It can be very interesting to hear what people say when they are in their home element. Ken Reibel showed this when he reported back from an AutismOne parent convention six years ago. More recently, we heard Jenny McCarthy accuse parents who don’t take her advice on alternative medicine of being victim moms who love the attention they get from having a disabled child. So much so that they won’t treat their children. So, with that in mind, I took the time to listen to a talk from this year’s AutismOne convention. The talk by Andrew Wakefield.

Andrew Wakefield, the doctor behind the MMR/autism scare of the 1990’s, spoke at the AutismOne parent convention last week. His talk at AutismOne was The Legacy of Vaccine Injury. It’s much of the same non-autism talk about vaccines one reads online. But one minute of the talk stood out for me. A minute where he describes why he is making films.

Yes, in case you weren’t aware, Mr. Wakefield has a new career as a film maker. He has a documentary on the death of an autistic young man, Alex Spourdalakis. Mr. Spourdalakis was brutally murdered by his mother and caregiver. Mr. Wakefield, as it turns out, had been “helping” the family and was filming their story. That film is finished. Mr. Wakefield tells us why he makes his films in his AutismOne talk. One might ask: is it to demonstrate the needs of autistics? The challenges parents of autistics face? The lack of supports for autistics?

No. It’s best to get it straight from him (although I admit the title of this article gives it away). With that in mind, here’s my best effort at transcribing what he says. For context: he’s speaking to an audience of autism parents at AutismOne, and he’s been talking about how surveys/studies show a sizable minority of the U.S. population believes that vaccines cause autism:

“And there is no mention in these studies of the uncertain or the undecided. There was another poll* that came out, I think from the University of Chicago, in fact. Where they asked the question: ‘Do you believe doctors think that vaccines cause autism and are covering it up?’ 20% of the respondents said yes. The important number is that 36% didn’t know. And it’s that 36% that I am targeting in the films that I am making. They are not for you. You already know. I’d be honored if you watched them but they are not for you. They are for the agnostic. And for that reason they must get out into the mainstream.”

For that reason they must get out into the mainstream

“That reason”: convincing the agnostic that doctors think that vaccines cause autism and they are covering it up. Alex Spourdalakis died a horrific death, and that can be used in this campaign, by inserting him into one of Mr. Wakefield’s films.

Go ahead and listen. It’s about 9 minutes in this video (for some reason the embed code isn’t working so you have to follow the link).

And some people wonder why I am critical of Mr. Wakefield. Yeah, I know that criticizing Mr. Wakefield plays directly into the persona he has created, where he has given everything for the children. But in this case the time as well as the criticism is well deserved.

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By Matt Carey

*In case you are wondering: he appears to be referring to Medical Conspiracy Theories and Health Behaviors in the United States.