As vaccine hesitancy and skepticism became more common, documentarian Scott Hamilton Kennedy decided to explore the subject in a new 90-minute documentary “Shot in the Arm,” available on demand at PBS.org.
Kennedy actually began working on the documentary in 2019 focused around rising cases of measles among those who were not vaccinated. “In 2000, we almost eliminated measles,” he said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Then I found out there were people scaring parents into not vaccinating their children.”
Then the COVID-19 pandemic happened and the documentary took on a greater urgency. Despite the efficacy of vaccines to ward off the virus, the anti-vaccine movement did not wane. As his documentary shows, it only grew. And vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to run the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquartered in Atlanta. (Scott Hamilton Kennedy is not related to Robert Kennedy Jr.)
Kennedy, the documentarian, interviewed RFK Jr. in 2021 and said he found him evasive and insincere. RFK Jr., he believes, “would be a disaster for the future of our country’s health, food, agriculture and more.”
He feels RFK Jr. “disregards basic tenets that underpin science and democracy: commitment to empirical evidence, verifiable truths, the free exchange of ideas, accountability, and rigorous peer review. He cherry picks and makes it sound like he is following science. But we have overwhelming evidence that he’s not an honest broker.”
Kennedy spoke with both vaccine supporters and skeptics for the documentary, which covers the history of vaccines and the impact of a now debunked 1998 study by British scientist Andrew Wakefield fraudulently claimed a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. That study fueled the anti-vax movement.
“We distinguish between very clever nefarious people like Wakefield who convince mothers of children with autism that the MMR vaccine causes autism from the mothers themselves,” Kennedy said.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, the revered astrophysicist and an executive producer of the film, joined Kennedy in August at an immunization conference for public health officials at the Marriott Marquis, where they screened the movie on behalf of the Atlanta-based nonprofit group Task Force for Global Health, which focuses on programs that seek to eliminate diseases and protect vulnerable populations.
Credit: CONTRIBUTED'
Credit: CONTRIBUTED'
Although public health isn’t his primary bailiwick, Tyson told the AJC that he sees vaccine hesitancy “as a symptom of something deeper. It’s the ease with which people will cherry pick what they see on the internet in ways that fulfill the bias they carry in the conversation.”
“Anti vaxxers come from the same place in society as those who believe we've never been on the moon or say the earth is flat."
In Tyson’s mind, “anti-vaxxers come from the same place in society as those who believe we’ve never been on the moon or say the earth is flat. This would be laughable except anti-vaxxers are highly organized. They’re highly influential and they have YouTube channels that gather followers daily. The methods and tactics they have honed to navigate the landscape of antiscience thinking has a very strong overlap with the goals of this project.”
He said he first began giving Kennedy pointers to help shape the film and became so involved, Kennedy asked him to join as an executive producer. “I was able to bring the perspective of a public educator, which is different from a director/producer,” he said.
Kennedy said Tyson’s advice was invaluable. “You changed my life, my brother,” he told Tyson. “It wasn’t just a better film. You helped me become a better communicator.”
“I busted his chops,” Tyson said.
Even during the interview, when Kennedy said the film became more “complicated” after COVID-19 happened, Tyson suggested he use the less negative word “complex.”
Credit: PBS
Credit: PBS
Kennedy is grateful for scientists who care about seeking the truth even while making mistakes along the way. His favorite interview subject was Paul Offit, a pediatrician who runs The Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and is the coinventor of a rotavirus vaccine credited with saving lives.
“Paul is honest, funny and self reflective,” Kennedy said. “He follows the science and changes his mind if the evidence proves he needs to do so. He will admit he’s wrong. That doesn’t mean he’s a bad person or insane. It means he’s a scientist who is working and adapting.”
Kennedy said he hopes “people come away from my film feeling a little bit of healing. We’ve gone through this once-in-a-century pandemic. We hope we can see that there’s more that we agree than disagree with. We as a society work better when we work together under a social contract. We need to have the humility to check ourselves and not be so selfish.”
IF YOU WATCH
“Shot in the Arm,” available on demand on pbs.org
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