I know Robert DeNiro was a little crazy regarding vaccines, but...

[Archae]

I didn't know he was THIS big of an asshole.

https://americanloons.blogspot.com/2024/04/2759-robert-deniro.html

[underpants]

1. First I've heard of him being anti-vax

[niyad]

2. First I have heard of this.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

3. I read about his anti-vax stance a few years ago in Rolling Stone.

[niyad]

4. ah, thank you. I don't read it as much as I probably should.

[Celerity]

7. Robert De Niro and RFK Jr. have joined forces to push vaccine nonsense (February 2017)

Their Washington press conference today is a sign the anti-vaxxers are emboldened.

https://www.vox.com/2017/2/15/14622632/robert-de-niro-rfk-jr-vaccine-press-conference

A month after he met with then-President-elect Donald Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a fervent vaccine fear-monger — descended on Washington, DC, today with actor Robert De Niro to hold a press conference about vaccine safety. The event was a showcase of some of the most thoroughly discredited claims about vaccines, from the notion that they cause autism, to the suggestion that vaccines are a huge source of mercury that’s making kids sick. Kennedy also suggested journalists and the government have been colluding to cover up the truth about vaccine safety, and that the shots have “caused the autism epidemic.”

Shortly after meeting with Trump in January, the environmental activist claimed he was invited to head a vaccine commission — a statement that sent the scientific community into a tizzy but was later denied by Trump’s spokespeople. They clarified that the president was instead looking at “the possibility of forming a committee on autism” but that no decisions had been made at that point. Today, Kennedy said he expects the commission to go forward — and that he had talked to Trump’s team since their meeting — but he couldn’t confirm anything. In a conspiracy theorist’s flourish, he also said Trump told him “he knew that the pharmaceutical industry was going to cause an uproar” about it.



Kennedy has a long history of stoking vaccine doubts, focusing in particular on the claim that the mercury in shots makes kids sick. As Vox’s Dylan Matthews has explained:



Kennedy’s article at Salon was retracted, after the online magazine had to run a series of corrections that contradicted many of the piece’s claims. What’s more, thimerosal, an ethyl mercury-containing antimicrobial, has been removed from most vaccines for children since 2001, with the exception of an inactivated flu vaccine. The public health community did this as a precautionary measure — part of a strategy to reduce mercury exposures from any source. And since then, researchers have found that autism rates among children haven’t gone down. So it’s not clear why Kennedy continues on this mercury and vaccines tirade. What’s more, thimerosal was never used in the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine that some vaccine skeptics claim causes autism.

snip

[hlthe2b]

5. I'd not heard that. I can give a little latitude for having an autistic kid, but I really have to think DeNiro

is not so readily manipulated--RFK JR notwithstanding. It saddens me--especially given the whole saga of the disgraced Wakefield's fraudulent study is overwhelmingly documented and can no longer (for decades now) be defended (to put it mildly). The Brits wisely pulled his medical qualifications over it.

Sigh. I really like DeNiro and would love a few hours to try to talk some sense into him--as difficult as convincing these anti-vaxers can be. Damn...

[Iris]

6. Well, I'm sure his own research didn't lead him to the studies linking older fathers to autism in offspring

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7396152/

[hlthe2b]

8. Yup... His autistic son was 18 when DeNiro revealed it in 2016 and DeNiro is 80 yo today...

So, he'd had to have been at least mid 50s. So, not Tony Randall "old," but still at risk for that association.

(Paradoxically, though, the study you cited was in contradiction to previous studies--which sometimes occurs with a change of quantitative case definition as appears to have been true there)... But previous studies certainly have shown a paternal age correlation.

[Iris]

16. And he just recently welcomed another child!

[Aristus]

10. I hope your time here is short. Anti-vaxx hysteria is dangerous to public health.

BTW, I don't care what Gandhi said; he didn't have a license to practice medicine. He was a lawyer, which should tell you everything you need to know about his medical acumen.

I have a license to practice medicine, and you are spreading misinformation.

[Aristus]

12. What are they going to charge me with? Prevention of deadly diseases? Bring it on.

And stop watching whatever YouTube channel you've glommed onto, because it's doing something nasty to your head.

[Archae]

18. The posts have been removed, and the poster banned.

Whts was it he/she said?

[Aristus]

19. Oh, the usual horseshit.

“The poisoners will be charged and punished for their crimes!” That kind of thing.

I tell you, the anti-vaxxers are the first people who have had me rooting for the virus…

[Archae]

20. The anti-vaxxers should be banned from all medical facilities if they get covid.

BTW, a guy I know got covid, went to get the mRNA vaccine, and got covid 3 more times.

I don't know for certain IF it was actual covid though.

[harumph]

21. That's funny.

Whenever I'd hear about the "devastation" being wrought in red communities,
I'd mutter to myself "...swing and a miss!"

[womanofthehills]

14. Iris - Older fathers could have more chemicals in their bodies

Just from being around longer - stuff accumulating.

Following is an interesting study possibly linking autism to chemical intolerance in a parent.
I became very chemical intolerant after being exposed to old malathion - being wrongly sprayed for mosquitoes by an ignorant city worker. After reading this - glad I had my daughter before this exposure. I developed MCS - also called environmental illness after the exposure & took my city to court. From this paper & others - chemicals in parents body from an acute exposure or smaller chronic exposure can contribute to autism and ADHD.

“Assessing Chemical Intolerance in Parents Predicts the Risk of Autism and ADHD in Their Children”

“In prior papers, we have described how CI (chemical intolerance)begins with a single, high-level exposure to a toxicant such as a pesticide, chemical release, or repeated or chronic lower-level exposures to toxicants such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in a “sick” building [32,34]. For decades, researchers and physicians worldwide have been observing individuals who developed multisystem symptoms and new-onset intolerances to xenobiotics, including formerly tolerated chemicals, foods, and drugs [32,33,44,45,46].” https://www.mdpi.com/2039-4713/14/1/22

[Iris]

17. This is interesting. Thanks for sharing!

[3catwoman3]

15. A relative of mine is one of the major public figures in the antivax...

...movement. Not a Hollywood person, not a health care professional, not a scientist. Has appeared on television with Jenny McCarthy and Dr. Mercola.

Having spent my career in pediatrics II am obviously on the opposite of the fence on this issue. It's a good thing we don't live near each other.