Release of Vaxxed sequel prompts fears dangerous propaganda will spread again

Anti-vaccination film to premiere in theatres as several states have been battling against localised outbreaks of measles

Ed Pilkington in New York
@edpilkington
Thu 31 Oct 2019 06.00 GMT
Last modified on Thu 31 Oct 2019 06.02 GMT

Anti-vaccination campaigners are preparing to release the sequel to Vaxxed, the highly contentious film that has been used to spread the unfounded claim that vaccines cause autism and other developmental problems.

Vaxxed II: The People’s Truth will be premiered on 6 November in 50 venues across America. Its producers, led by Robert F Kennedy Jr, are keeping locations secret with tickets sold quietly in advance in the hope of foiling efforts to block the movie.

From 7 November, the film will be taken on the road in the same “Vaxxed” bus that was deployed in 2016 to disseminate the original film, traveling more than 50,000 miles from coast to coast of the US. The movie was a powerful propaganda tool for the anti-vaccination movement, which has seen a surge in recent years within certain religious communities and among parents worried about scientifically unproven so-called “vaccine injuries”.

Vaxxed II lands at a particularly anxious time in the US, where several states including California and Washington have been battling against localised outbreaks of measles. The worst affected state, New York, only recently succeeded in bringing the disease under control.

Official figures compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that in the first nine months of this year some 1,249 measles cases were reported in the US – the largest incidence of the disease in almost 30 years. Of those, one in 10 were hospitalized.

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