A group of — get this — high school students from Carlsbad, California have produced a documentary on the contentious debate over whether childhood vaccinations cause autism. They’re doing this despite anti-vaccer protests, and even a teacher who suggested the issue is just too much of a hot button.
The group worked on “Invisible Threat” for a year and a half – a documentary they describe as breaking down “the science of disease and the risks facing a society that is under-vaccinated.” You simply must check out the trailer, and can watch it on Vimeo for $5.
The student journalism group has an impressive roster of backers that any academic or life sciences company would feel lucky to have. These include:
- The Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group
- John Hopkins Medicine
- The Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania
- The American Academy of Pediatrics
- Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter
- University of California, Berkeley
- Stanford University
- Yale School of Public Health
- Autism Science Foundation
- The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases
The students chose this topic 18 months ago, after hearing that immunization rates in California were dropping. Poynter.org writes:
But the students, after interviewing experts and activists, parents and doctors came to the conclusion that the controversy was largely a social issue, not a medical one. The medical evidence, they reported, is overwhelming that there is no link between autism and immunizations.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
After getting wind of the documentary, opponents claimed that the documentary was propaganda – and that the teens had been misled by their lying advisers that had been paid off by the pharma companies that manufacture vaccines, the LA Times said in a story that outlines the genesis of the project.
