This kind of hysteria hardly new, in fact it stretches further far back than Dr. Edward Jenner, who developed the first effective and relatively safe inoculation against smallpox in 1796. Priests called vaccination "sinful" as it thwarted the will of God and there are the usual claims that it doesn't work and there are harmful side effects.
However, after a period of calm, we have this current situation at least sparked by Andrew Wakefield, in 1998 who published a medical study in medical journal, The Lancet, that claimed that MMR vaccine, which protects people against measles, mumps and rubella (German measles), causes autism. Since that article, Wakefield's falsehoods on this subject have been publicly exposed which led to his medical license being revoked by the General Medical Council in May 2010 and the article completely retracted as a fraud that same year.
Still, we are seeing with this film that the hysteria is self-sustaining with this film's trailer painting vaccination in its animations as a kind of plague, regardless of their claims of "balance.
Furthermore, the blatantly manipulative footage of forlorn kids and weeping parents of rare adverse effects apparently has no counterbalance of parents who have children struck down by easily infectious diseases like whooping cough. All we have for that side is apparently health authorities to have to resort to saying the facts in the abstract.
Vaccination programs require a critical mass in the population in which there are enough people immunized to prevent such diseases from spreading generally. In short, if there too many people who surrender to this ignorance about a well tested public health measure, whole populations will be needlessly at risk from potentially diseases, such has happened in various times in history as such as with whooping cough is currently an epidemic in the US state of Washington.
I don't necessarily disagree with all the film's intended positions; I don't like the corporate influence on health regulations, and the idea of vaccination research being so heavily in private hands with the expected conflict of interest. In fact, I shudder if there is no equivalent of Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey, who refused to knuckle under corporate pressure to allow Thalidomide on the market, to prevent a similar disaster as what happened in Canada. At the same time, I of course want every effort made to minimize and/or eliminate adverse effects from vaccinations, but we have to recognize the bigger public health picture. After all, traffic laws are technically an impingement on personal freedom, but it's better than risk life and limb on the roads without regard to public safety.
Pardon me if I sound strident, but one of the worst experiences I had as a kid was when I was laid up with the flu and I had to get dressed and get to school for a math test. The experience of seating in a separate desk, spraying mucus all over it while trying to think coherently is something I never want repeated.
Since then, I've made it a point to be literally first in line for the annual free flu shot at the Middlesex-London Health Unit headquarters and I can't understand why there are people who willing to take that once of prevention. When you combine that with hearing stories of parents who are putting not only their own children, but others as well as risk and my anger at such fearful selfishness flares.
Just want to get this out of my system before this film gets into others'
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