Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe (2016)    Cinema Libre Studio/Documentary    RT: 91 minutes    No MPAA rating (thematic elements)    Director: Andrew Wakefield    Screenplay: Del Bigtree and Andrew Wakefield    Music: Francesco Lupica    Cinematography: Brian Burrowes, Andrew Debosz, Kelly Gallagher, Tanayia Koonce, Erik Nanstiel, Mark Roethke, Jenn Sherry Parry, Wael Shukha and Imogen Wakefield    Release date: May 20, 2016 (Philadelphia, PA)

Rating: *

 I won’t deny that director Andrew Wakefield makes a compelling argument against vaccinations in his documentary Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe. In it, he purports that the CDC (Center for Disease Control) colluded with Big Pharma to conceal from the public a study showing that the MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) vaccine causes autism in children. He shows us a lot of statistics. He interviews parents who all tell the same story. They claim their children were completely normal before getting the vaccine and started showing signs of autism immediately afterwards. I can see where this would scare the hell out of people, parents in particular. Here’s the problem. Everything you see and hear in Vaxxed is dubious due to Wakefield’s failure to disclose certain facts. A lie by omission is still a lie.

 What Wakefield doesn’t tell us is that his license to practice medicine was revoked in ’10, around the same time his MMR study was discredited as fraudulent. He also doesn’t reveal that 11 of his co-authors withdrew their names from his paper. If he did, I’m sure he’d claim it’s all part of the Big Pharma conspiracy. Also, Vaxxed was supposed to premiere at last month’s Tribeca Film Festival, but was pulled after much public outcry over its veracity.

 All of this I learned this after seeing the movie. Had I known beforehand, it might have changed the way I approached it. But I knew something was off about Vaxxed. For one thing, it’s totally one-sided. Why don’t we hear from the pro-vaccination camp? Shouldn’t both sides of the issue be presented? That vexed me quite a bit. Then there’s the whole CDC whistleblower narrative. We hear phone calls between anti-vaccination activist Brian Hooker and CDC scientist William Thompson who didn’t know the calls were being recorded. He never appears on-screen. The recordings sound suspiciously spliced together. Would they stand up to authentication by experts? I have my doubts.

 I can’t attest to what is and what isn’t scientifically factual in Vaxxed. What I can say is that Wakefield throws a lot of boring data at the audience. The interviews are obviously meant to push emotional buttons. Its one-sidedness reveals that the man has an agenda. Vaxxed is nothing more than a barely-veiled attempt to push his anti-vaccination platform. That, my friends, is the very definition of propaganda. As such, it’s not good cinema. The movie is competently produced, but poorly constructed. Wakefield keeps making the same points while not producing much to back them up. It’s not uninteresting. Like I said, it’s a compelling argument. The flaw lies in the execution. I won’t discuss my position on the matter, but if I needed persuasion, Vaxxed wouldn’t do it.