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 that symptoms of autism often appear between 12 and 24 months of age, exactly when the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) the vaccine is given.
In the absence of such context, the stories told on the bus and aired in Vaxxed II are heartbreaking, harrowing and deeply unnerving. The families' narratives are accompanied by disturbing footage of non-verbal autistic children. There is a gallery of photographs of babies who died before their second birthdays the film claims without offering any evidence that their deaths were caused by vaccines.
In a later section of the film, parents who have decided not to vaccinate their children speak to camera. They relate how their kids have never had a day's illness or needed a course of antibiotics, and the film-makers imply they are also more intelligent than their vaccinated neighbours children.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, who is credited as an executive producer of Vaxxed 2, said the aim of the film was to give "vaccine-injured" individuals and their families a voice.
Kennedy is a son of Robert F Kennedy, the Democratic leader who was assassinated in 1968, and nephew of John F Kennedy. An acclaimed environmentalist who pioneered campaigns to clean up rivers, Kennedy has in recent years channeled his energies through his organization Children's Health Defense into the anti-vaccination movement.
"I'm not anti-vax," he insisted. "I am somebody who is skeptical of government and pharma, but I'm not anti-vax."
Kennedy cited his father, a legendary figure among Democrats, as rationale for his hostility towards vaccines. "My dad told me when I was a little kid, people in power lie and if you want to live in a democracy you have to treat every government pronouncement with skepticism,"
Kennedy described himself as being devoted to scientific truth. Yet many of the claims he makes in Vaxxed II and repeated to the Guardian have been thoroughly disproved over many years. His main allegation that vaccines cause autism has been conclusively countered by 18 studies conducted in seven countries across three continents involving hundreds of thousands of children.
Kennedy said that the current measles outbreaks occurred mainly among patients who had been vaccinated. "Seventy-nine percent of the cases in California this year were in adults where the vaccine had failed."
In fact, the California department of public health has reviewed the 39 measles cases in the state this year where the vaccination status of the patients was known and found that 69% were partially or wholly unvaccinated. Nationally, CDC has recorded that 89% of measles patients this year were unvaccinated or had an unknown status only 11% had received MMR.
The other character who appears prominently in Vaxxed II is Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced British former physician who was the first to generate public doubts about MMR. In 1998 Wakefield published a paper in the Lancet based on the histories of a mere eight children that put fear into the hearts of many parents by suggesting a possible link between MMR and autism.
The ripple effect of Wakefield's study was a dramatic slump in vaccine uptake in the UK and US.
In 2010 the UK's General Medical Council stripped Wakefield of his license to practice as a doctor on grounds of "dishonesty" in his vaccine work as well as multiple ethical breaches in the way he enlisted children to the study. Wakefield's Lancet article was retracted a few months later. Despite having been shunned by the British medical world, Wakefield has rebuilt his life in America as a celebrity figure revered by vaccine skeptics. He directed the first Vaxxed film and appears in Vaxxed II as an authority on the spurious science of "vaccine injuries".
In the movie, Wakefield presents himself as uncowed and unashamed, David standing up to the Goliath of big pharma. "It can change and it will change, and we will win this battle," he says.
He argues for a return to the days of herd immunity, in which almost all children got measles by the age of 15. "Herd immunity worked extremely well - exposure to measles protected you," Wakefield says.
What he does not say was that until the measles vaccine was created in 1963, up to 4 million Americans contracted the illness each year. Of those, 48,000 were hospitalized and 1,000 suffered encephalitis - swelling of the brain. Some 500 people, many of them children, were recorded to have died from the disease.
For a vaccine scientist like Offit, the idea of returning to the days of herd immunity is horrifying. "The public is sick and tired of the anti-vaccine movement," he said. "Children are being admitted to intensive care units with severe measles and pneumonia a clear line in the sand has been crossed."
In the absence of such context, the stories told on the bus and aired in Vaxxed II are heartbreaking, harrowing and deeply unnerving. The families' narratives are accompanied by disturbing footage of non-verbal autistic children. There is a gallery of photographs of babies who died before their second birthdays the film claims without offering any evidence that their deaths were caused by vaccines.
In a later section of the film, parents who have decided not to vaccinate their children speak to camera. They relate how their kids have never had a day's illness or needed a course of antibiotics, and the film-makers imply they are also more intelligent than their vaccinated neighbours children.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, who is credited as an executive producer of Vaxxed 2, said the aim of the film was to give "vaccine-injured" individuals and their families a voice.
Kennedy is a son of Robert F Kennedy, the Democratic leader who was assassinated in 1968, and nephew of John F Kennedy. An acclaimed environmentalist who pioneered campaigns to clean up rivers, Kennedy has in recent years channeled his energies through his organization Children's Health Defense into the anti-vaccination movement.
"I'm not anti-vax," he insisted. "I am somebody who is skeptical of government and pharma, but I'm not anti-vax."
Kennedy cited his father, a legendary figure among Democrats, as rationale for his hostility towards vaccines. "My dad told me when I was a little kid, people in power lie and if you want to live in a democracy you have to treat every government pronouncement with skepticism,"
Kennedy described himself as being devoted to scientific truth. Yet many of the claims he makes in Vaxxed II and repeated to the Guardian have been thoroughly disproved over many years. His main allegation that vaccines cause autism has been conclusively countered by 18 studies conducted in seven countries across three continents involving hundreds of thousands of children.
Kennedy said that the current measles outbreaks occurred mainly among patients who had been vaccinated. "Seventy-nine percent of the cases in California this year were in adults where the vaccine had failed."
In fact, the California department of public health has reviewed the 39 measles cases in the state this year where the vaccination status of the patients was known and found that 69% were partially or wholly unvaccinated. Nationally, CDC has recorded that 89% of measles patients this year were unvaccinated or had an unknown status only 11% had received MMR.
The other character who appears prominently in Vaxxed II is Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced British former physician who was the first to generate public doubts about MMR. In 1998 Wakefield published a paper in the Lancet based on the histories of a mere eight children that put fear into the hearts of many parents by suggesting a possible link between MMR and autism.
The ripple effect of Wakefield's study was a dramatic slump in vaccine uptake in the UK and US.
In 2010 the UK's General Medical Council stripped Wakefield of his license to practice as a doctor on grounds of "dishonesty" in his vaccine work as well as multiple ethical breaches in the way he enlisted children to the study. Wakefield's Lancet article was retracted a few months later. Despite having been shunned by the British medical world, Wakefield has rebuilt his life in America as a celebrity figure revered by vaccine skeptics. He directed the first Vaxxed film and appears in Vaxxed II as an authority on the spurious science of "vaccine injuries".
In the movie, Wakefield presents himself as uncowed and unashamed, David standing up to the Goliath of big pharma. "It can change and it will change, and we will win this battle," he says.
He argues for a return to the days of herd immunity, in which almost all children got measles by the age of 15. "Herd immunity worked extremely well - exposure to measles protected you," Wakefield says.
What he does not say was that until the measles vaccine was created in 1963, up to 4 million Americans contracted the illness each year. Of those, 48,000 were hospitalized and 1,000 suffered encephalitis - swelling of the brain. Some 500 people, many of them children, were recorded to have died from the disease.
For a vaccine scientist like Offit, the idea of returning to the days of herd immunity is horrifying. "The public is sick and tired of the anti-vaccine movement," he said. "Children are being admitted to intensive care units with severe measles and pneumonia a clear line in the sand has been crossed."
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