It’s obvious Bob doesn’t work well without a script.
Del BigTree? Sounds like his parents were Database managers… 
I like how DeNiro said he wasn’t a doctor on the Today show. According to the review, Wakefield currently isn’t one either:
What I got out of that summary is (a) DeNiro only wants “the truth”, and (b) the fact that he’s mad as hell and sitting there on the Today show frothing at the mouth is, somehow, proof that the truth is not being told. Actually, it seems to be proof that emotion can drive delusions even in people who might otherwise be reasonably bright.
I think the first comment after the article nailed it: “I truly feel for parents desperate to find something to blame for their child’s disorder, but once you cross the line into spreading dangerous untruths because you want the conspiracy to be true so badly, you must be told to sit down and shut up.”
Hear, hear, to that comment!
So now we know it wasn’t a matter of trying to give a platform to an antivax film to because DeNiro was leaning in that direction. He’s revealed himself to be firmly in the antivax camp, complete with classic tropes (“I’'m not antivaccine, I’m pro-safe vaccine” “they turned autistic overnight after the shot” and “you can’t trust Big Pharma”).
From the link:
This is probably the equivalent of "I’m not a racist, but black people <insert stupid comment here>.
Robert De Niro has always come across as one of those idiot-savant actors with no real personality of his own - an empty vessel waiting for a script. I guess someone handed him one.
It the same article, Alicia Silverstone tweets:
I didn’t realize she was method acting in Clueless, but it makes sense if she’s a fan of DeNiro.
Alicia Silverstone is a walking advertisement for the Unified Theory of the Crank (a.k.a. Crank Magnetism).
Not only is she antivaccine, she also claims that tampons cause infertility, thinks new moms should eat the placenta and also appeared in a video in which she chewed up food she then gave to her baby (arguing that “pre-mastication” is a valuable ancient feeding technique.*
*thankfully she has not come out in support of vomiting up food to give the baby, something that also occurs “naturally” in the animal kingdom.
I am never sure whether I am supposed to vomit up my pre-digested infant food from my second stomach or my third one.
Do it from both–it’s the only way to be sure.
Dogs lick each other’s butts and have sex with strangers on the front lawn, so it’s natural and we should do it too.
:dubious: One of these things is not like the others. Claiming that vaccines and tampons cause autism and/or infertility is sheer pathological gibberish, and placentophagy among humans has always been rare and of dubious value at best.
But pre-mastication or “mouth mush baby food” has been a very widespread and valuable practice for huge numbers of people throughout human history. I wouldn’t care to do it myself, and there’s no practical or medical reason that modern people with access to other methods of food mushification need to do it, but for healthy mothers and babies there’s no real reason not to do it unless it happens to gross you out.
It certainly is not comparable in any way to regurgitation-feeding or other parental behaviors exclusive to non-humans. Let’s not let our righteous fulminations against antivax nuts lead us into unDoperly illogic here.
Pre-mastication can transfer caries causing bacteria if the mom (or whomever is doing the chewing/licking off a pacifier/sharing drinks or utensils) has it. I wish that had been known back when my kids were little. Mistermage has maybe 2 cavities and I have had a ton. All 3 boys have had tiny cavities starting from age 2 (their first dental visits).
“X has been a very widespread and valuable practice for huge numbers of people throughout human history” is a lousy justification for doing anything (“valuable” is highly debatable - you could find plenty of people who even to this day think that female genital mutilation is valuable. It is still practiced in 30 countries and affects hundreds of millions of women).
While not as destructive, it would not surprise me if a great deal of infection and mortality has accompanied “pre-mastication”.
For starters, what if Mom is carrying oral herpes or human papillomavirus and transmits it to her baby that way (both of these viruses are quite common, even in developed countries)?
Alicia Silverstone is an ass, and I fear Kimstu is letting her instinct to defend Indigenous Cultural Practices override her common sense.
:rolleyes: Dude. Pre-mastication has been “valuable” in the sense that it provides weaning infants with solid food in a form they can eat. We really don’t have to get into a cultural-relativism debate about whether there’s any objective “value” in baby food.
[QUOTE=Jackmannii]
While not as destructive, it would not surprise me if a great deal of infection and mortality has accompanied “pre-mastication”.
[/quote]
Sure, most parental behaviors have always been accompanied by a great deal of infection and mortality. But AFAIK there’s no medical evidence that among healthy mothers and children there are any significant risks from pre-mastication. And researchers have noted that even among unhealthy populations, e.g., with high HIV infection rates, the benefits of pre-mastication may be greater than the dangers.
[QUOTE=Jackmannii]
Alicia Silverstone is an ass, and I fear Kimstu is letting her instinct to defend Indigenous Cultural Practices override her common sense.
[/QUOTE]
I am in no way attempting to deny that Alicia Silverstone is an ass, but I think Jackmannii is letting his not-unjustified spluttering rage at her assishness override his capability for logical distinctions.
Ahhh, yes, my college days!
I’m pretty sure Alicia Silverstone and other worshippers of supposedly utopian primitive cultures have access to utensils to cut up food into infant bite-sized pieces.
Not sure where you’re getting that. From your own link:
“the transfer of infectious particles coated by a food bolus into the immature gut of the child has been linked to transmission of human herpesvirus 8 and HIV from infected mothers to their offspring [16, 23], which may be further enabled by coincident enteric infections and malnutrition…Compared with exclusive breastfeeding, it seems biologically plausible that premastication may be an incremental HIV risk factor for a substantial number of infants given mixed feedings.”
And that’s just in reference to HIV infection. As previously noted, other infectious agents (including herpesvirus and HPV) might be transmitted in this way.
I’m just not seeing “benefits” to this practice that outweigh the risks of disease transmission.
Remember when there was a dust-up in this forum about mohels transmitting herpes infections to the genitalia of infants as part of ritual circumcision? One could try to defend this practice on the grounds that it has ancient roots, and has been commonplace and considered valuable by many.
But one would be stupid to do so considering the potential for harm.