Remember Jamie Bernstein? Her site, hug me, I’m vaccinated, should give you an idea of her stance. She’s the woman who took a picture with Andrew Wakefield at his big rally last year, and slipped him a note that said
Dear Andrew Wakefield,
I know that you truly believe that what you are doing is helping people and that the ends justify the means, but I just want you to know that the things you are doing –- the actions you have taken in the past have hurt people –- killed people. Your work has scared and manipulated parents into not vaccinating their children, putting them and their entire community at risk, all in the name of safety. Children have died because of you. I just want to make sure that you fully understand that.
Sincerely,
Jamie
It turns out that Ms. Bernstein attended AutismOne this year. AutismOne is a parent conference that promotes, amongst other things, the vaccine-injury model of autism. Last year they gave Andrew Wakefield an award–after he was struck off the register in the UK for ethics violations. This year they are hosting talks by Mark and David Geier, the father-son team that has recently run afoul of the medical authorities in their home state of Maryland. To be clear, the Geiers are frequent annual speakers at AutismOne.
Ms. Bernstein was live tweeting the conference. Yes, she has a viewpoint different than the conference organizers. And, she was with Ken Reibel, a journalist who was ejected a few years back for asking a question of Terry Poling (mother of Hannah Poling).
The response by AutismOne?
It apparently takes 3 security guards and 4 police officers to kick me out. Did I mention I did nothing wrong? #antivaxcon
Yep. 3 security guards and 4 police officers.
Why did they stop there? She is obviously a very imposing figure. She’s the one on the left:
OK, they hooked me. I decided to check out the live stream. I joined 39 other people watching Mark Blaxill tell us the same old mercury story.
The hotel security had no comment, but forwarded me to the Lombard police. Lombard police would not comment either.
The message is clear: don’t show up to AutismOne if you aren’t on board with their message. They will not ask you to leave, they will call in the police.
Paranoid set of delusional shits.
They know full well that they’re in the wrong with their ideas if they’re chucking people out!
The conference organizer was at a loss to explain to the police why I was being asked to leave. I made sure to ask the officers to get a statement from her for the police report. If she is honest, she will say “We asked those two to leave because they write critical things about us.” If she says we were breaking conference rules, then she will be lying to the police.
I heard today that a Trib reporter was kicked out of the conference yesterday. It wasn’t Trine.
Just sickening. Truly disgusted by that.
There were two Lombard squad cars parked in front of the hotel when we arrived at 10 am. They were on call all morning. How many officers does Lombard, Illinois have for a weekend day shift?
Just out of clarity, Hug Me! I’m Vaccinated! isn’t so much my website, but it does belong to the Women Thinking Free Foundation, of which I’m Vice President. So, I’m affiliated with the site, even if it’s not mine alone. =)
Jamie,
thanks for the clarification. I was taking the site it from your twitter page–so, “your” was sort of loose.
Ken Reibel,
Been there/done that for you, isn’t it? Last time there was a fair amount of less-than-accurate information put out about your removal from AutOne. As to the police cars and presence, my guess is that the opportunity to “protect a celebrity” might be the reason.
Sniffer,
I guess I won’t be hearing any complaints about whether your friends and/or sockpuppets aren’t allowed to comment here any more? If police escorts are appropriate for making a few comments on twitter, abusing the hospitality of this site surely warrants some action.
AutismOne screwed up…again. No surprises there. Make a big deal out of nothing. All they had to do was say, “please, Mr. Reibel, we would like you and your guest to leave now. It is within our rights.” But, why do that when they can invoke the police state? I guess the police state is OK in fact, but when it is invoked in rhetoric about vaccines it’s bad.
Dear All,
Could be that security is for your security. If people such as above think they can go to another organisation’s meets, and throw dirt via Twitter, what planet are they on?
Ejected for being inflammatory to the organisers and attendees’ would be a justifiable supposition to act as was manifested by security.
Sincerely
Sniffer
Wow. What a waste of police resources. I find this incredible.
@Sniffer:
What country do you live in? It’s my understanding that in the USA, you can’t even stop the Westboro Baptist Church from picketing funerals. I believe attendees who have paid the fee for a conference have the Constitutional right to attend that conference, inflammatory or not. If their money wasn’t refunded, they shouldn’t have been ejected.
If you’re suggesting that violence might have been perpetrated without the removal of these people, what does that say about your “movement” and its constituents?
“Could be that security is for your security. If people such as above think they can go to another organisation’s meets, and throw dirt via Twitter, what planet are they on?”
I think they come from Earth, specifically a part of Earth which is classed as “a free country”.
You may wish you lived in the United States of Wakefieldia where posession of vaccines or vaccine paraphenalia is punishable by being forced to read Age of Autism.com until your brain melts, but luckily, we don’t.
Dear Kev,
“the police state is OK in fact, but when it is invoked in rhetoric about vaccines it’s bad.”
Pass the big shovel to Aaron and Neuroskeptic ,they need a hand digging holes is such hard work.
Sincerely
Sniffer
It is my understanding that in many places private organizations are able to rent-a-cop.
http://www.rent-a-cop-usa.com/
Where by paying fees they get active duty police to patrol a specific spot. The police are only supposed to enforce the actual law, not the illegal activities of those who are renting them.
I think that all the normal police procedures apply, so if they do something, they have to write it up. It would be interesting to see what the police report on the ejection of Jamie actually says and if the police were lied to as to the motivation. Lying to a police officer under those circumstances is a crime (as I understand it).
I think the ejected person does have a right to get the police report on their ejection. If the ejection was illegal the police may not want to give out the report because the police are the ones that are liable for an illegal ejection.
Daedalus, exactly my thoughts. I asked one of the officers if I could have a copy of the report. He said no problem.
Lombard is a town of 42,000, with 53 patrol officers listed in its 2009 annual report. Of the of officers that escorted Jamie and I was a lieutenant (I recognized his picture in the annual report).
What are the costs of keeping four uniformed police officers on site for eight hours a day for five days? At a conservative $20 an hour, that comes to $640 a day, $3,200 for five days. Who paid for that? Why? Is there a history of lawlessness at past AutismOne event that warrants such a police presence?
Dear Ken,
Why go to these events if your only interest is to undermine the contents of the meet.
Why is it that the President of the USA has security?Apart from it looks important.
Past Autism ,I believe ,meetings have shown the likes of Brian Deer badgering speakers around hotels,conference halls etc in attempt to get a 5 second shoot that can be mis-represented to the naive public.
Sincerely
Sniffer
Sniffer –
At what point do you chant “Who goes clippity-clop, clippity-clop across MY bridge?”
I hope that a copy of the police report will be obtained. And that they’ll be in trouble if they were not acting legally.
Unless the conference organizers were paying the police, I hope they’ll be charged with wasting police time.
I hope that all of Jamie’s out of pocket expenses were refunded, and that she was adequately compensated for her wasted time and the humiliating and intimidatory way in which she was ejected (without first asking her nicely); and that if she wasn’t, she’ll sue
Ken Reibel, Autism One is a meeting for parents (3,000 this year) to share information about recovering their children from iatrogenic injury. Why would they want an ignorant moron like you running around harrassing them in person just like you do all the time on line?
Oreo, a better question is why did AutismOne register me two months ago, and then wait until yesterday to keep me out? Another question: why are you assuming, without a shred of evidence, that I was “running around harassing” parents, when the conference organizers never mentioned my conduct to the police? Are you just making stuff up?
We will now await your reply.
Funny! They let you drive from Milwaukee to Chicago and back for nothing. Good for them.
If you and your family are properly vaccinated Ken, these people pose no danger to you. Why don’t you butt out? This issue does not concern you. The issue is parents trying to heal their children.
“The issue is parents trying to heal their children.”
No, the issue is Wakefield and the Geiers feasting on the vulnerable, and the motley assembly of crooks, quacks, charlatans and idiots who surround the so-called “Generation Rescue”.
Notice that Oreo did not give a proper response to Ken’s answer. But what should we expect from him/her it….
This website poses no threat to you, Oreo. If you can’t answer a simple, questions, then why don’t you butt out?
There were over 3,000 people there. By far the most ever. Professors presenting were from Arizona State, Wake Forest, Harvard, Northern Iowa, U of Minnesota, etc. Wakefield won person of the year award. The Geiers got repeated standing ovations. Mark Geier might know more about vaccine damage bio-markers than anyone. He’s got an incredible pool of data (lab work-ups).
Parents are more optimistic than ever! Ken did not harrass people at the conference. He will though takes things out of context and blog about it at AutismNewsBeat. This is the problem.
Argument from popularity does not exonerate the folks who prey on desperate parents at a conference that will not allow dissenting views.
“The Geiers got repeated standing ovations.”
No kidding? I missed that. May I quote you?
Dear Chris,
Arse about face again.
“Argument from popularity does not exonerate the folks who prey on desperate parents at a conference that will not allow dissenting views.”
Firstly the parents went to see” the folks who prey on desperate parents ” not as you suggest “the folks” preying on the parent’s.
Secondly, “dissenting views” ever been at a G20 summit meeting and the handling of dissenting opinions’ outside by the Police all paid for by the tax payer .
Anyone looking to hijack an Autism meet with “dissenting views” need’s to get a life.
Sincerely
Sniffer
@Oreo, Evil can flourish when good people look the other way. The quackery being flogged at AutismOne warrants public exposure. At the very least we can hope it serves as a cautionary tale to those people contemplating alternative treatments for their ASD children. The 3000 parents in attendance you speak of are being scammed. I feel deeply sorry for them.
Sharon you are so ignorant! We have kids who are punching themselves in the face, banging their heads in the wall, having 20 diarhia (sp) episodes a day. They are taken to a mainstream pediatrician who tells the parent “that’s just autism”, “now let’s get up to date on those 73 vaccine reccomendations”. And you don’t understand why 3,000 parents come to AutismOne?
Sniffer, do you have a reading comprehension problem?
Ken Reibel and Jamie Bernstein had paid to register for the conference, and were acting like every other member of the audience — saying nothing, listening, and (like some) taking notes.
No “hijacking” whatsoever, except in your own mind.
The rest of your comment is a red herring
I wrote this on your other page..but this one seems to have more viewers. I happened upon this story on twitter. Oreo and Sniffer, Agreed!
what I wrote earlier…
“I’m glad they kicked you out. Go spew your negativity somewhere else. Who wants you there anyway? Lie and let live . Reading this makes me so angry. It’s so disrespectful to the parents , speakers and organizers of this event. Why would you even go if you hate AO/GR so much? I haven’t read up on you, but DO YOU OR YOUR PARTNER have a kid with autism? Also, this was NOT any kind of freaky anti vax rally. It was people learning how to help their kids. And, in the movie Jenny made..she repeatedly said she was NOT anti vaccine. Glad you were kicked out..since it’s all about ELIMINATING toxins.
For what it’s worth..this is just my 2nd year there. I have a child on the spectrum who was born that way and was and still is vaccinated. I was so happy to learn of this organization AND my son’s health has improved as a result of me attending this conference last year. There is so much more to it than Dr. Wakefield and Canibis, but if that’s what you FOOLS wish to focus on go ahead.”
Liz-every other member of the audience wasn’t there to make trouble, spy,speak negativity…they were there for support, resources and information. Kind of like if you guys go to a “inconsiderate or disrespectful conference”..you’d be in your community and could learn from your peers who are also RUDE.
I’m annoyed that I let myself get sucked into this. I was on such a high from a great week at AO/GR…and it wasn’t from the canibis. It was from the sense of community and abundance of information I found.
Lis claims…Ken Reibel and Jamie Bernstein had paid to register for the conference, and were acting like every other member of the audience—saying nothing, listening, and (like some) taking notes.
Susie,
I appreciate your comments on the matter, but I would just like to respond by saying I don’t hate AutismOne or Generation Rescue or any of the parents at the event. I don’t have a child with autism (although I have a close family member and a friend who does). Ken does have a child with autism. We did nothing disrespectful to any parents or speakers. We were merely observing. Personally, I went to understand more about AutismOne and Generation Rescue. I’m trying to understand the needs they fulfill for parents of children on the spectrum, even if I don’t agree with a lot of the things they do. I’m also a university student who has been studying the autism community, but I wanted to see first-hand.
I know there is more at the conference than Wakefield and cannabis, but unfortunately I was unable to see any of that due to being kicked out. What kind of community is one that will not let in outsiders even just to observe?
Jamie
Dear Susie,
There is “no other page”. I think you are confused. Let me clarify.
This is the LeftBrain/RightBrain blog. a group blog. Kev Leitch is the owner and lead editor; Sullivan is a very frequent contributor. Kev Leitch is a UK resident and citizen; Sullivan is a US resident and citizen.
The other blog you posted on is Autism News Beat, (in the old time news phrase) owned and operated by Ken Reibel (the man who was ejected from AutismOne yesterday).
To the best of my knowledge (which is considerable) there are no legal or financial ties between Kev Leitch, Sullivan, or Ken Reibel, or their blogs.
On the other hand, I do know that Leitch, Sullivan and Reibel are at least pen-pals. How do I know that? Because I am pen pals with all the three aforenamed men.
Dear Susie,
You wrote,
<every other member of the audience wasn’t there to make trouble, spy, speak negativity
Point #1: Neither Reibel nor Bernstein were there to “make trouble”. If you think they were, please provide evidence.
Point #2: “spy”. Both Reibel and Bernstein had paid their conference fees like everyone else. How is that “spying”?
Point #3: “speak negatively” — please provide evidence that either Reibel or Bernstein approached any other conference attendee to “speak negatively”. Publishing an evaluation of the contents of a given talk afterwards doesn’t count. “Criticism” or a close reading of a talk — including its weaknesses — isn’t “negativity”.
LOL Susie… spy?? Is that what they were doing? What kind of top secret intel do you suspect they were able to obtain?
Seems to me that if they have people who don’t believe the anti-vax rhetoric that having them there to hear all of their information is exactly what they’d want. But then, I don’t work so hard to convince people of conspiracy theories so I’m not entirely sure how your group goes about it.
Apparently it’s all hush hush… damn those spies for trying to find out!
I’ll stick with those “inconsiderate or disrespectful conference” where everyone is welcome and encouraged to get involved no matter their views. I prefer that kind of “rude” peers.
They know full well that they’re in the wrong with their ideas if they’re chucking people out!
No, I think it’s just that they have an overdeveloped “Us vs Them” mentality.
Oreo, I have a child with Autism. I am not ignorant about the challenges of parenting a child on the spectrum. I understand the motivation to want to help your child anyway you can, but that sense of desperation makes people vulnerable to scams.
“Mark Geier might know more about vaccine damage bio-markers than anyone. He’s got an incredible pool of data (lab work-ups).”
These are the same Geiers who thought that mercury bound up testosterone into sheets while in a human body because if you add equal parts testosterone and mercury chloride to hot benzene it forms into sheets. This does not exactly inspire any confidence that they’ll be able to correctly identify any biomarkers.
Pot? Sign me up.
Seriously, they had cops there and no one did anything about the pot? Doesn’t anyone remember Nancy Reagan and Just Say No?
Only dopes use dope…. it might be a sincere organization but my estimation of it just went down a bundle.
Now what was going on about free speech and scamming?
Freeze! DEA!
We’ve Got Security and Police (and even Pot?)
Woodstock?
Dear Liz,
Well how would the survivors of Srebrenica feel if Commander of the Bosnian Serbs , Ratko Mladic turned up for a survivors meeting? do you think he would be allowed to sit and observe?
We all know how his daughter felt about his Mlodic`s “successful life” his daughter shot herself with his favorite gun meant to be fired on the birth of his first grandson.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/20110530/ts_dailybeast/14419_ratkomladicscapturemaybringjusticeforvictims1
The reason for my using the above is because some people on here treat the Autism Community as “it happens to someone else” to be mocked they are nuts anyway type of attitude,especially on here.
Ignore the Autism Community and it`s doctors at your peril, ridicule them at your peril but you will never defeat them because the parents know what is right and know what is wrong and who is evil and who is not.
Sincerely
Sniffer
P.S. As usual and it was Mladic`s daughter who was innocent but copped for it despite Mladic`s ill gotten gains.
Sniffer, thats the most OTT and ridiculous analogy I think I’ve ever heard. A new version of Godwin maybe?
Jamie Bernstein has filed two reports on her experience at AutismOne
Skepchick (part I)
http://skepchick.org/2011/05/autism-one-conference-skeptics-will-be-prosecuted-to-the-fullest-extent-of-the-law
Friendly Atheist (Part II)
http://friendlyatheist.com/2011/05/30/how-i-got-kicked-out-of-the-autismone-con-part-2/
Susie: You’re right of course – it’s terribly dangerous for people like Reibel to ask questions at AutismOne – it’s hard enough to keep the scam going without Reibel trying to ruin everything.
“Ignore the Autism Community and it`s doctors at your peril”
Sort of hard for me to do that. I’m there when a part of the autism community goes to sleep at night, and the autism community wakes me up first thing every morning.
I rely on the doctors who work with the autism community.
The “doctors” like David Geier who have inserted themselves into the autism community, however, I have not relied upon. My family is better off for that choice.
Why would the survivors let Mladic register for their meeting?
Kev,
I found the pseudo-Godwin (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin’s_law) almost clever. In a nasty, let’s take ad-hominems to a new level, sort of way.
Matthew Cline :
From ToddW at Harpocrates Speaks
http://silencedbyageofautism.blogspot.com/2011/05/autism-one-pick-up-your-police-escort.html
From “oreo”:
On the other hand, Dr. Geier’s understanding of how testosterone and mercury interact is laughably incorrect. In addition, he hasn’t been able to show that his “vaccine damage biomarkers” aren’t found in non-autistic children, as well. Or unvaccinated children. What he’s got are a lot of lab tests, done at parent expense, that are pretty much uninterpretable. Maybe Dr. Geier doesn’t know as much as he pretends to.
(Glue)Sniffer adds:
Are you accusing Ken Reibel of causing children to be (or become) autistic? Or do you just not get the concept of analogies?
Then “susie” cuts-and-pastes her way in from another ‘blog:
I don’t believe that Ken and Jamie were “making trouble” – they didn’t make a scene or even ask embarrassing questions. They were simply “known sceptics”, which is apparently a serious crime against the doctrinal purity of “Autism One”.
The idea of “spying” at a conference that was open to the public (apart from paying a fee) is ludicrous. How can you “spy” on something that is being broadcast? That’s just silly.
The parents may have been there hoping to get “support, resources and information”, but what they got was something else, entirely. From what I can tell, it was “false hope, exploitation and misinformation”.
If the organisers and presenters at “Autism One” are so afraid of a couple of sceptics (and, apparently, invited media representatives, like the Chicago Tribune reporter who was also “expelled”), they must realise that their “message” is bogus.
Prometheus
“Well how would the survivors of Srebrenica feel if Commander of the Bosnian Serbs , Ratko Mladic turned up for a survivors meeting? do you think he would be allowed to sit and observe?”
Anti-vaccine advocates are more than welcome at meetings that their victims attend. So far they haven’t learned anything, but we live in hope.