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''Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe'' is a 2016 American
pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or falsifiability, unfa ...
propaganda film A propaganda film is a film that involves some form of propaganda. Propaganda films spread and promote certain ideas that are usually religious, political, or cultural in nature. A propaganda film is made with the intent that the viewer will ad ...
alleging a cover-up by the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgi ...
(CDC) of a purported link between the
MMR vaccine and autism Claims of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism have been extensively investigated and found to be false. The link was first suggested in the early 1990s and came to public notice largely as a result of the 1998 ''Lancet'' MMR autism frau ...
. According to ''Variety'', the film "purports to investigate the claims of a senior scientist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who revealed that the CDC had allegedly manipulated and destroyed data on an important study about
autism The autism spectrum, often referred to as just autism or in the context of a professional diagnosis autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or autism spectrum condition (ASC), is a neurodevelopmental condition (or conditions) characterized by difficulti ...
and the MMR vaccine"; critics derided ''Vaxxed'' as an
anti-vaccine Vaccine hesitancy is a delay in acceptance, or refusal, of vaccines despite the availability of vaccine services and supporting evidence. The term covers refusals to vaccinate, delaying vaccines, accepting vaccines but remaining uncertain abou ...
propaganda film. The film was directed by discredited anti-vaccine activist
Andrew Wakefield Andrew Jeremy Wakefield (born September 3, 1956) is a British anti-vaccine activist, former physician, and discredited academic who was struck off the medical register for his involvement in ''The Lancet'' MMR autism fraud, a 1998 study that ...
, who was struck off the medical register in the United Kingdom in 2010 due to ethical violations related to his fraudulent research into the role of
vaccines A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity The adaptive immune system, also known as the acquired immune system, is a subsystem of the immune system that is composed of specialized, systemic cells and pro ...
in autism. It was scheduled to premiere at the 2016
Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...
but was withdrawn by the festival. In reviewing the film, Indiewire said that "Wakefield doesn't just have a dog in this fight; he is the dog". In November 2019, a sequel, ''Vaxxed II: The People's Truth'', was released.


Background

In 1998 Wakefield and 12 other authors published a study in ''
The Lancet ''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal and one of the oldest of its kind. It is also the world's highest-impact academic journal. It was founded in England in 1823. The journal publishes original research articles, ...
'' suggesting that the
MMR vaccine The MMR vaccine is a vaccine against measles, mumps, and rubella (German measles), abbreviated as ''MMR''. The first dose is generally given to children around 9 months to 15 months of age, with a second dose at 15 months to 6 years of age, ...
caused autism. In 2010 the study was retracted, and Wakefield was struck off the medical register in the United Kingdom due to "ethical violations and a failure to disclose financial conflicts of interest" and for his invention of evidence linking the
MMR vaccine The MMR vaccine is a vaccine against measles, mumps, and rubella (German measles), abbreviated as ''MMR''. The first dose is generally given to children around 9 months to 15 months of age, with a second dose at 15 months to 6 years of age, ...
to autism. A substantial body of subsequent research has established that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Wakefield went on to become a leader in the anti-vaccination movement that his discredited study helped create.
Del Bigtree Del Matthew Bigtree is an American television and film producer as well as CEO of the anti-vaccination group Informed Consent Action Network. He produced the film '' Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe'', based on the discredited opinions of ...
, a producer of ''Vaxxed'', was formerly a producer of '' The Doctors'', an American medical advice
talk show A talk show (or chat show in British English) is a television programming or radio programming genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Show ...
. The ''
British Medical Journal ''The BMJ'' is a weekly peer-reviewed medical trade journal, published by the trade union the British Medical Association (BMA). ''The BMJ'' has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world's oldest general medical journals. Origi ...
'' conducted a study on '' The Doctors'' and '' The Dr. Oz Show'' and concluded with this warning about the shows: "Consumers should be skeptical about any recommendations provided ... as details are limited and only a third to one half of recommendations are based on believable or somewhat believable evidence". As with all American medical programmes and medical teleshopping shows, the two programmes carry
Food and Drug Administration The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respon ...
-required
mandatory disclaimer Mandatory disclaimers are government-mandated messages that describe what a product is not or does not do that sellers must include in their advertising. In the United States, mandatory messages first appeared after the passage of the Federal Caus ...
s at the end of each episode which state their advice is not a medical endorsement and viewers should consult with a physician based on the advice given. The film was produced by Autism Media Channel, of which Wakefield is a director.


Narrative

According to ''Variety'', the film "purports to investigate the claims of a senior scientist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who revealed that the CDC had allegedly manipulated and destroyed data on an important study about autism and the MMR vaccine." The film features the so-called "CDC whistleblower" narrative that is based on anti-vaccination activist and associate professor Brian Hooker's paper describing claims by senior CDC scientist William Thompson that he and his co-authors had omitted mention of a correlation they found between vaccination and autism in African-American boys in a CDC study. However a 2011 IOM report showed that evidence favors rejection of a relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism. The film contains edited excerpts of several phone calls between Hooker and Thompson recorded without Thompson's knowledge. Hooker's 2014 paper on the narrative was subsequently retracted due to "serious concerns about the validity of its conclusions" and in 2015 the CDC had confirmed that any such initial correlation had ceased to exist once they performed a more in-depth analysis of the children in the study. These sometimes spliced-together unauthorized phone recordings of Thompson, according to the ''
Houston Press The ''Houston Press'' is an online newspaper published in Houston, Texas, United States. It is headquartered in the Midtown area. It was also a weekly print newspaper until November 2017. The publication is supported entirely by advertising ...
'', form the "crux of the entire movie ... And ... that's it". On the "CDC whistleblower" narrative, Philip LaRussa, a professor of paediatric medicine at
Columbia University Medical Center NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center (NYP/CUIMC), also known as the Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), is an academic medical center and the largest campus of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. It includes C ...
, said the film-makers "were saying, there's this silver bullet here, and the CDC is hiding it, and no one else has looked at this issue, which is not the case". Thompson does not appear in the film and did not see it before it was released. Thompson had released a statement on the controversy in 2014 which the ''New York Times'' discussed in its coverage of ''Vaxxed''; the ''Times'' described it as "saying that while he questioned the 2004 study's presentation of some data, he would never advise people not to get vaccinated."


Premiere and distribution

The film had been scheduled to premiere at the 2016
Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...
but this was the subject of public outcry and widespread criticism, particularly for allowing Wakefield to distribute his discredited theories. Actor
Robert De Niro Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. ( , ; born August 17, 1943) is an American actor. Known for his collaborations with Martin Scorsese, he is considered to be one of the best actors of his generation. De Niro is the recipient of various accolades ...
, who co-founded the festival, initially defended the decision to show the film, writing on
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
that the film was "very personal" to him due to him having a child with autism, and saying that he hoped the film would open a dialog about the controversy. But shortly before the evening of March 26 De Niro announced that the film would not screen, stating that consultation with other film festival representatives, and members of the scientific community, had led him to conclude that screening the film would not contribute to or further the discussion of the topic presented. After the film was dropped from the Tribeca Film Festival, it was picked up for distribution by Cinema Libre. The film premiered at the
Angelika Film Center Angelika Film Center is a movie theater chain in the United States that features independent and foreign films. It operates theaters in New York City, Texas, Washington, D.C., California and Virginia. Its headquarters are in New York City. Histor ...
in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
on April 1, 2016 to an audience of "a few dozen". In reaction to Cinema Libre's decision to distribute the film, Todd Drezner, the father of an autistic son and creator of a
neurodiversity Neurodiversity refers to diversity in the human brain and cognition, for instance in sociability, learning, attention, mood and other mental functions. It was coined in 1998 by sociologist Judy Singer, who helped popularize the concept alo ...
-themed movie that was distributed by Cinema Libre, wrote an open letter to Cinema Libre criticizing ''Vaxxed'' and Cinema Libre's decision to distribute it, writing: "By releasing ''Vaxxed'', Cinema Libre is actively harming thousands of autistic people. While we should be discussing ways to best support autistic people and help them lead fulfilling lives, you would instead have us follow a discredited scientist and dishonest filmmaker down a rabbit hole that leads only to long-debunked conspiracy theories. I am profoundly disappointed." The film was given a private screening in Cannes in 2017 while the
Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...
was underway, and at that time Cinema Libre said that it had earned $1.2 million and that they had signed distribution deals in Italy, Germany, Poland, and China.


Reception

On
review aggregation A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
website
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film has an approval rating of 38% based on 13 reviews, and an
average rating In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...
of 4.3/10. Documentary director
Penny Lane "Penny Lane" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles that was released in February 1967 as a double A-side single with "Strawberry Fields Forever". It was written primarily by Paul McCartney and credited to the Lennon–McCartney songwr ...
stated, "This film is not some sort of disinterested investigation into the 'vaccines cause autism' hoax; this film is directed by the person who perpetuated the hoax." A review by Ed Cara from the health and science news-site ''
Medical Daily IBT Media is an American global digital news organization with over 90 million monthly readers, owned by followers of religious leader David Jang. It publishes the ''International Business Times'' and ''Medical Daily'', among others. IBT Media i ...
'' states that " 'Vaxxed''doesn't care about convincing its audience with evidence. Instead, Wakefield, Hooker, and producer Del Bigtree run the viewer through a well-trod gauntlet of emotional pleas, context-free statistics ... and shadowy conspiracies." Eric Kohn from an independent film news-site ''
Indiewire IndieWire (sometimes stylized as indieWIRE or Indiewire) is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Hollyw ...
'' says: "Wakefield's by-the-numbers approach to didactic storytelling relies on tons of random factoids positioned out of context to drive home his agenda." Joe Leydon, a film critic from ''Variety'' magazine. describes the film as a "slickly produced but scientifically dubious hodgepodge of free-floating paranoia" and warns of its "anti-Big Pharma conspiracy mongering."
Mick LaSalle Mick is a masculine given name, usually a short form (hypocorism) of Michael. Because of its popularity in Ireland, it is often used in England as a derogatory term for an Irish person or a person of Irish descent. In Australia the meaning broaden ...
of the ''
San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...
'' wrote:
The vast majority of people who see this film will not have the scientific knowledge to assess the film's veracity. But it's fair to say that the documentary, though characterized as antivaccination, isn't quite that. The point of view is more nuanced. It's against the vaccination of children ages 2 and younger. And it's particularly against the MMR — that is, the giving of three vaccines at once ... it's a passionate advocate for its viewpoint, and that makes for compelling viewing. ... Of course, it's possible that the children would have developed autism anyway, and that one event didn't cause the other. But the parents presented here are convinced otherwise.
Pete Vonder Haar of ''
Houston Press The ''Houston Press'' is an online newspaper published in Houston, Texas, United States. It is headquartered in the Midtown area. It was also a weekly print newspaper until November 2017. The publication is supported entirely by advertising ...
'' described the film as a "tragic fraud." Sarah Gill of ''
The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...
'' called the film "another desperate attempt to hoodwink the public for no greater purpose than making money." Mick LaSalle of
SFGate The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The p ...
states that ''Vaxxed'' "is not the end of the discussion and doesn't contain the whole story ... But it's a passionate advocate for its viewpoint, and that makes for compelling viewing."


Sequel

In November 2019, ''Vaxxed II: The People's Truth'', produced by
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. (born January 17, 1954) is an American environmental lawyer and author known for promoting anti-vaccine propaganda and conspiracy theories. Kennedy is a son of U.S. senator Robert F. Kennedy and a nephew of President ...
, was released in the US. The core of the film is video of individuals telling their stories to those who drove the ''Vaxxed'' promotional bus across the US in 2016. Of the film, ''
Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...
'' stated that it "touts the myth that there is a "vaccine injury epidemic."" and that the "trailer features distressing footage of parents making
anecdotal Anecdotal evidence is evidence based only on personal observation, collected in a casual or non-systematic manner. The term is sometimes used in a legal context to describe certain kinds of testimony which are uncorroborated by objective, independ ...
and unfounded claims that vaccines caused their children to have developmental problems, including autism." ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' stated that "The film makes no effort to address the scientific evidence that the parents’ experiences of autism in their children have nothing to do with vaccines, or the
coincidence A coincidence is a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances that have no apparent causal connection with one another. The perception of remarkable coincidences may lead to supernatural, occult, or paranormal claims, or it may lead t ...
that symptoms of autism often appear between 12 and 24 months of age, exactly when the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is given."


See also

*
Big Pharma conspiracy theory Big Pharma conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories which claim that the medical community in general and pharmaceutical companies in particular, especially large corporations, operate for sinister purposes and against the public good, that t ...
*''
Science Moms ''Science Moms'' is a 2017 American documentary film about mothers who advocate for science-based decision-making concerning the health and nutrition of children. The film covers vaccines, autism, celebrity-endorsed health fads, cancer, aller ...
'' *
Vaccine adverse event A vaccine adverse event (VAE), sometimes referred to as a vaccine injury, is an adverse event caused by vaccination. The World Health Organization (WHO) knows VAEs as Adverse Events Following Immunization (AEFI). AEFIs can be related to the vacci ...
*
Vaccine hesitancy Vaccine hesitancy is a delay in acceptance, or refusal, of vaccines despite the availability of vaccine services and supporting evidence. The term covers refusals to vaccinate, delaying vaccines, accepting vaccines but remaining uncertain abou ...


References


External links

* * * * {{mojo title, vaxxed 2016 films American propaganda films Anti-vaccination media Pseudoscience documentary films MMR vaccine and autism Anti-vaccination in the United States 2010s English-language films 2010s American films