Robert De Niro Defends Screening of
Anti-Vaccine Film at Tribeca Festival
Robert De Niro and his wife, Grace
Hightower De Niro, in January. Mr. De Niro, one of the festival’s founders,
said in a statement that “we believe it is critical that all of the issues
surrounding the causes of autism be openly discussed and examined.” CreditMike
Coppola/FilmMagic
In a decision that has dredged up the
widely debunked link between vaccines and autism, the Tribeca
Film Festival plans to screen a film by a discredited former
doctor whose research caused widespread alarm about the issue.
The film, “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe,” is
directed and co-written by Andrew
Wakefield, an anti-vaccination activist and an author of a study —
published in the British medical journal The Lancet, in 1998 — that was
retracted in 2010. In addition to the retraction of the study, which involved
12 children, Britain’s General Medical Council, citing ethical violations and a
failure to disclose financial conflicts of interest, revoked Mr. Wakefield’s
medical license.
On the festival’s website, the
biographical material about Mr. Wakefield does not mention that he was stripped
of his license or that his Lancet study was retracted. Rather, it says that the
Lancet study “would catapult Wakefield into becoming one of the most
controversial figures in the history of medicine.”
On Friday, Robert
De Niro, one of the festival’s founders, said in a statement issued
through the festival’s publicists that he supported the plan to show the movie
next month, although he said he was “not personally endorsing the film,” nor
was he against vaccination.
Mr. De Niro’s statement seemed to
suggest that this was the first time he has expressed a preference that a
particular film be shown at the festival.
“Grace and I have a child with autism,” he wrote, referring to his wife,
Grace Hightower De Niro, “and we believe it is critical that all of the issues
surrounding the causes of autism be openly discussed and examined. In the 15
years since the Tribeca
Film Festival was founded, I have never asked for a film to be
screened or gotten involved in the programming. However this is very personal
to me and my family and I want there to be a discussion, which is why we will
be screening VAXXED.”
Within hours his statement, posted on
Facebook, generated hundreds of comments.
The trailer for the
film, filled with dramatic music, opens with the words “Are Our
Children Safe?” on a black screen with billowing smoke that appears to be
coming from a syringe. The trailer includes the suggestion that a
“whistle-blower” from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would say
that the organization “had committed fraud” and “that they knew that vaccines
were actually causing autism.” Mr. Wakefield appears in the trailer saying,
“Wow, the C.D.C. had known all along there was this M.M.R. autism risk.”
Andrew Wakefield, the director and a
vocal anti-vaccination activist, in an image from the film. His medical license
was revoked by Britain’s General Medical Council.
M.M.R. stands for the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella that children 12 to 15 months old
are supposed to receive. Scientific evidence has repeatedly shown the vaccine
to be safe, highly effective and having no connection to autism. In recent
years, serious outbreaks of measles have erupted, including one at Disneyland, partly because
many parents have refused to vaccinate their children.
The plan to show the film has unnerved
and angered doctors, infectious disease experts and even other filmmakers.
“Unless the Tribeca Film Festival plans
to definitively unmask Andrew
Wakefield, it will be yet another disheartening chapter where a
scientific fraud continues to occupy a spotlight and overshadows the damage he
has left behind in the important story of vaccine safety and success,” Dr. Mary
Anne Jackson, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Missouri-Kansas
City, said in an email.
She added that while the subject of
ethics and truthfulness in a documentary can be uncomfortable, “this film is
not some sort of disinterested investigation into the ‘vaccines cause autism’
hoax; this film is directed by the person who perpetuated the hoax.”
Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt
University Medical School, called the decision to show the film “particularly
sad” because the Tribeca festival receives attention far beyond New York.
“The people who put on the Tribeca Film
Festival are very prestigious and they draw a very thoughtful audience, and
it’s implicit that if they have suggested this film they think that there’s
some merit in it, and more importantly, merit to Wakefield’s message,” Dr.
Schaffner said. “All of us are out talking about it reassuring parents,
children, anyone who wants to pay attention to this issue that vaccines are
safe and effective, and they certainly do not cause autism, and that Dr.
Wakefield was a fraud and had his license removed over this very event.”
According to the festival’s website,
“Vaxxed” will be screened only once, on April 24, the festival’s closing day. A
talk with the director and the film’s subjects will follow.
Robert De
Niro recently talked about his 18 year old son Elliot with autism, and his
passion for getting information out to the public.
