Pernicious new ‘anti-vaxx’ film must be shown in Britain – so its lies can be exposed

HE’S back. Just as last year’s measles outbreak appeared mercifully to have passed — and after a tremendous response to the Mail’s powerful campaign encouraging parents to vaccinate their children — the spectre of Andrew Wakefield has returned.

This paper revealed yesterday that Wakefield, disgraced exdoctor and British false messiah of the ‘anti-vaxxer’ movement, is to make an appearance in London this week at the premiere of the film Vaxxed II.

Like its predecessor Vaxxed, it peddles pernicious falsehoods about childhood vaccination, linking them to serious illnesses and developmental conditions such as autism.

Little wonder that furious campaigners have warned that it ‘puts children’s lives at risk’, while Stephen Powis, medical director of NHS England, has condemned the ‘con-artists’ behind the film who ‘risk the health of our whole society’.

Deluded

Professor Powis is right. Parents who see the film, and as a result decide not to vaccinate their children, risk exposing them to preventable illnesses — such as measles, mumps and rubella — that may cause complications and lead to disability and even death.

So, as both a GP and the father of a son with autism, you might expect me to agree with calls this week for the film to be banned. But I don’t.

In fact, I believe that Vaxxed II should be shown widely. Go to see it — but I urge you to question everything it tells you frame by frame.

I have faith in the public and believe people are quite capable of distinguishing between the pseudo-science of the antivaxxer campaign and the serious science behind childhood immunisation programmes such as the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) jab, especially once this information has been accurately relayed by professionals.

The steady improvement in

MMR uptake nationally over the past decade confirms the success of this strategy: openly discussing controversial issues, rather than trying to suppress debate with censorship.

Since 1998, Wakefield, 63, and his deluded cohort have promulgated the myth that a giant Establishment cover-up is silencing the public on the dangers of vaccination — that they are brave truth- seekers nobly pursuing a battle against powerful vested interests.

Rubbish, of course. But banning their propaganda only plays into this sense of victimhood and strengthens what little arguments the antivaxxers have.

The absurdity of the claims made in their films must be seen to shrivel under the spotlight of reasoned criticism and debate.

Vaxxed II, portentously subtitled ‘The People’s Story’, has been produced by Wakefield’s long- standing collaborator Polly Tommey, the British mother of a son with autism, who has in the past sought to buttress the anti-vaxx crusade by posing on a billboard emblazoned with the words ‘Hello Boys’ while wearing only a bra.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr, nephew of the late American President John F. Kennedy and a notorious anti-vaxxer, is an executive producer on the film.

It features parents who believe their children are suffering from the adverse effects of childhood vaccinations.

These accounts are said to be ‘ harrowing and deeply unnerving’, while the film also shows ‘disturbing footage of autistic children’ manifesting symptoms of physical and emotional distress.

I am outraged at such manipulative and voyeuristic depictions of children with autism. These young people have done nothing to deserve being so disgracefully exploited to further the anti-vaxxers’ cause.

The first Vaxxed film, released four years ago, spread Wakefield’s now wholly discredited theory of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, first posited in a notorious and subsequently withdrawn paper in The Lancet medical journal in 1998.

It made headlines around the world, but studies by leading clinicians and scientists later exposed the deep flaws in this research. Wakefield (who is currently the squeeze of supermodel Elle Macpherson) never produced any credible evidence to support it.

In 2010, after his efforts had been proved fraudulent and unscientific, he was struck off the register by the General Medical Council. He moved to the U.S., became the prophet of the fledgling anti-vaxxer movement there and pursued a lucrative new career as propagandist and film-maker.

He relies on a group of pliant journalists and excitable conspiracy theorists to promote his films, which advance various ludicrous anti-vaxxer themes, questioning their efficacy and safety.

Yet Wakefield’s latest publication (in which he indicates that he ‘tends to see the world with the perspective of a screenwriter’) suggests a disturbing drift into paranoia and messianic delusion.

Extinction

In The Sixth Extinction: Vaccine Immunity And Measles Mutants In A Virgin Soil, Wakefield raises the spectre of a ‘ coming plague’, before suggesting that this may be already here in the form of ‘an epidemic of autism’.

He further warns of a ‘timebomb’ of antibiotic resistance and mutant measles viruses that threaten humanity with ‘a sixth extinction’.

The ‘ final outcome’ will include ‘ severe neuro - developmental disorders and declining fertility’.

Wakefield is entitled to don his metaphorical ‘The End Is Nigh’ sandwich- board and shout his beliefs in the street, but he is not entitled to depict people with autism — which would include my beloved son — as a plague.

I have a long history with this widely discredited ex- doctor. In the early 2000s, I became aware of the growing damage he and his campaign were causing to families with autistic children.

Many were being drawn into futile litigation against vaccine manufacturers. At the same time, thanks to him, countless other parents were worrying unnecessarily about vaccinating their children — and many of them were opting out of vaccination programmes.

At conferences organised by anti- vaxxers, I challenged Wakefield, asking him as a doctor to address the flawed science that lies at the heart of his extravagant claims. He refused to respond to my questions — and on one occasion summoned stewards to have me removed from the hall.

Protests

That is why I believe Vaxxed II should not be banned. It is far better, always, to challenge foolish nonsense and uphold the right to free speech — even, if necessary, to the point where a security guard bustles you from the room. We should take note of the American experience, too. Attempts to ban the first Vaxxed film there were counterproductive.

Following protests from public health authorities, the film was withdrawn from 2016’s Tribeca Film Festival in New York. (It had been enthusiastically endorsed by the festival’s founder, Hollywood star Robert De Niro, himself the father of an autistic son.)

It was said that the ensuing furore hugely benefited the anti-vaxxer movement, as it drew attention to their cause.

No matter how misguided or irresponsible Wakefield’s films are, it is a matter of principle that we uphold his right to show them. Censorship invariably backfires.

We must insist on the right to challenge his misguided and irresponsible claims — and then let the public decide.