’)ABC Bosses Tell ABC News Kill The Interviews With Robert Kennedy Jr. &
ABC corporate executives at the network’s highest levels ordered three interviews with Robert Kennedy Jr. pulled from ABC News programming.
The interviews all centered around Mr. Kennedy’s investigation of thimerosal, a mercury based preservative, used in vaccines given to children and believed to be responsible for increasing cases of neurological diseases including autism.
“Ix-nay on the uth-tray about those autistic kiddies. The litigation on this will reach in the billions, and our investments in Big Pharma will be down by 12.5%”
A hypothetical ABC Memo that is being purged from their servers as we speak…
I see now they’ve flipped and will run the interview today. Years ago I worked in broadcast news. Based on my experiences (for instance, being told by a producer, “Don’t mess with the sponsors”), I assume ABC didn’t want to rock the ad-revenue boat since so much of their news advertising is from Big Pharma.
Well, really. its a left wing news network dealing with a left wing politician. You guys sort it out.
Dugger
*rolls his eyes at Dugger*
Come back when you grow up.
Pionar “Can I have some more from the GOP Kool-Aid, Mr. Ailes?”
It would be nice if it were as simple as left + left, but based on my experience working for various news outlets, including ABC, the real overarching agenda in the media is the same as at any other large hierarchy: Cover your ass. No one wants to choke off ad revenue any more than they want to upset powerful sources.
Redneckmama, you hit it on the head. Very few news sources are willing to be partisan because of the ad revenue.
Right-wing news is most prevalent bias because most large businesses (advertisers) benefit from the right wing, i.e., no regulation, no worker rights, pro-defense department, low/no tax.
Watch Noam Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent”. This is what kills me about accusations of left-wing “bias” at places like NY Times and Washington Post.
Culturally, these papers may be liberal on social issues, but they are pro-corporatist, because the people paying the bills are businesses.
Do you think that the NY Times is going to run an article coming down hard on a business that is a big advertiser? Do you think that the Washington Post is going to run an article attacking the business model of a potential advertiser?
People who think that the press would offend a large advertiser editorially also probably think Terri Schiavo would have been a ballet dancer with just a little therapy and prayer.
Before you jump too far up on the castigation bandwagon, you might want to take a look at the science involved in this. Not one other scientist has reproduced the results cited, and most call it pseudoscience. RJKjr doesn’t exactly enjoy a stellar reputation as a scientist. I have the same opinion of the MSM that most here do, but once in awhile, just like the blind hog, to mix metaphors, they do something right. I’m not a scientist, and I’m not ready to say definitively that the autism/thimoseral connection is wrong, but scientists whose opinions I respect do doubt it. If you’re truly interested, you can do a search on PubMed and read all the relevant papers yourself. It does take some modicum of scientific knowledge to understand all of it, but if you want to criticize scientists, you should make the effort.
And please pardon my error in the above post: It’s Institute of Medicine, not Institutes. Duh.
Before you jump too far up on the castigation bandwagon, you might want to take a look at the science involved in this.
I ve been reading every article I can find on potential causes of autism for more than six years now, since I became a parent. I’ve long been skeptical of claims that vaccines are related to autism, but I am appalled at the CDC’s hiding of data.
Not one other scientist has reproduced the results cited,
This isn t about reproducing results (these are medical record data, not experiments it would be unethical, by the way, to reproduce any experiment on children in which autism was the outcome) but about statistical analysis of data: (all bold quotes are from RFK Jr.’s article)
According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency’s massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines — thimerosal — appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children.
And after the secret meeting, no other scientists had access to the data to run their own analyses:
The CDC paid the Institute of Medicine to conduct a new study to whitewash the risks of thimerosal, ordering researchers to “rule out” the chemical’s link to autism. It withheld Verstraeten’s findings, even though they had been slated for immediate publication, and told other scientists that his original data had been “lost” and could not be replicated. And to thwart the Freedom of Information Act, it handed its giant database of vaccine records over to a private company, declaring it off-limits to researchers.
and most call it pseudoscience.
The label doesn t change the data.
RJKjr doesn t exactly enjoy a stellar reputation as a scientist.
RFK Jr. is an attorney. You re not a scientist either (see below) but you consider your assessments valid.
I have the same opinion of the MSM that most here do, but once in awhile, just like the blind hog, to mix metaphors, they do something right.
Agreed. However, having firsthand experience of how that blind hog is turned into sausage, I’m skeptical in this case.
I m not a scientist, and I m not ready to say definitively that the autism/thimoseral connection is wrong, but scientists whose opinions I respect do doubt it.
Again, the scientific community was denied access to the database in question. Without facts, opinions are of little use.
If you re truly interested, you can do a search on PubMed and read all the relevant papers yourself.
Indeed. If you do a search on PubMed for thimerosal autism, you will find two articles, one to review the changes that have taken place in active immunization in the United States over the past decade dated October 2001 and citing a report from the Institutes of Medicine that no link between vaccines and autism had been found. Yes, these Institutes of Medicine:
[The CDC] instructed the Institute of Medicine, an advisory organization that is part of the National Academy of Sciences, to produce a study debunking the link between thimerosal and brain disorders. The CDC “wants us to declare, well, that these things are pretty safe,” Dr. Marie McCormick, who chaired the IOM’s Immunization Safety Review Committee, told her fellow researchers when they first met in January 2001. “We are not ever going to come down that [autism] is a true side effect” of thimerosal exposure.
And the other search result in PubMed from 2003, BC lawsuits try to link thimerosal to autism, which contains the quote from a Canadian health authority, “I don’t think they will be able to find a credible scientist who will be able to show large studies where this [has been proved].”
Again, see the fact (above) that researchers were denied access to the database.
It does take some modicum of scientific knowledge to understand all of it, but if you want to criticize scientists, you should make the effort.
This isn t about spurning scientists or science; it s about criticizing the CDC for placing the interests of pharmaceutical companies ahead of children s health, about the CDC denying other scientists access to the data in question, about pharmaceutical companies placing cost concerns ahead of the risks to individual children and about the complicity of people like Bill Frist in covering for the vaccine makers.
But thanks for the tip.
Try reading http://oracknows.blogspot.com/2005/06/saloncom-flushes-its-credibility-down.html
I won’t argue any more. You’re obviously convinced, so it’s pointless to continue, and I’m not really convinced either way.