Controversial Anti-Vaccination Documentary Pulled out From Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Film Festival is the venue for independent filmmakers to show what their stuff is made of and it has become quite a popular event for the opportunity to showcase movie-making as an art and a form of expression. But the New York-based event is currently making the headlines for a rather controversial reason – the pulling out of a controversial documentary called "Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe.
At the center of the controversy is Hollywood great, Robert De Niro, who, together with the organizers of the film festival, decided to withdraw the anti-vaccination documentary following several criticisms and backslash directed towards the filmmaker and director, Andrew Wakefield.
Wakefield is a former doctor who was stripped of his license because accusations of using falsified information and professional misconduct. He has reinvented himself into a filmmaker with some kind of crusade against vaccination in children. His contention, as presented in the documentary, is that vaccinations in children are linked to the development of autism.
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But the problem is that his early research paper on the issue has been discredited by many in the medical profession and scientific community, including the Centers for Disease Control, one of the biggest agencies to explicitly deny the link.
In a statement released to the media on Saturday, De Niro justified the decision to include the documentary in the festival screening lineup. "My intent in screening this film was to provide an opportunity for conversation around an issue that is deeply personal to me and my family," he said. But in the same statement, he seems to have backpedalled. "But after reviewing it over the past few days with the Tribeca Film Festival team and other from the scientific community, we do not believe it contributes to or furthers the discussion I had hoped for," De Niro added in his statement.
De Niro considered "Vaxxed" as a documentary that he could relate because has a son with autism with Grace Hightower. He however tried to clarify that he does not consider himself as a supporter of the anti-vaccination movement. It's just that the documentary contained revealing and very serious questions about the supposed link between the increase in autism cases and vaccinations.
