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Thursday, July 31, 2014

Anti-Vaxxer Ginger Taylor Fancies Herself a Film Critic Now

American anti-vaxx loon Ginger Taylor has written a review (for a very limited value of review) of Invisible Threat, a short documentary made by Carlsbad High School students and due to be released 1 August 2014.  Ms. Taylor attended a limited screening event in her hometown and is very very mad.  I can at least credit her with actually watching the film before trashing it, unlike her anti-vaxx "colleagues" who simply attacked it and the student filmmakers because it was about autism, vaccines and had Dr. Paul Offit in it.

Ms. Taylor's "review" can be found in it's incomprehensive rambling entirety on her blog.  I have no intent to go point by point but the parts of her incoherent, spittle-flecked diatribe that I could decipher bear the need for correction.
It was a flier for the new "hit" vaccine propaganda piece, "Invisible Threat."  (Since when to people who are in a film, review the film? Oh wait... HHS owns patents on the vaccines it licenses and recommends... forgot who I was dealing with.)
I'll actually give some credit to Ms. Taylor about that particular review however there are many more which can be found by professionals who had nothing to do with the production of the film.  The HHS (Health and Human Services I presume) does not own patents and licenses for recommended vaccines.  Those are held by the manufacturers.  For example, MMR II is owned and licensed by Merck while the Prevnar 13 license is held by Wyeth.  This is a pretty rookie mistake by an alleged "well-researched" anti-vaxx "activist".
You see I have a beloved friend and advocacy partner named Becky Estepp. You all know Becky, she has been a regular on Fox News Channel, and lots of local San Diego area news pieces for years.  If you want to talk a parent in Southern California who can discuss the problems with the vaccine program, and its relationship to the autism epidemic, Becky is your go to gal.

Four years ago, she got a phone call from a high school boy from CHSTV, an awkward sophomore, who said they were making a documentary, and had some questions.  Becky had a long conversation with him, but could tell some of the things she was trying to teach him were a bit over his head.  Then she never heard from anyone on the film again.

Cut to this year when she sees the trailer for "Invisible Threat," and realized THIS was the project she was interviewed for. A totally biased piece, allegedly done by teenagers, that was a bit difficult to believe was done by teenagers.  Why did they not interview her for the actual film?  Great question... I wondered too!
This never happened so either Becky Estepp and/or Ginger Taylor are flat out lying.  Firstly, the Invisible Threat documentary wasn't even proposed until 2012 yet Ms. Taylor claims that Ms. Estepp spoke to a student in 2010, two years prior to it's proposal to CHSTV Films.  How does that work without a Tardis?  Secondly, no students are allowed to make contact with adults like that; they are minors after all.  The parent volunteers will always initially contact potential interviewees.  No one from CHSTV Films ever spoke with Becky Estepp.
We also wondered, "Kids made this?  Really?"  From my estimation, yes they did.  But it seems pretty obvious that they were lead around by the nose on what what and how to "investigate."  In fact we were told at the outset that one of the kids parents worked for Scholastic and "helped" the kids.  I am sure that Rotary "helped" too.  Also apparently the Gates Foundation, "helped"... so....
How is it obvious that the students were "lead around by the nose"?  Was Ms. Taylor there?  Has she bothered to interview anyone involved with the production of Invisible Threat?  Of course not, then she couldn't just rectally-source her claims.  The fact is, is that the students worked completely independently of the Rotary Club; they made it very clear what they wanted to do and they will do it on their own.
But the young people and their advisors thought the Rotary proposal — to make a 20-minute educational film explaining how the immune system and immunization work — seemed boring, they said. And they bristled when the Rotarians told them how the movie should be made, added Bradley Streicher, one of the students who worked on it.

"We said, if we do this, we have to do this on our terms," he said. "We wanted to explore this from both sides."
I have spoken extensively with one of the parent volunteers who informed me that the students decide on the issue, research it, write it, conduct the interviews, conduct filming and editing.  Parent volunteers such as Douglas Green and Lisa Posard assist with contacting subjects, filming and ask some follow-up questions only after the students have interviewed subjects.  I guess given Ginger Taylor's limited ability to grasp science, she needs to project that onto others.  What is the anti-vaxx mantra?  "Do your own research."  These students did and they just didn't find anti-vaxx claims evidence-based or compelling.
She explained that this was the first time the film had been shown in New England (Really? They picked Portland, Maine?) and later explained that one of the reasons that it has not been widely distributed is because the children received death threats after the movie, just like poor Paul Offit (who we have asked for some documentation on these threats, a police report, anything, because, you know... if that shit is really happening, then NOT OK, and we would shame such people into oblivion for it... cause we are kinda sick of being called "baby killers" and being threatened with Child Protective Services as well.)
If Ms. Taylor was told the students received death threats then she was misinformed.  No one involved with CHSTV Films ever claimed they received death threats.  They have however received numerous threats of harm, harassment and intimidation meant to scare them away from completing the project and it nearly worked except the students you claim were "lead around by the nose" convinced the school to let them stay the course.  The school has records and aren't obliged to share them with other anti-vaxx loons.  Ms. Taylor seems to be justifying death threats to Dr. Offit (and he has received actual death threats) just because she doesn't like him.  Are anti-vaxx loons so morally challenged that they can't just condemn the practice of threats and intimidation no matter who they are directed against?  Seems not.
So the film begins, and it is all the same tropes.  It's all Wakefield's fault.  Your body is crawling with a bazillion creatures out to kill you.  Mothers of children who have died of "vaccine preventable" illnesses are beautiful and worthy of your compassion.  Mothers of children who believe vaccines cause their child's autism are into hippy dippy crap like rubbing oils on their kids and moving their limbs around to heal them.
If Ms. Taylor's "assessment" of the film and those involved wasn't bad enough, she goes on to mock mothers who lost their children to vaccine preventable diseases.  Not much more I can say other than to let Ms. Taylor's callous remark reflect upon her.  It is odd that she would be critical of the "vaccines cause autism" mom who engages in alternative medicine when she is representative of the very crowd that Ms. Taylor circulates in.  Perhaps she would have been more approving if the students interviewed the ditchpig mothers who force industrial bleach enemas, drinks and baths onto their autistic children then gush when the poor child shits out his intestinal mucosa.  Maybe parents forcing useless and dangerous chelation on their autistic children based upon bogus tests would meet with Ms. Taylor's approval.  Better yet, how about the one two punch of the Geiers and Mayer Eisenstein that involves falsely diagnosing precocious puberty, chemical castration with Lupron and then chelating?  Or any of the other abusive "biomed" you subject your children to?  Be careful what you wish for Ms. Taylor, had the students dug a little deeper, how much better does your hippy dippy autism mom look now?
The docs that treat their kids are unattractive quacks.  The docs that say vaccines are totally safe are attractive and established and should have angelic music behind them when they speak.
Actually the pro-science, evidence-based physicians who appeared in Invisible Threat had very ominous music playing in the background and they also never said that vaccines were "totally safe".  But more importantly, I would again caution Ms. Taylor to be careful what she wishes for.  Would the previously mentioned quacks like the Geiers, Keri Rivera or Jeff Bradstreet presented better than Dr. Centers?  What difference should it make what they look like, isn't the information they provide be of utmost import?  Perhaps Ms. Taylor had an epiphany (albeit brief) that anti-vaxxers look bad because their message and information are bad.  Ms. Taylor would no doubt be more approving of "more attractive" quacks like Dr. Bob Sears and Dr. Jay Gordon.  They were contacted by CSHTV Films to participate and too bad they both declined to grant them interviews.

Ms. Taylor seems to take a tremendous amount of pride in "unleashing" on the panellists present to answer questions after the Invisible Threat screening.

So this is toward the end of the panel discussion, and I just unloaded on them. And not gracefully either.  The angry, talking 60 miles an hour Ginge burst out of me.  I explained that I was the mother of a vaccine injured child and... blah blah insert my creds here... and watching the movie (that they had all extolled) was hard for me because it contained so much that was false and incomplete and sucky.  (I didn't really say sucky.)

So Dr. Blaisdell addressed me very nicely/handled me, and asked me questions, so I was like.. "Fuck it... I am just going to keep talking as long as they will let me," which was a while. But then she brought it around with a "well what would you recommend for us" giving me a final say... again, good, but totally handling me. 
Of course you were being handled with kidd gloves; that's what sensible people do when confronted with an unhinged, gibbering person in close proximity.  It's quite a lack of self-awareness on Ms. Taylor's part to think that she dazzled them with her facts rather than scared the wits out of them.  Again, this is all I care to try and decipher but for those with more fortitude than I may find the rest of her rant to be an exercise in some kind of psychopathology if that's their interest.

6 comments:

  1. Letting a loon like Taylor (or Estepp or any of the other "leaders" of antivaccinationism ramble on usually turns them into their own worst enemy as they start spewing increasingly unbelievable nonsense. Sounds like Ginger didn't let us down this time either.

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  2. Thanks for writing this up. The AVers, like Ginger, have their own brand of truthiness.

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  3. Oh...I read Ginger's blog. She really is quite delusional and nasty.

    I also made a generous donation to the project and I am immensely impressed with the school filmmaker's grasp of their subject.

    Thanks Science Mom, for covering the film, the obstacles the filmmakers faced...and the ranting screed produced by the notoriously anti-vaccine blogger

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  4. Ginger Taylor and her "vaccine-injured child" are feature in a local Maine article about vaccines. Too bad, Ginger hasn't attracted a group of followers who actually believe her nonsense. The overwhelming majority of commenters are quite pro vaccine and pro science:

    http://www.pressherald.com/2014/08/10/more-maine-families-are-skipping-or-delaying-childhood-vaccines/

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    1. Ms. Taylor was complimented on being "a voice of reason". I laughed. But I'm saddened by the notion that there are a non-trivial number of children who are growing up with the idea that they are damaged and need to be cured. The damage will be done before these anti-vaxx/biomed parents wake up to see what they have created. Although I doubt they will ever take responsibility for that.

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  5. Andrew Wakfield's case in Texas is OVER!

    NO. 03-12-00576-CV
    Dr. Andrew J. Wakefield, MB, BS, Appellant
    v.
    The British Medical Journal Publishing Group, Ltd.;
    Brian Deer; and Dr. Fiona Godlee, Appellees

    APPEAL FROM 250TH DISTRICT COURT OF TRAVIS COUNTY BEFORE CHIEF JUSTICE JONES, JUSTICES GOODWIN AND FIELD AFFIRMED -- OPINION BY JUSTICE FIELD

    This is an appeal from the judgment signed by the trial court on August 3, 2012. Having reviewed the record and the parties’ arguments, the Court holds that there was no reversible error in the trial court’s judgment.

    Therefore, the Court affirms the trial court’s judgment. The appellant shall pay all costs relating to this appeal, both in this Court and the court below.

    ReplyDelete