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.
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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.
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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.
