Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe

Director Andrew Wakefield was main author of the study printed in the scientific journal "The Lancet" in 1998, which started the controversy between vaccines and autism. This study was later retracted by The Lancet, and Wakefield lost his medical license as a result. Dr. Wakefield, however, was not the only one found guilty. Co-author of the study Dr. J.A. Walker-Smith was also found guilty and stricken from the medical record by the same ruling of the General Medical Council (GMC) in Britain in 2010, although he had retired from practice in 2001. In contrast to Dr. Wakefield's insurance carrier, Dr. Walker-Smith's payed for an appeal, and in 2012 the High Court under Justice Mitting cleared Walker-Smith of all charges, concluding that the GMC's ruling had been flawed by "inadequate and superficial reasoning, and, in a number of instances, a wrong conclusion." Mr. Justice Mitting even called for changes in the way the GMC's hearings are conducted, saying "It would be a misfortune if this were to happen again."

When the film was announced for the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival, documentarian Penny Lane wrote a virally-circulated letter condemning its inclusion in the lineup. Although festival head Robert De Niro defended the film's inclusion in a statement on March 25, 2016 (as he and Grace Hightower have an autistic son), the film was pulled from the line-up the next day on Tribeca's Facebook page. However, the distributor, Cinema Libre Studio, managed to book the film into the Angelika Film Center, NYC, where VAXXED was not only shown for two weeks, from April 1 to April 15, instead of the previously planned single showing on the closing night of the Tribeca Film Festival, April 23, but where the eight o'clock showing was followed by a panel discussion with Andrew Wakefield, Brian Hooker, Del Bigtree, and Polly Tommey, an autism parent and founder of the magazine 'The Autism File'.

Addressing the audience after the screening in Stuttgart, Dr. Wakefield [documented on DVD extras] said, "What we've witnessed here is the worst medical fraud in the history of the world, and one of the greatest humanitarian crimes as well, because these people who are responsible... they were charged with the welfare of children."