dentists, lawyers, Playboy bunnies and the Church of Scientology, but it reveals nothing about the content of Trace Amounts. I could just as easily cast aspersions on your credentials as a group member previously did of mine. But that just results in a credentials pissing content. A red herring, a distraction, a sideshow. In the time you’ve taken to pick at anything associated with the documentary, you could have watched Trace Amounts and formed your own first-hand opinion of its content. Of course, that’s never been your intent. Any conclusions you draw about a film you refuse to see reveals nothing but personal bias and prejudice.

“This is not a new argument. This is something a lot of people have done a lot of research on.”

Agreed. And refusing to examine the body of that research (including the CDC’s own studies) renders you incapable of intelligently discussing this issue.

“Implying that borrowing this one film from you and reporting back about it is the only way to understand the issue is blatantly false.”

Implying that I made such an implication is blatantly false. That said, I didn’t start this thread to engage in debate. I started it to share Trace Amounts with interested community members. My offer still stands.

“Dismissing as all dissenting opinions as prejudiced, hostile, ignorant, fearful, prideful, criminal, racist, fascist, and corrupt is intellectually dishonest. Claiming we worship vaccines is hyperbolic. Despite your use passive-aggressive ad hominem attacks, I would to keep things civil.”

I am not the first to liken modern medicine to a religion. Robert Mendelsohn, M.D. said the same decades ago. “Modern medicine can’t survive without our faith, because Modern Medicine is neither an art nor a science. It’s a religion. . . . Once you understand Modern Medicine as a religion, you can fight it and defend yourself much more effectively than when you think you’re fighting an art or a science.” Criminal, racist, fascist, and corrupt apply to the vaccine industry. Prejudice and ignorance apply to everyone who has commented on the content of the film without having seen the film. I have welcomed dissenting opinion on the film from the get go. I am the only person who has asked Martti to complete his review of Trace Amounts. I’ve done so, because if Martti had watched it in its entirety (he hasn’t), he would have been the only person on this thread, besides myself, capable of discussing its content. All other comments regarding the content of Trace Amounts are, by definition, based on prejudice and ignorance. You would to keep things civil? Prejudice, ignorance, and civility are unlikely companions. “Excuse me, sir, would you like some tea while we lynch you for wanting to eradicate autistic people based on something we know nothing about?” The moderators removed my post not because I crossed the line of civility, but because I shed light on the group members’ general absence of civility and the pervasive presence of prejudice, ignorance, and hostility.

“I went to a Vaccine Church wedding once, and it was a beautiful ceremony. My favorite part was when the bride tossed a bouquet of syringes and the flower girl caught them. Tradition holds that that means she’ll be the next to not get diptheria.”

Not funny to the millions of people whose lives are traumatized by vaccine-injury and death.

“There was none in any of the research I did. Plenty of research indicates that mercury is neurodegenerative, but I could find none that made a connection between autism and either methyl or ethyl mercury. Also, nothing I’ve read has shown that autism is neurodegenerative in nature.”

Martti, your initials comments were so scientifically unsound that you pretty much disqualified serious consideration of any further comments your might offer on this thread. But you’ve gone from bad to worse. In my now banned post, I complimented you for having the gumption to watch Trace Amounts. You let my comment stand knowing that it wasn’t accurate. You started the film, you stated you’d complete the film and complete your review, but you did neither. When I asked you to provide Jimmy with information regarding the link between vaccines and autism, you replied, “There was none in any of the research I did.” If that’s true, it’s only true because you failed to watch the film in its entirety. If I’m wrong, please finish your review as you stated you would. If I’m right, then I was wrong about you having courage. Up until now, you’ve shown none. Only you have the power to change that.

“I didn’t ask for more info on the vaccine/autism link. I asked for you to add context to the information you provided in response to my statements instead of passive aggressively attacking me. If you lack the ability to do that, I’ll be done because that means no matter what I say I’ll be made to look like a fool by your salacious attacks.”

You’re not a fool; you’re a human being, which means you, me, and everyone else operates on prejudice and ignorance. Pointing out that fact is not a “salacious attack,” it’s merely stating the obvious. If I were to salaciously attack you, I would say something like this: “You want to eradicate an entire group of people based on their neurological differences. You don’t get to decide whether the lives of autistic people are worth living and neither do their parents. I see now how little respect you have for autistic people. You’re a snake in the grass.” Or as has been said of me in other vaccine related threads, I would call you a child abuser, murderer, and a mother F’er. I did none of those things. When I’m attacked in such a manner, I sometimes react based on prejudice and ignorance. I say or do things I later regret. It’s all part of being human. The best we can hope for is to be aware of our prejudices, be open to new information, make amends, and move forward.

Jimmy, you are a reasonable person. You deplore prejudice in so many other contexts. Ask yourself why you and the other reasonable people on this thread surrendered your critical thinking skills to unfounded fears and beliefs. Why you engaged in debate from a place of self-imposed ignorance. Why you chose to take part in this mob activity.

Figure it out. Your life and the lives of your posterity may well depend on it.