Free Speech Redux - 04.28.15

David tackles free speech again on Episode 56 of “The Infectious Myth”. He starts with reservations about the elevation of Charlie Hebdo to sainthood, reading from remarks of Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau, and both sides of the writers boycotting an upcoming PEN gala because of the writer’s organization award to Charlie Hebdo. 

Vaccination is clearly a new free speech issue, with nary a discouraging word being heard in the Mainstream Media. The MMR vaccine is a strange new poster child for pro-vaxxers, strange because it is a vaccine with potentially life-altering or deadly side effects against three diseases that very rarely are. David reads from the Merck vaccine manual, discusses a strange new study that is being used to claim that MMR vaccination doesn’t cause autism, and also reads from a recent rebuttal that he wrote to a Canadian magazine promoting mandatory vaccination. Not surprising that the magazine refused to publish it, so you heard it here first.

PEN on Charlie Hebdo: http://www.pen.org/blog/rejecting-assassins-veto

Boycott of PEN: http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainment/books/Michael+Ondaatje+boycotting+gala+over+honour/11007494/story.html

Garry Trudeau’s full remarks: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/04/the-abuse-of-satire/390312/

Glenn Greenwald on the Charlie Hebdo/PEN Controversy:

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/27/writers-withdraw-pen-gala-protest-award-charlie-hebdo/

Merck MMR II vaccine label: http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/m/mmr_ii/mmr_ii_pi.pdf

Kennedy on mercury in vaccines:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24IZ4uwiflk

Daily Beast on Kennedy/Maher interview:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/24/bill-maher-anti-vaxxer-the-real-time-host-sides-with-robert-f-kennedy-jr-during-bizarre-interview.html