Soft tyranny
To the editor:
Somehow today I think more of Robert De Niro than I ever did. The veteran actor and founder of the Tribeca Film Festival came under fire last week after announcing he would screen the film “Vaxxed: from Cover-Up to Catastrophe” at the film festival. “Vaxxed” was axed from Tribeca after other filmmakers threatened to pull out of the festival because of De Niro’s initial intention to show “Vaxxed.”
“All I wanted is for the movie to be seen and people can make up their own judgement, but you must see it,” he said during an appearance on “The Today Show.”
“Let’s just find out the truth,” he stated.
De Niro, who has an 18-year-old son with autism, said he had hoped that screening the film could have started a discussion about the alleged link between vaccines and autism. The actor had not anticipated the “knee-jerk” reaction from filmmakers.
De Niro, who is not anti-vaccine but “pro-safe” vaccine, witnessed overnight the dramatic change in the health of his son, Elliot ,after being given the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine at an early age.
When we deny truth in medicine because participants in a film festival would be given the old “heave-ho” if their films were shown along with “Vaxxed,” why would anybody want to be part of raising money for any issue of Big Pharma including eradication of cancer, heart disease or any multitude of diseases that may come on board such as the Zika virus if truth is being undermined?
Jon Larsen Shudlick
Fort Myers