The Tribeca Film Institute, founded by actor Robert De Niro, is generally supportive of science. It partners with the Sloan Foundation to provide grants for filmmakers who are looking to create "a fresh take on scientific, mathematic, and technological themes." Each year, some of the results are shown as part of the Tribeca Film Festival.
But this year, it appeared that the film festival had decided to balance its support of science with some false claims by putting the film Vaxxed: From Coverup to Catastrophe on the schedule. The film is the latest attempt by former doctor Andrew Wakefield to support his bogus claim that vaccines can trigger autism. Wakefield's original publication in this area has been retracted, and he has since lost his medical license due to unethical behavior regarding his patients and rampant conflicts of interest. An investigative reporter found that at the time that the research was conducted, Wakefield was receiving payments from lawyers planning on suing vaccine makers, and he was also working on his own alternative vaccine.
Meanwhile, the movie's basic premise has been thoroughly debunked. Although the film purports to provide information from a whistleblower that suggests the US Centers for Disease Control fraudulently manipulated data on vaccine safety, the issue has been studied in a number of countries, and the conclusions are all consistent: there is no connection between vaccination and autism.
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