Shot in the Arm

This program is made possible by Rhode Island Department of Health Preventing disease and protecting and promoting the health and safety of the people of Rhode Island Ioway Public Health Association and Iowa Imunizes.

Together, we are bulding a public health movement.

Indiana Imunization Coalition.

Working to reduce vaccine- preventable diseases.

And by... [solemn music] [Karen] In 1918, my great great grandmother in Baltimore caught the Spanish flu, and she died.

Baltimore did not impose a lot of public health measures.

Life sort of just went on as normal.

And growing up, I always thought, oh, people back then just weren't very smart.

You know why?

Why did they not take the Spanish flu more seriously?

And I thought that until the year 2020, when I discovered that's just human nature.

[siren sounds in the distance] [Scott] Now we're rolling.

[Tessa] Yes, we were rolling a day that will go down in history Yeah.

Lockdown day one huh?

[suspenseful music] [news anchor] A pneumonia outbreak A SARS like virus Japan, South Korea and surging.

The numbers now surging, This is a new virus agent we have absolutely no way of predicting Stay at home.

Stay at home.

[teacher] Can you put your thumbs up if you can hear me okay, please.

[student] I did 38 plus five and I- [Scott] What's that from?

[Eden] Washing my hands too much.

[Scott/narrator] From the beginning of Covid.

Our family struggled to make sense of what was going on.

[Peter] We really have to implement aggressive social distancing.

[RFK Jr.] Nobody is doing the risk assessment.

How many deaths is the quarantine going to cause?

[Scott/narrator] Who should we listen to?

Who should we trust?

[Paul] The mask, It's such an important tool, such a powerful tool.

[Donald Trump] Cloth face covering.

I don't think I'm going to be doing it.

We are proceeding as if we will have to deploy a vaccine [Peter] Doctor Fauci has charged us with an aspirational goal.

[Peter] Doctor Fauci has charged us with an aspirational goal.

A year to 18 months, it would be unprecedented.

And we're all working day and night to make it happen.

[Andrew Wakefield] Injecting people with RNA an Frankenstein viruses.

We've never used these in human beings before.

[Paul] It's okay to be skeptical but when you cross the line into cynical that's when you lose me.

[protestor] Hoax!

This is a hoax.

[cars honking] [Scott/narrator] But the craziest thing is a year before anyone had ever heard of Covid 19.

I was asking these same questions of the same people.

But with a different virus.

[news anchor] The country's worst measles outbreak in 25 years.

Nearly every corner of the world is losing ground in the fight against measles.

The death toll in Samoa is continuing to mount.

[Scott/narrator] Now, no one even remembers the measles outbreak.

Why is this happening?

Because people are choosing not to vaccinate their children.

[Erica] My oldest child, she was vaccine injured.

Vaccines cause disease.

[Peter] We also have this rise in anti-science.

And not for the first time.

The World Health Organization has identified vaccine hesitancy as a major global health threat.

We thought we had eliminated measles in the year 2000. and now we had more than 1200 measles cases.

This is not something abstract.

This is really affecting public health.

[news anchor] Cases growing so rapidly.

There won't be enough beds in hospital ICUs.

[Anthony Fauci] We will see more cases.

Bottom line, it's going to get worse.

[Rand Paul] We shouldn't presume that a group of experts somehow knows what's best for everyone.

[Del Bigtree] Do your own research.

Don't just take your doctor's word for it.

[Anthony Fauci] The public doesn't have the time to research what's correct and what's not correct.

[Peter] That's right.

And they say, well, you know, who knows?

Just take a pick.

Flip a coin.

[Scott/narrator] Finding the right path forward.

The right people to trust is almost as frightening as the problem itself.

[RFK Jr.] Anybody who tells you trust me on the science, you shouldn't trust them.

[Fauci] When you're in the middle of a crisis.

It really does shine a very bright light on some of the weaknesses and flaws in our society.

[Blima] In Orthodox Judaism, we're taught to trust the experts.

And if there's confusion about an issue, you go with the majority opinion.

In 2010, the book Vaccine Epidemic was recommended to me by my chiropractor during my pregnancy.

So it came into my life at a very vulnerable time.

when I was a new mother.

[baby crying] The book led me to believe that vaccinating my daughter would probably injure her.

I worried about mercury in the vaccines.

The book kept repeating how there were no safety studies done on these vaccines.

And this book really had me scared.

These are all myths.

But at the time, I didn't know that.

[pensive piano music] [Blima] So I spent five years in a doctoral program for my nursing degree, where I was knee deep in research studies all the time.

Learning how to critically analyze them, see if it was done properly, if it was done ethically if there were conflicts of interest.

And I started realizing what good research is about, what good science is about.

And when I revisited the vaccine issue, I had a completely different outlook.

[traffic sounds with driving, tense music] [Tony Dokoupil] Just a couple of years ago, there were only a handful of measles cases in all of New York city.

Now, there have been more than 250 in just the past seven months.

I consider it really an irony that you have one of the most contagious viruses known to man.

Juxtaposed against one of the most effective vaccines that we have.

[Scott/narrator] the MMR vaccine measles, mumps and rubella.

According to the W.H.O., between 2000 and 2018 alone, the MMR vaccine saved 23 million people who would have died from measles around the world.

And while the national average of MMR acceptance was 90% in New York city's Orthodox Jewish community, it was as low as 60%.

People are beginning to question why should I subject my three year old to toxins?

[Blima] I felt a lot of empathy for these scared moms.

[news reporter] Do you think that the Orthodox Jewish community is being specifically targeted?

They're definitely being targeted.

People are getting magazines that they've never asked for coming right into their door.

[Blima] So this is the Peach Magazine, which has been circulated in this community since about 2014.

And on the outside, it kind of looks like it's a helpful pamphlet.

The Vaccine Safety Handbook and Informed Parents Guide.

Once you start reading, you realize that it's, solid propaganda.

[Blima] All the usual misinformation that anti-vaxxers will raise, even though they've been refuted and debunked so many times.

So I got together a group of nurses, and we started hosting sessions in people's homes.

[Blima] Okay, let's talk about Mercury.

There's a lot of versions of Mercury.

[Blima VO] We sat there answering their questions.

[woman 1] Ok. whether there is a connection between me and my mom, but you haven't.

Okay, some of you have.

Some of you haven't [woman 1] Anybody- [Blima] Very often, even if I've answered many women's questions, they'll still be frustrated that they're judged for not vaccinating or that they don't have a choice about vaccinating.

[woman 2] Nobody can force me to take medication.

[Marcus] Yes, [woman 2] so nobody can force me to take chemo.

[indistinct chatter] Nobody can force me to do any of those things.

The only thing that I'm forced to do [Marcus] Yes.

[woman 2] is to take a vaccines [Blima] Because it's not about you.

[solemn music] These diseases can cross boundaries and borders.

So when making decisions about public health behavior, it's not about you.

It's about everyone else.

[Del] For all the Hasidic Jews in New York right now that never thought this moment will come.

I am saying, I stand with you.

[sirens blaring over music] [Blima] In the middle of the worst measles outbreak in 20 years.

The biggest names in the anti-vaccine world held a huge event in a Jewish wedding hall in Rockland County.

[Del] Your news anchors and the media outside this building.

They want to talk about the measles.

They want to talk about tens of people in Washington and 100 people over there that have a rash and a fever for a few days.

I want to talk about autism!

I want to talk about the greatest epidemic of our lifetime.

[applause] [Blima] They saw Del Bigtree who was one of the biggest faces and names in the anti-vaccine movement.

His approach that evening was to pivot from measles to autism.

And of course, looping the two together is the fallacy.

But the response that he got shocked me.

Wake up!

[applause] [Blima] And I think it's because once you prey on parents' fears, you've been effective already.

[indistinct chatter] [indistinct chatter and car honks] [crowd] No more vaccines Educate before you vaccinate [crowd] Educate before you vaccinate!

[indistinct chatter] [Paul] My name is Paul Offit.

I am a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children's Hospital Philadelphia.

My general area of interest and expertise is vaccines.

Yeah So as I'm on FDA, we struggle with that.

It allows for implementation, then reassessment.

[Paul] I am a member of the FDA's vaccine advisory committee.

So I'm a vaccine skeptic Everybody that sits around the FDA vaccine advisory committee table is a vaccine skeptic.

We want to see the data.

So now we'll move on to the next topic, which is, the foster vaccines.

[Paul] The most important thing with vaccines is: Are they safe?

Are they safe?

Are they safe?

When a vaccine is approved by the Food and Drug Administration and the CDC, which stands for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they make sure that it remains safe.

That's their job.

And they're amazingly good at it.

They meet three times a year to go over data and make recommendations about how vaccines can best be used, to make sure that we can have the best health for our children and the best health for adults in this country.

[conference speaker 1] in 2019 we've had 1077 cases of measles.

It's the highest number since measles was declared eliminated in the year 2000.

[Nancy Messonnier] The measles outbreaks that are occurring this year are primarily among pockets of under vaccination that exist in the United States.

The spread of misinformation remains a real threat to undermine public confidence in vaccines.

[Jse Romero] Ok, will everyone please take their seats.

We're going to begin the public comment session.

Your comments are very important to us.

We take them into consideration.

[conference speaker 3] Good afternoon.

I personally grew up with my uncle Roger.

He contracted the polio virus in 1953.

He needed 24 hour care and eventually died of disease complications.

And I'm here today as a strong proponent of vaccines truly medicine's most precious gift to the human race.

You know, vaccines may have done some good, but when these vaccines are causing more issues than what they're supposed to be benefiting, we need to rethink about how we're immunizing our children.

[Scott/narrator] While many use public comment to speak of the benefits of vaccines in recent years the strongest presence is parents.

mostly mothers who believe vaccines harm their children.

My son is was severely injured from his MMR shot.

I'm a mother to twins, seven year old boys with severe autism whom we know to be vaccine injured.

[Lynette] It is our children.

It is our families that have been affected.

We have to go home and our crying children who can't talk and who can't do half of the things or more that they should be doing.

You're not listening to the people that are receiving these vaccines and telling you something is wrong.

Something bad has happened here.

[applause] Thank you for your comments.

[applause] [applause] [somber music playing] [Barron] I paid over $400 to come here and do this this week.

I'm a single mother, you know, but it means that much to me.

I mean, I'm very curious what both sides think What all the people in this room think.

I want to know everything and anything about it.

Because these are my children, and I do want to make the best decision for them.

[somber music] [Paul] They believe what they're saying.

To them, their child was fine.

They got a vaccine.

Now their child isn't fine.

Or worse.

Unfortunately, it's a false belief and their anger is directed in the wrong place.

Doctor Wakefield, I'm sorry to interrupt.

Brian Deer, Channel four television.

Could I talk to you about your research and your commercial conditions?

Excuse me [muffled camera noise] parents have very serious questions to ask you, sir.

[sirens blare, music playiing] [Paul] In 1998, when Andrew Wakefield's paper was published in The Lancet, he held a press conference [Andrew] for association MMR and autism.

[Paul] He raised the hypothesis that the combination measles mumps rubella vaccine could cause autism.

[Paul] He was careful at that press conference not to make a definitive statement about how MMR vaccine caused autism, and the reason was, is that there were no definitive data on which to make that statement.

[Andrew] The work certainly raises a question mark over the MMR vaccine, but it is there's no proven link as such.

You're saying this infection comes from the MMR vaccination.

That is the hypothesis that we're testing based upon the coherence of the parents story.

[Paul] When Andrew Wakefield had his press conference, he had a video in which he had mothers basically saying, my child was fine, they've got a vaccine now- because of that vaccine.

[child crying] They have autism.

[child] What's that?

find out that it was caused by a vaccine that you've agreed to have done It's just devastating.

[child crying] [Paul] Autism.

Is a difficult disorder It's difficult.

I think emotionally it's difficult financially.

And medicine doesn't have answers.

I mean, there isn't a clear cause.

There isn't a clear cure.

What Andrew Wakefield did was he provided a cause even though it wasn't a cause, the MMR vaccine.

So I think what Andrew Wakefield did is, the lowest of the low, which is to take advantage of a desperate parent's desire to help their child.

[Paul] The most amazing aspect of that paper is that it was ever published.

Since that time, 18 studies done in seven different countries on three different continents, costing tens of millions of dollars have all shown that MMR vaccine didn't cause autism.

Even studies looking at children who did or didn't get a vaccine to see whether there was an increased risk of autism, there wasn't.

It didn't matter.

When Andrew Wakefield published that paper, the media ran with it and that opened Pandora's Box.

Questions were raised today about the safety of the combined mumps, measles and rubella vaccine.

claims that could be a link between a common childhood vaccine and autism.

[TV announcer] Next, a hearing on autism and childhood vaccinations The majority of children regressed following a period of noMR vaccination.

I'm here with Jenny McCarthy, who has become one of the most vocal advocates for parents with children with autism.

We'll take the flu, the measles over autism, any freaking day of the week.

[news anchor] After Andrew Wakefield research was published the number of children Vaccinated against measles [child crying] mumps and rubella dropped across the world.

[Paul] And so parents got scared.

Thousands of parents who chose not to vaccinate their children.

So this virus that we'd eliminated by the year 2000 had come roaring back.

This virus, which was easily and safely preventable by a vaccine, now wasn't being prevented because of this false notion that had been put out there by Andrew Wakefield.

[Scott/narrator] But it would take almost eight years after the paper was published for the world to hear the truth about Andrew Wakefield.

Breaking news tonight.

Just hours ago, the British medical journal BMJ did something extremely rare for a scientific journal.

It accused a researcher, Andrew Wakefield, of outright fraud.

[news reporter] The investigation found Wakefield altered facts about patients his study.

The UK General Medical Council stripped him of his medical license, calling him dishonest and irresponsible.

And it's not just public health officials from around the world, And it's not just doctors from around the world It's also other journalists who have looked into your research and found it simply incorrect.

Are you saying that they they're all in conspiracy against you?

Conspiracy is your word.

what it is is a ruthless, pragmatic attempt to crush any investigation into any vetted vaccine safety concern.

[Anderson] There's no proof of that and your study it is a fraud according to this latest investigation.

[news anchor] Do you, however, believe that there is a connection still today between the MMR, the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine and the development of autism?

Do I believe the parents report that their children regressed after vaccination and that the vaccinations were involved?

Yes I do.

Doctor, I just want to get to the bottom of this because basically what you're saying is look I only reported the parent's findings.

The parents believe there's a connection, but parents aren't the expert.

And because of your report, where you drew the link between MMR and autism, that caused a precipitous drop in the vaccination rate around the world.

If you didn't believe the connection strongly, if you only believe the parents, why did you allow this fear to spread throughout Britain and America?

[Scott/narrator] Then it was revealed that Andrew Wakefield was initially hired by a law firm who wanted to use his fraudulent report to sue vaccine makers for millions of dollars.

[Paul] He'd actually been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to basically launder legal claims through a medical journal.

It's not just that Andrew Wakefield was wrong.

He was fraudulent and wrong and nobody likes a fraud.

[news reporter] You feel confident about your work will withstand public scrutiny, sir.

You will stand your ground, sir.

[Karen] Hi, my name is Karen Ernst and I am the director of voices for vaccines.

I have no disclosures to make.

I'm here today to represent the vast majority of parents.

The ones upset that we have had more measles cases in the United States since 1992, and those who want communities protected from outbreaks of all vaccine preventable diseases.

[Karen] I like to be the parent representative.

Part of what we have to do is work to inoculate people against misinformation by teaching them how it works and helping them figure out how to fight it.

[somber music playing] [Karen] I was on maternity leave My second son, Levi was 10 days old and it was my first son.

Toby's fifth birthday.

His preschool, they were having a bicycle party for the entire class, so all the parents stayed, including me and my husband.

With Levi.

The next day, I got a call from the preschool telling me that Levi had been exposed to chickenpox and chickenpox in a newborn baby is really very, very serious.

Levi was fine, but when the mom came back, I did ask her, hey, how in the heck do you get chickenpox?

Didn't he have the vaccine?

And she told me that no, they just didn't think that vaccine was important.

I was surprised, like I had a newborn And why didn't she have our back on this?

And that's really.

That's when it became real for me.

[upbeat intro music] Hello.

My name is Karen Ernst.

This is VAX Talk It is the podcast for people who prefer not to get Polio.

I am here at ACIp day one.

What do you think parents should take away from the fact that these decisions are hard?

This is an exhaustive process, and I'm so proud of the United States for doing this kind of Mr. Big, Bigtree.

My name is Del Bigtree I'm the CEO of the Informed Consent Action Network.

Our citizens are now test groups, a part of a medical experiment you were putting on them.

I hope you will start being scientists and actually caring.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments.

[cheering and applause] [Karen] Leaders in the anti-vaccine movement, like Del Bigtree, have used public comment to spread fear and misinformation.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening.

Wherever you are out there in the world.

We are here in Atlanta, Georgia, home of the CDC.

[Del Bigtree] You sense the bullcrap.

You know, when you're being lied to.

See, you're not stupid You're not stupid.

[Karen] Del Bigtree used to work at The Doctors Show, so he calls himself a medical journalist.

I'm going to talk about how I won this little beauty.

[Karen] He discovered that many vaccine hesitant parents were looking for answers.

And so Del glommed on to that.

And he used his technical skills in television production to make a slickly produced and highly profitable YouTube show, posing as a legitimate news program.

He also is very enamored with getting attention.

I grew up in Boulder, Colorado.

I'm a liberal progressive from Boulder, Colorado.

[Scott] So you have a vaccine injured child?

I do not.

I have two unvaccinated children.

Can I ask why you're the spokesperson?

and not- [Supporter 1] He's not, he wasn't elected an official representative of us, but he speaks for us.

[Supporter 2] Yes.

[Supporter 3] Thank you for what you're doing.

Thank you for flying around.

Thank you for everything you do for us.

Yes.

Thank you.

[Supporter 4] Thank God for Del.

Thank you.

[Karen] Not everyone who is vaccine hesitant is a conspiracy theorist.

Well, a lot of those people are just looking for answers or they're unsure.

So I like to think of vaccine hesitancy as its own infectious disease.

So if you have an anti-vaccine person who's following a big anti-vaccine leader, they will proselytize and they will create in other people vaccine hesitancy, and those people will refuse vaccines and there will be measles in that community.

It's never a matter of if It's always a matter of when.

I watch reports that measles is deadly, I think we have to question what we call deadly.

I mean, so is drinking water for that matter, if Ebola's sweeping the country, talk to me then.

[somber music playing] [sirens blare, somber music plays] [helicopter] [School Superintendent] Good morning.

Schools remained closed for May 1st.

I wish I could tell you it will all be back to normal sometime soon.

Does not look like that will be the case.

I want to go back to school.

It's my last year of middle school, and I want to go back.

[Tessa singing] When all the world comes crumbling down.

you're stuck with you don't want to be around.

Stop!

[Tessa singing] Life is filled with so much uncertainty.

Please know you can rely on me.

[Skype ringing] [Scott] Paul, how are you?

I'm hanging in there.

But as you notice, you know I'm an Eagles fan, so I don't know if you saw the Eagles last year, but they couldn't catch anything.

So I'm thinking, you know, if I wore an Eagles shirt.

Maybe I won't catch anything either.

[Peter] Well I think, you know when you're trying to fight a highly transmissible virus and you don't have a vaccine, you don't have a lot of weapons, right?

So you wind up going back to the 14th century when quarantine was invented.

[Paul chuckling] That's pretty much what we're doing right now.

[Paul] Yeah, I would like the President of the United States, even Tony Fauci, to get out there and say, well, the goal is not to prevent every single case of Covid or every single death from Covid.

That's going to happen.

It may continue to happen for months or even years.

We'll see.

[Peter] hmm.

The goal is to not overwhelm the health care system so that we can get back to work.

You just have to realize that there's no perfect solution that people are going to lose either way and you just have to try to figure out the way that they lose the least, because there's not any risk-free choice here, which is always true.

There's never a risk free choice.

There's just choices to take different risks.

[News Anchor] There are alarming new statistics showing the pandemic is taking an especially heavy toll on minority communities.

In Illinois alone, more than 40% of those who have died are African Americans, even though only 15%... All right.

I've been teaching for 24 years, but I am nervous.

[Scott/narrator] My wife has been a public high school teacher in Compton for almost a quarter century, but this is her first time teaching remotely.

[Student] Hi, Miss Borek.

[Catherine] Hi Jasmine.

Does this mean I'm only going to see your names and not your fabulous faces?

[inaudible] Well, I can't... Oh it that my job?

Thank you.

Learning.

Now, are you guys all sticking with the quarantine or are you staying inside?

[Catherine's Students] Yeah.

Yeah.

How many of you are taking care of kids right now?

[Catherine's Students] Me.

Need a buddy.

Yeah.

How many of you are teaching kids right now?

[Catherine's Students] I am, I am.

[somber piano music playing] [Catherine] She's teaching her.

Her sister, who's in kindergarten because she thinks that the kindergarten brain needs more than their 18 year old brain.

So she decided that that's where her priority was.

[somber music playing] [Scott] Is there any possible lemonade in what might come of this tragedy?

[Paul] I think people now have knowledge that they didn't have before about how viruses can reproduce themselves and what you can do to stop spread.

I think people, have a healthy respect for vaccines.

[rising piano music playing] [Scott/narrator] Before the creation of vaccines.

Adults and children around the world suffered and died from horrible diseases.

Diseases and plagues killed so many.

The parents would attempt to have several children.

And hopes of a few surviving.

And then scientists discovered vaccines.

[Paul] The purpose of vaccines is to induce the immunity that is a consequence of natural infection, without having to pay the price of natural infection.

We can go back to the first vaccine, which is the smallpox vaccine that was developed by Edward Jenner what Jenner.

What Jenner noticed was that when smallpox would sweep across the southern English country side, women who milked cows, who had blisters on their hands or on their wrists wouldn't get smallpox.

He thought those two things were related.

Now we know that those women were infected with cowpox, and the cowpox was similar enough to human smallpox that immunization with one could protect against the other.

And that what he did.

As a consequence, smallpox, which was estimated to have killed 500 million people in the world's history, was eliminate from the face of the Earth.

By the end of the 1970s.

Vaccines were always compelling because vaccine preventable diseases were so compelling.

[child coughing] But if you had to pick what is the most contagious of the vaccine preventable diseases, it's measles.

In fact, every year a few million children would get measles, 48,000 would be hospitalized, 500 would die.

But because of an amazing effort starting in 1963 up into the year 2000 we were able to vaccinate more than 90% of children and stop the spread of measles in the United States.

This vaccine actually has the capacity to eliminate measles from the face of the Earth, much in the same manner that we eliminated smallpox.

So in the early 1980s, there weren't 8,000 children dying of pertussis every year.

50,000 children getting paralyzed by polio.

48,000 children getting hospital and 500 dying from measles.

Vaccines are probably the greatest medical advance ever.

They've allowed us to live 30 years longer than we did 100 years ago.

That's the power of vaccines.

That's what vaccines can do.

And still, vaccines are in many ways a victim of their own success.

When vaccines work, nothing happens.

I think that's what makes them a little less compelling People don't really see what they're doing.

I understand that how it was easy to appeal to the notion that vaccines may be doing more harm than good, because we weren't seeing the vaccine preventable diseases and their harm.

Science isn't political, or at least it shouldn't be.

I mean, there's something very pure about science.

You have a hypothesis.

You formulate burdens of proof to that hypothesis.

You subject those proofs to statistical analysis, and over time, truths emerge.

It's not like politics or religion or philosophy.

It's not a democratic process.

[door creaks open] [news anchor] America's epicenter New York in the grips of the virus.

during another 24 hour stretch of nearly 800 people dead.

The hospital has 500 beds and is over capacity.

[phone rings] Hello.

[Scott] Hi.

How are you?

I'm well, how are you?

Just trying to do something at a time when there's a lot of fear and a lot of losses around us, I think.

And it's just I always feel better when there's something I can do rather than watch or just.

just be scared.

I was doing a lot of home visits in my community because we were trying to keep people out of the hospital.

So on my days off from the hospital while my kids were home I'd check people oxygenation levels.

I was helping people decide if they may have been exposed.

People had to decide what to do with their loved ones, whether to take their sick family members to the hospital where hospitals were overwhelmed.

Some of our children's teachers are ill.

Some of our providers are ill. And we all have friends of friends or family.

Friends who are pretty sick or died.

Oh Sorry.

Hold on.

I call it the Corona car You know, I've got, like, masks everywhere.

Swabs, more masks.

[Scott] A year ago, Blima, April 2019, you were in a different crisis Yeah.

It was it felt it was more of a crisis of misinformation.

Back when Covid came to the United States.

The only silver lining I saw was that I assumed that the anti-vaccine and anti-science cohorts in our midst would realize what it feels like and what it really is to be faced with a dangerous infectious disease.

for which we have no treatment and no vaccine.

And I thought that this would be the moment where they would how lucky we are that for most other diseases we're now on the other side of that.

I did think that the arrival of Covid would be the end of the anti-science world.

[Scott] Were you right?

I was never so wrong in my life.

[crowd chanting] [anti-vax protestor] The government doesn't get to decide how I want to protect my family and my health.

[crowd chanting "No more tyranny"] [Del Bigtree] What are we wearing masks for?

What are we locked down for?

What are we waiting for?

[freedom angel] You are all one of us.

You are fighting the battle we've been fighting for years.

I don't think I look like your average Trump supporter.

So they can portray us however they want to.

[crowd cheering] [protestors chanting "freedom"] [protestors chanting "Fire Fauci] [RFK Jr.] Fauci is going to protect a crooked corrupt vaccine program that he helped design.

No matter what.

[solemn music fading out] [RFK Jr] My name is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And I am the president of the Children's Health Defense.

We don't advise people to take vaccines or not take vaccines.

We do not give advise.

We give information.

[news anchor] So many people know Robert Kennedy Jr as an attorney and a leading environmental activist.

and ofcourse son, of the late Senator Robert Kennedy.

And the nephew of President John Kennedy.

Please welcome Robert F. Kennedy Jr. [crowd cheers] Mr. Kennedy's environmental achievements and lifetime work are really quite remarkable.

If they build this pipeline it is game over for climate change.

Do you think about politics in terms of electoral politics?

You know, I haven't seen the opportunities that I want has not opened for me.

[old internet sound] [crowd cheers] Thank you very much.

There is no denying that there is a connection between autism and thimerosal in the vaccines.

I am not anti-vaccine.

I've never been anti-vaccine.

If somebody calls me... that I'm anti-vaccine.

It's because they have an agenda which is to marginalize or, you know, vilify me or make me look like I'm I'm crazy.

[Scott] So are there any vaccines in history that you would say were a benefit to mankind?

Um...

I don't know the answer to that.

[RFJ Jr] I was suing these power plants and we were uniquely focused on mercury discharges, and I was speaking about mercury all over the country.

And there were always these women who would sit in the front row, and they would come up to me afterwards and they would say, you need ot look at the vaccines.

Because of my name, my family has deep connections with all of the regulatory agencies.

So I'm able to call people like Tony Fauci and I talked to Paul Offit, and this is what I said to Paul Offit.

I said, "how can you be injecting them with mercury?"

[crowd laughs] And he said, "well, as the mercury in Thimerosal is not resident in the body long enough to do harm."

[crowd laughing] But I knew he was lying.

[crowd applauding] Apparently Robert F Kennedy, Jr has stood up in front of the public to demean me.

I'm not his problem.

The science is his problem.

[enlightening music] [Paul] Ethylmercury is a preservative, it's contained in some multi-dose vials of influenza vaccine.

It decreases the ability of bacteria and fungi actually to reproduce.

[Paul] I talked to him for more than an hour on the phone about all the studies that had shown at that point that, that children who received vaccines containing thimerosal were at no greater risk of not only autism, but any of a variety of developmental disorders that could be associated with mercury poisoning, that although mercury can be a poison that the quantity of mercury contained in vaccines was less than the quantity of mercury you would obtain from drinking water, assuming you live on this planet.

He can continue to attack me and say that I've lied to him or misrepresented data.

But it doesn't matter what I say.

The only thing that matters is what the data show, and the data have consistently shown him to be wrong.

That's his problem.

Members of the Kennedy family, slamming RFK Jr over his widely debunked stance on vaccines.

[News Anchor] They write, "he has helped spread dangerous misinformation over social media and is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines.

He is wrong and his opposition is having heartbreaking consquences.

[Paul] His family doesn't like what he's doing.

They asked him to stand down and stop putting children in harm's way But he doesn't listen.

If you haven't made a donation to Children's Health Defense [Peter] What the anti-vaccine groups are doing is portraying themselves as the watchdogs are the ones looking out for the public, when in fact it's quite the opposite.

[solemn, suspenseful music playi [sound of keyboards clicking] [RFK Jr.] I can remember in the before my first baby was born, and all I wanted was for that child to be healthy.

[Peter] If you're a parent now, You put the word vaccine into a search engine.

You're more likely to get garbage than real information.

After this moment, you will not be allowed to turn back.

[mouse click] [Peter] They've monetized the internet through advertising or selling fake nutritional supplements.

Selling fake autism cures, terrible stuff like bleach enemas.

Amazon is now the single largest promoter of fake anti-vaccine books.

[TV spokeswoman] You're going to love owning the platinum package of The Truth About Vaccines We are donating a portion of the proceeds to a handful of amazing charities, including Bobby Kennedy's and Del Bigtree's.

[Scott/narrator] While most of their organizations are registered as 501 C3 nonprofits, their success at fundraising has boosted their salaries significantly.

[mechanical click as digits change] [Blima] The misinformation and the mistrust goes beyond just vaccines, and it extends to many kinds of health behaviors.

Belief in vitamins and supplements as alternatives to medications or vaccinations.

Elderberry is a popular supplement that people believe can cure diseases or prevent diseases.

These are not really true.

Your products harm our children.

[Blima] Creating this very aggressive, interwoven and interconnected community of alternative health beliefs.

Andrew Wakefield, so good to have you here.

[Karen] I think a lot of it has to do with people creating their own truths through the internet.

This is going to be a disaster for mankind.

[Karen] The conspiracy theorists play into distrust.

Don't trust the government.

Don't trust the experts.

Don't trust the scientists.

Don't trust your doctor.

[Peter] They'll use facts and factoids that sound plausible and then string them together in a false narrative.

And that's what disinformation is all about.

[Scott/narrator] And then in just the past few years, they made a powerful pivot to expand their movement.

[Peter] What the anti-vaccine lobby does now is they tie their star to wherever they think they can make headway.

So in the Pacific Northwest, they might use language that appeals to the far left wing of the Democratic Party.

But up in Texas, they go to the far right wing in the Republican Party.

[Peter] They politicized the anti-vaccine movement to galvanize these groups under this fake banner of health, freedom, medical freedom, that that now government is telling us what to do with our kids.

[crowd cheering] [Donald Trump] The beautiful child went to have the vaccine.

Now is autistic.

[Paul] I think when Trump was elected, I think they thought they had their guy in the white House.

[Andrew Wakefield] He said that he would do something about the autism crisis.

He's an interesting man and we can see how this plays out.

[protestors chant] Freedom, freedom, [Del Bigtree] Do you think it's a good idea to let the government own your baby's body?

Anyone that believes in the right to bear arms to stand up against your government.

I don't know what you were saving that gun for then.

[audience laughing] [mouse click] [mouse click] [Paul] I get hate mail.

I get physically harassed.

I've gotten three legitimate death threats that have had to have been investigated by the FBI.

If you stand up for the science of vaccines, you put yourself in harm's way.

You put a target on your back.

You've sort of left the world of science and entered the world of politics.

And politics can be mean.

[introductory speaker] This next speaker needs no introduction.

Please welcome to the stage Del Bigtree.

[crowd cheering and applauding] [Del] So if anyone asked me, is this movement growing?

You're damn right it is!

[crowd cheering] Yeah!

[Andrew Wakefield] The vaccine makers have most assuredly gone rogue.

[Crowd cheering] [RFK Jr.] In any just society, we would be building statues to Andy Wakefield.

[crowd cheering] We need to see ourselves as part of a larger community, something heroic and something good.

[crowd cheering] [Paul] Now, when you hear Andrew Wakefield or Del Bigtree or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. say they're just standing up in defense of children, that's the opposite of what they're doing.

What they're doing is they're putting children in harm's way unnecessarily.

[Scott] Samoa 2018 two babies were given the MR Can you tell us your version of that story?

I don't remember well enough what happened.

I know that there were a number of children who were- I didn't go to Samoa, by the way, for anything to do with that issue.

[tense music] [news anchor] TV1 brings you a breaking news on the death of two young children, both aged one years old, who died soon soon after being vaccinated at Safotu Hospital.

The baby was shaking and turned yellowish, even in the eyes or face.

He's gone.

[Scott/narrator] While it was still a mystery exactly why these children died.

The Prime Minister immediately declared a ban on MMR and all vaccines.

They took this historic action because of a sincere belief that the MMR vaccine can cause autism, a developmental disability His own grandson suffers from.

[news intro music] Two babies dead in Samoa.

It's a heartfelt story.

That video is up to 174,000 views and climbing.

Share it with everyone you know.

This is how we are changing the world.

This is one of the things we're [Scott/narrator] Through his nonprofit advocacy group Children's Health Defense, Robert Kennedy,Jr praised the Prime Minister for his decisive action.

and in 2019, he even visited Samoa with his wife, actress Cheryl Hines.

[Cheryl Hines] We feel very honored to be spending time with the Prime Minister.

My husband wants to move here.

[Scott/narrator] For almost a year.

The message to the people of Samoa was that vaccinations will harm or even kill you.

In the fall of 2019, the consequences of those messages became crystal clear.

[news anchor] This small Pacific nation is in a state of emergency.

More than 4000 Samoans who've contracted measles since the outbreak began.

Most of the victims are young kids.

[woman crying] Sorry.

[News Anchor] By Wednesday, the death toll from last month's measle outbreak in Samoa had risen to over 60, the vast majority of those children.

[woman crying] [news reporter 1] Samoa has shut down schools, and minors from public gatherings and mandated that all citizens get the MMR vaccine.

[news reporter 2] As dawn broke, the mass mobilization began.

[news reporter 3] Medical teams traveling down every back road in Samoa in an effort to get everyone vaccinated.

[woman shouting] This is a painful lesson we have learned from the current crisis.

[Scott/narrator] In a significant change of heart, The Prime Minister publicly received the MMR vaccine, reinstating MMR across the country.

[Scott] I assume you know the Prime Minister changed his mind and got the MMR vaccine.

I have no idea.

I, I never talked to the Prime Minister of Samoa about anything to do with vaccination.

[Scott/narrator] Months after his visit to Samoa, as the cases and death toll were rising, Robert Kennedy Jr. wrote a letter to the Prime Minister.

He began by sharing his condolences, but quickly pivoted to being, quote, dismayed but not surprised to see media reports that linked the current measles outbreak to the so-called anti-vaccine movement".

And he went on to suggest that the outbreaks were not caused by inadequate vaccine coverage, but instead caused by a defective vaccine.

When in fact, all evidence points to Samoa's measles outbreak happening because of the decline in vaccination rates.

[news anchor] Only 31% of Samoans were vaccinated around the time of the outbreak in part because of fears after two infants died.

when nurses incorrectly mixed their vaccines with another medicine.

Two nurses mixed vaccine powder with expired muscle relaxant anesthetic instead of water.

[Scott/narrator] It wasn't the vaccine that killed those children It was just a human error.

[Scott] Do you have any idea of how many cases of measles were in Samoa between, say, 1986 and 2019?

I have no idea [Scott] Great okay I've got that 1986 one case of measles 93 seven 2005 zero.

2006, zero, 2009, zero And in 2019, there were 5707 measles cases.

Do you know what happened in 2019?

Yeah I'm aware there was a measles outbreak but I didn't have anything, you know,I had nothing to do with, with people not vaccinating in Samoa.

I never told anybody not to vaccinate.

I didn't, you know, go there for any reason to do with that.

[news anchor 1] One news has learned of a high-level anti-vax meeting just before this deadly measles outbreak.

A meeting between vaccination critic Robert Kennedy Jr. and anti-vax blogger Tayler Winterstein, publicizing her meeting with the high profile Kennedy as profoundly monumental for her movement.

[news anchor 2] This so-called anti-vaxer Edwin Tamasese he had promoted the use of vitamin C to cure the disease.

[News anchor 3] During the country's two day mass measles vaccination drive last week.

He posted "I'll be here to mop up your mess, enjoy your killing sprees" [News Anchor 1] But the government is fighting back.

Edwin Tamasese is now under arrest charged with incitement against a government.

[somber music] [Scott/narrator] The parents of the children who died from a vaccine mistake requested to speak on tv during the peak of the measles outbreak.

[interviewer] What do you tell other parents who are still afraid of taking their children to get immunized?

[interviewer 2] They really want encourage parents to take their children to their immunization for the measles.

[Scott/narrator] Because acceptance of the MMR vaccine got to 94%, the measles outbreak in Samoa did come an end.

In fact, Samoa got their measles outbreak under control just before Covid broke out all over the world.

But with Covid, Samoa took the public health advice and stopped all travel into and out of Samoa.

And as of the end of 2021, they haven't had a single death from Covid.

[somber music fades out] [siren blaring] [Scott] Hey.

[Blima] Hey.

[Scott] How you doing?

[Scott] When did you find out?

Thursday.

I got, I kind of got, like, the chills, the aches.

really bad.

What's today?

Thursday again.

So about a week.

So far, I haven't felt like I've had fever.

Oh, my husband is.

He's had like 102, 103.

[Scott] Okay.

I've just been really weak and very fatigued.

and had a lot of muscle aches.

Just letting everything go.

The toys are out.

Here, I'll show you... [Scott] laughs [pensive music] [Blima] So our children raised themselves for about two weeks.

I remember crying.

At one point I had so much body pain that the thought of rolling over in bed required a lot of forethought and decision making.

Do I have the energy?

Will it be worth the pain to flip positions?

We couldn't let anyone in the home, so we kind of took turns.

When my husband thought he felt a little better, he would crawl out of bed and cook the kids some pasta.

If I felt a little better, I'd crawl out and lay on the floor and try and read them a book.

It was a pretty rough go.

[news anchor] The death toll in coronavirus pandemic now has surpassed 400,000 people.

More than a quarter of those deaths are here in the United States, where as of this morning, more than 110,000 people have died of the virus.

[video game sounds] [Karen] Hi, I'm Karen Ernst This podcast is a special episode about misinformation and good information.

[computer mechanical sound] Oh, here I am.

Okay, sorry.

I paused for a second there.

Child-- stop using the internet, please.

I need the bandwidth.

Also put some pants on.

[video game sounds] We're all set.

This is totally all planned.

Thank you for sticking with us.

I am going- [Pam] So, this podcast, How many people do you think you're reaching?

[Karen] We get about 20,000 downloads a month.

[Pam] That's pretty good.

[Karen] Yeah it's not bad.

[Tom] I think we, we did that.

We downloaded -- the podcast.

[Karen] Mine?

[Tom] Yeah.

[Karen] Oh, okay.

Yeah.

[Tom] Yeah.

[Karen] I grew up in a Minnesota conservative family.

and my parents are kind people.

They care about people around them.

They wear masks.

They're decent human beings, just like most people of all political stripes.

[Karen] I do credit what I'm doing right now to you guys.

There was like a traditional, you know, take care of your community, take care of yourself, be responsible, understand there's consequences for what you do.

Vaccines have been working since we were kids.

He had neighbors, men that got polio.

and one of them died, didn't he?

This is not politics.

This is science.

This is your health.

You don't consult your congresswoman or congressman when you want to know if you should get a vaccine.

You ask your doctor [Scott] What is your definition of the social contract?

[Karen] The social contract is this unwritten contract that each of us has obeying some socially acceptable rules.

[playful footsteps coming down the stairs] [Catherine] Eden's here and ready to help.

Class of 2020 you are too and I'm going to stop there for a second.

Go ahead.

[Karen] We all benefit when we all do this thing together.

You are the breakers of norms, the builders of truth.

[Karen] We don't litter, we'll not drive drunk.

We'll vaccinate to protect each other.

And some of these are laws and some of them are just an agreement we have.

[protestors] You can't close America.

You can't close America [woman protestor] It's my freedom to run around and catch a virus if I want to.

Texas knows this is a chronic cough.

[Karen] The social contract is something that as a culture I've seen erode over decades.

[anti-vaxxer] I'm not going to wear a mask.

This is America.

I don't have to do what you say.

[people fighting] [Anthony Fauci I've had people who have threatened my life because I'm speaking public health measures.

[Blima] A person photographed a car driving.

The back of the car said Your health is not more important than my liberties. I think what these people mean to be saying is "I'm worried about how I'll feed my family [Catherine] You were given a broken and beautiful world.

[Tessa] That's a really pretty line.

[Catherine] Ready.

[Tessa] Yeah.

And- [paper rustling in the air] [Karen] The thing about the social contract is to think beyond our immediate desires for other people People seem to be more and more about looking out for themselves and their own.

less willing to sacrifice for each other.

Tessa, you want to come do this?

I have five minutes.

[Borek's student] Like a lot of people are saying it's just the flu and I think, personally I within like the wealthier groups, because they know they can afford the testing working class communities, and low income communities who can afford it and are left with nothing.

People need stop being so selfish.

[pensive music] [sounds of ocean waves] [pathe news music] [inquisitive music] The study that was done to show that Jonas Salk's polio vaccine worked was a 1.8 million-child study.

And when it worked, church bells rang out.

Synagogues held special prayer meetings.

Department stores stopped while that announcement was made.

My mother cried.

I mean, she knew how devastating this virus was.

[compelling music] [music fades] [sound of hammer] [compelling music] [news reporter 1] The Tuskegee Experiment, where for 40 years the government allowed hundreds of poor black men with syphilis to go untreated so scientists could study the effects.

[news reporter 2] The US government withheld medical treatment from hundreds of black men who had syphilis even decades after a treatment existed.

[woman] There are a lot of Black people who don't trust White doctors.

[lighter flicks] [news reporter 3] Tobacco industry has tried to convince millions of people t millions of people that smoking is completely harmless.

[news reporter 4] This is the biggest drug epidemic in American history.

[Paul] Scientists and pharmaceutical companies can act aggressively and illegally and and certainly irresponsibly.

I mean, vaccines can cause problems There's no doubt about it.

Most people don't know this story.

But when Jonas Salk made his polio vaccine five companies stepped forward to make it.

One company, Cutter Laboratories, made it badly.

What they failed to do was inactivate polio virus in their vaccine.

As a consequence, 164 children were permanently paralyzed and ten were killed.

It was probably one of the worst biological disasters in this country's history, and it gave birth to vaccine regulation in the United States.

[inquisitive music playing] [news reporter] This and other abus prompted greater protection for experimental subjects, and today informed consent is required for all research.

[Peter] When we're looking, for instance, at new vaccines and new technologies, sure, things could happen that we don't anticipate, but the point is that we have an infrastructure in place in order to detect it and call it out and alert the public to it.

Phase one.

Phase two.

Phase three.

Clinical trials presented to the Food and Drug Administration.

the Center for Disease Control, and then monitoring the safety of vaccines through the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System.

VAERS, the point is, it's the most elaborate and detailed system of vaccine safety the world has ever seen.

[Paul] I think the beauty of science actually is, is it's enormously self-correcting.

It's circumspect.

It's always questioning.

I mean, all of us, anybody who's made a comment about SARS-CoV-2 and Covid has been wrong at some point.

But I think the good news is that it's very unlikely to be any more damaging than infuenza virus is.

I can't imagine, frankly that it would cause one tenth of the damage that influenza virus causes every year in the United States.

Okay, that's really interesting.

You cannot imagine... [Paul] I was dead wrong.

The reason was, as I looked at China, I looked at Japan, I looked at South Korea.

I compared sort of the size of their populations to ours and just extrapolated.

I assume, that we would do as well as they had done.

And I was wrong.

I was dead wrong.

When you say one wrong thing, that doesn't mean that everything you ever have said or will say is wrong.

You just have to admit when you're wrong.

[Rochelle Wolensky] We learned some hard lessons over the last three years, and as part of that is my responsibility it's the agency's responsibility to learn from those lessons and do better.

[Paul] The irony of the anti-vaccine activists is they never do that.

I mean, they're wrong about whether or not MMR causes autism They're wrong about whether thimerosal caused developmental delays, including autism.

They were wrong about all those things, but they just can never, ever admit that they're wrong.

[anticipatory music] [speaker] We welcome our special guest speaker, Doctor Andy Wakefield.

[Scott/narrator] Not only is Andrew Wakefield never admitted any wrongdoing.. [Andrew] People often say to me, you know, you're a hero.

You've done this, that and the other no, no, no, it's privilege to do [Scott/narrator] He has managed parents who believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that their autistic child is vaccine-injured.

Would everybody with a vaccine injured family member just please stand up?

Just for a moment.

[murmur and stirring from the crowd] [Lynette] She's not going to ever been be able to like, go to birthday parties or have friends, or go to school or be a part of pretty much anything.

She's so compromised.

She was born perfect.

You know what I'm saying?

She was she was she was perfect.

Man fouled that up.

[solemn piano music] [Peter] This is why I have a lot of empathy and sympathy for parents, because they're just trying to find out what's happening, and they're being inundated with garbage.

[Peter] I got involved in this because I'm a vaccine scientist and a pediatrician, but I'm also the parent of a daughter with autism.

I wrote a book, called "Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel's Autism."

My wife Anne and I we already had two other kids that were not on the autism spectrum.

so Anne was one of the first to pick up, of course, that there was something different about Rachel.

[inquisitive music playing] When Rachel started showing delays in her developmental milestones, she was finally diagnosed with autism around two years of age, which actually is a pretty common timeline that we see with lots of kids on the autism spectrum.

Parents will often remember, oh, my kid Oh my kid got vaccinated around 18 months, and then autism will begin sometime between the first and second year of life.

So it's logical to want to connect the two.

[Peter] Now we have at least 100 genes including Rachel's gene that we know is involved in early fetal brain development.

The processes that ignite autism are well underway by the middle of pregnancy, so there's no way you could attribute that to a vaccine.

[telephone rings] [Rachel] Hello?

[Peter] So one of the things I'm doing here Rach is I'm giving lectures but I'm also being filmed for a documentary, [Rachel] That's really cool dad.

[Peter] So Rach -- if you want to go out Saturday night that's fine.

[Rachel] Alright, how about we go to the burger joint?

[Peter] The burger joint again?

[Rachel] Yeah.

[Peter] Well mom doesn't like you having and me having so many burgers.

[Rachel] And why not?

[Peter] because they're fattening and they're, You're not supposed to eat so much red meat.

So I suggested we just go to La Mexicana or something like that.

[Rachel] Well, how about we go there on Saturday.

[Peter] All right.

[Rachel] Okay [Peter] Bye.

That's Rach.

[Peter] What the anti-vaccine groups do is they make children and ultimately adults on the autism spectrum, like pariahs, like they're lepers who have to leave the community.

And that's why I get angry.

That's when I start to realize these guys, in addition to affecting public health, are actually hurting autism families.

[crowd cheering] [news reporter] Record breaking amounts of new Covid-19 cases continue to plague the Midwest.

[applause] This pandemic is a desperate, desperate act.

[Del] I absolutely see the pandemic as an opportunity.

We're 25 times bigger than we were three months ago when this all started.

I used to have a show that would be viewed by a couple hundred thousand people in a week, and we're clearing... sometimes four to six million views a week now on the information we're putting out.

[Karen] A group of us in the Midwest got together and said you know, we can't have a big rally with hundreds of people for public health right now.

That would be crazy.

So we decided to do it virtually.

We called it "Vaccinate the Heartland" and it was sort of a speed dating for vaccines.

Ethan Lindenberger, I grew up in an anti-vaccine household, and when I became of age, I got myself immunized.

Families of HPV cancer victims, parents of babies who had died from pertussis, all sorts of folks just saying please vaccinate.

Vaccines are important.

So celebrate each other right now.

Turn to each other and say Thank you for standing up for freedom with me.

[Karen] Del is selling a lie and he's selling it hard.

And we're just offering the truth.

Sort of just like Here please take our truth. [Darby] Hi, my name is Darby.

I am 12 years old.

I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease.

My Crohns medication keeps my disease in remission.

The other effect is lowering my immune system.

Because my immune system is lower I rely on other people to make sure they get their vaccines.

[Karen] If we can't help the people who most need our help, what are we even a society for?

[Del] Freedom!

Freedom!

Freedom!

Freedom!

Freedom!

Freedom!

[crowd cheering and clapping] [Scott/narrator] Through the late summer and fall of 2020, rallies against Covid restrictions, including some from the far right and conspiracy theorists who do not believe Covid-19 exists, happened all over the world including London Paris, Vienna, and an enormous rally in Berlin.

[reporter 2] Protesters include anti-vaccination activists but also some of Germany's most notorious right-wing groups.

[news reporter 2] The black, white and red used now by neo-Nazis.

[crowd clapping] [crowd cheering] The only thing a government needs to make people into slaves is fear.

[crowd cheering] We're telling them today, you are not gonna take away our freedoms.

You are not gonna poison our children.

Thank you all very much for fighting.

[Peter] What we now have to realize is, what was an anti-vaccine movement has now morphed into an anti-science and disinformation globalized empire.

[crowd shouting] [news reporter 1] The far right activists who marched alongside coronavirus skeptics clashed with police.

[crowd] Resistance!

Resistance!

[news reporter 2] A small group even managed to storm the steps of the German parliament before being detained.

Yet the far right were confident their place in Berlin at the weekend.

And the Corona skeptics didn't seem to have a problem with them being there.

[crowd shouting] [lighter flicks] [reporter 3] Orthodox Jewish demonstrators have gathered for two nights in Brooklyn's Borough Park neighborhood.

burning masks and allegedly attacking a journalist.

[sirens blaring] [Blima] Watching that happen made me feel like there's no value to science communication.

There will be those people who will always listen, and there will be people who just won't.

And at that time, with so much anti-science being thrown around, I felt like it was pointless and I was ready to give up.

[machine beeping] I believed this was just the flu That it was all going to go away That it was political.

[somber music] You don't want to end up like me.

[machine beeping] Everybody thinks it's a joke.

It's not a joke.

Never in my life did I ever think that I would be fighting for my breath.

Something that we take for granted every day.

I really miss you here You're a warrior; you're my mom's mom.

[repeated clicking as numbers increase] Get up, my queen Get more serious about your decisions.

Just as the country is entering a dangerous and deadly new phase of the pandemic, in a surprise announcement, the drug maker Pfizer said its vaccine is 90% effective and it could be ready for approval in weeks.

[Paul] I am a member of the FDA's Vaccines Advisory Committee, and on December 10th, we met to discuss Pfizer's vaccine.

So it's a detailed summary of of every aspect of their trials.

There's small phase 1 trials when they try and figure out the dose, the larger phase 2 trials when they try to make sure that the vaccine is consistently safe and then the big phase 3 trial.

And you just read through it slowly and carefully.

You make all your notes to uh for all the questions that you want to ask.

[Paul] The goal of the vaccine was to prevent serious illness, to keep people from being hospitalized, to in many ways protect the health care system.

[interviewer] Dr. Offit, thank you as usual for joining us, Dr. Paul Offit, He's a key member of the FDA Vaccines Advisory Committee How did you vote and tell us why?

So I voted yes.

Because we know that this vaccine is highly effective for at least three months after your first dose, and it doesn't have any serious adverse events.

So it doesn't have an uncommon, serious adverse event.

And the question is never when do you to know everything, It's when do you know enough?

And I think we know enough now to say that this appears to be our way out of this awful, awful mess.

[interviewer] Ok doc Well thank you sir.

Sure take care.

[interviewer] Bye bye.

Bye bye.

[Phone ringing] This would be my mother.

[Paul's Mom] Paul you looked exceptionally good tonight!

Alright good.

[Paul's Mom] You're wonderful.

And of course you're always good Thank you.

Okay.

[Paul's Mom] Ok, honey -- [Paul] Bye bye.

[Scott] Who was that?

It was my mother.

[Scott] What did she say?

She says what she always says.

You look good.

[laughs] [news anchor] Pfizer is shipping out the first doses of the Coronavirus vaccine.

[cheering] [Paul] If you asked a thousand scientists in January 2020, when the journal Science published the gene sequence of SARS-CoV-2, do you think that within a year we're going to have a vaccine that is 95% effective, no matter what your medical background is?

I think you would not have found a scientist on this planet that would have thought that was possible.

[clapping, cheering] I feel like healing is coming.

To be honest, I got butterflies.

It was really exciting.

[Dr. Ken Johnson] Very emotional and finally they have something that can help them feel protected while they care for others.

I'm okay.

It's just emotional -- It's just I can't -- It's like a light at the end of the tunnel.

[Paul] I would say it's miraculous, except it can be explained by the laws of nature.

So it's really not a miracle.

But it is an amazing feat.

So we'll have the Pfizer vaccine rolling out first.

Moderna will be second shot.

[interviewer] So Mr. President, I know that you received the vaccine.

Would you recommend to our audience that they get the vaccine then?

[Trump] I would recommend it to a lot of people that don't want to get it.

And a lot of those people voted for me frankly.

These shots need to get in everybody's arm as rapidly as possible.

Getting the vaccines that are authorized by the respected authorities is an act of love.

Well, hey.

It's me.

I'm finally going to get my vaccine.

I'm so excited.

[singing] Vaccine.

Vaccine.

Vaccine.

Vaccine.

I'm begging of you.

Please don't hesitate.

Vaccine.

Vaccine.

Vaccine.

Vaccine.

Because once you dead, then that's a bit too late.

[Scott] What are the things you see in the news today, Tessa ' Can you leave me alone?

I have stuff to do.

Why are you asking me questions while I'm clearly trying to sleep?

[Paul] There's a question that was asked, on the internet.

So, if you have two options for quarantine, A that you're going to be quarantined with your wife and child, or B and the man says B [Scott] laughing [Scott/narrator] After almost a year of trying to survive a once in a lifetime pandemic... [door slams] Came an unimaginable day.

[people shouting, chanting, cheering] [Trump] We will not be intimidated into accepting the hoaxes and the lies.

And after this, we're going to walk down and I'll be there with you.

We're going to walk down to the Capitol.

[crowd cheering] [Scott/narrator] On January 6th, 2021, at the same time, and only a few blocks away, anti-vaxxers held their own rally.

[Trump] To the Capitol...

He's a man of honor.

He's fighting for you.

Please help us welcome Del Bigtree from Highwire to the stage.

[crowd cheering] [Del] You know, it's rare that I get to follow an act like Donald Trump, I mean can't beat that.

[Scott/narrator] They seem to want to attach their disinformation around public health... to conspiracy theories about the election being stolen.

I wish I could tell you that Tony Fauci cares about your safety.

I wish I could tell you that this pandemic really is dangerous I wish I could believe that voting machines worked and that people cared.

You've been sold a lie.

[Paul] Seeing Del Bigtree speak at the Capitol sort of reminds you that he is a conspiracy theorist.

much the same way that the former president was a conspiracy theorist.

and much the same way that anti-vaccine activists are conspiracy theorists because that's all you can be.

We will stop the steal.

[crowd chanting "steal is real"] [Karen] I don't think Trump believes that.

I think he's more like a Del Bigtree in that Trump is thinking, I need all of my followers to believe this.

[crowd chanting "steal is real"] [Paul] I think what Donald Trump is tapped into but didn't create is the notion you can simply declare your own truths, no matter how disengaged they are from reality.

Hold the line patriots.

Hold the line.

[protesters hitting the door] [protesters break door window] [ringing] [Charlene Ballinger] The Capitol has been stormed by patriots.

We're here for this reason, we are winning.

This is a war between good and evil.

[shouting and chaos] [Paul] It's really a graphic, physical representation of how dangerous this declaring your own truth business is.

[crowd shouting] [Paul] Certainly present in the anti-vaccine world, as they just continue to say the big lie over and over and over again as Trump did.

[crowd shouting] [Paul] With dramatic, devastating results.

[gunshot] [somber music] [Scott/narrator] As I witnessed the bizarre and brutal events of January 6th... where thousands of Americans felt, with absolute certainty... that attacking a pillar of our democracy was the right and just thing to do... it all felt like part of the same story.

[man shouting "freedom"] [Mitch McConnell] The mob was fed lies.

They were provoked by the President and other powerful people.

And we all should stand united in condemning the mob together.

[Mitt Romney] What happened here today was an unprecedented attack against our democracy.

The best way we can show respect for the voters who are upset is by telling them the truth.

[Paul] Once facts don't matter, once the truth doesn't matter, then it's not a democracy anymore.

[news reporter] Good news, in the fight against Covid, new cases yesterday -- the lowest level since March 2020.

[Catherine] So at this time, good scholars, I'm going to leave and go get my vaccine.

And I'm going to be thinking of every single one of you when I get this vaccine.

How you have encouraged me to go get it.

[Joe Biden] Our goal by July 4th is to have 70% of adult Americans at least one shot.

[Karen] You did a good job in there.

[Catherine] Getting excited, getting excited, getting excited You're saving lives.

Aw thank you.

Relaxing, relaxing.

It's not bad at all.

[Pam] I want to say thank you Donald Trump for getting me this vaccine.

And he did finally on air, say people should get the vaccine.

He finally said it.

And it was necessary.

It bothered me that he didn't.

And I confess I voted for him both times.

[Catherine] You were anxious?

[man] Very,very.

[Cahterine] And you did it anyway.

[man] I did it anyway.

I said -- I need to do something to be able to start socializing with people.

I won't have anxiety because I figured that I have the shot, [Catherine] That's a protection.

[man] It's a little more protection to be able to at least go see my parents [Catherine] Yeah.

You give them a hug [man] Give them a hug-- My daughter will be able to come and spend the weekend.

[Catherine] Aww.

[man] So, yeah, it's worth it.

[Catherine] It's just it's like it's -- a year!

[man] It's like a complete relief.

[Catherine] I'm so happy for you What's your name?

Aaron.

Aaron I'm Catherine.

Catherine.

We're, we're we're vaccine buddies now.

Yes.

[both laugh] [man] I have my card too.

[Catherine] I know.

We should frame these.

[man] Exactly.

[Catherine] I didn't cry, and I was very excited.

More excited than anything.

[car speeds by honking] [solemn music playing] [news reporter 1] The daily average for vaccinations has dropped 20% since the start of the month... a worrying trend [news reporter 2] health officials are now warning that these low rates could become breeding grounds for new variants.

[news anchor 3] More than two years into this pandemic the US death toll is the highest in the world and its death rate is alarming, particularly given that the U.S was one of the first to have the vaccine.

[solemn music playing] [Scott] What's your best hope for us moving forward Are you hopeful that we as a people, by the percentages, did better than worse?

[Paul] So this disinformation, this flood of conspiracy theories, is a weapon.

A weapon that we've directed against ourselves.

[RFK Jr.] The vaccine itself is gonna kill far more people.

[man coughs] [news reporter 1] More than 87% of people killed by the virus were unvaccinated.

[Paul] I think in many ways, the war against this virus has become a war against ourselves.

To counter disinformation in a compassionate way, we have to get good information out there.

[reporter] Nearly 20 million lives were saved by Covid-19 vaccines in the first year, [Paul] And therefore, we need to see ourselves as part of a society, as part of a whole.

[gentle piano music] This has been a rough two years, but I have to believe that the lessons have been hard earned and hard won and will carry us forward in the future.

I'm going to sing here, and then we're going to find a way to edit together so it's like the choir is back together again.

Yay.

["Space Oddity" by David Bowie playing] Ground control to Major Tom.

[Catherine] Dominguez graduates, you're too special for any regular graduation.

You were given a broken and beautiful world.

You will take this world in your hands and make it less broken and more beautiful.

[Catherine cheering] [news reporter 1] The nation's first confirmed case of polio in almost a decade was discovered in Rockland County, New York.

[siren sounds in the distance] [Blima] It was shocking to see a in our community develop paralytic polio, especially considering that this person's choice to remain unvaccinated was likely due to disinformation surrounding vaccines.

This is why it is so important to get good information out there and stop disinformation.

I haven't quit being a science communicator, and I doubt I'll ever quit because I hate lies.

So if I ever come across a piece of information that I know is inaccurate, I'm probably going to have to refute it.

[Lynette] I told Del when we talked about ego.

and I said, you know, it's definitely upsetting for a lot of people.

And he said, well, y'all did this to me.

Y'all made my ego this way.

And I said, no, you came into this this way.

I will promise you that.

When you see him sitting on The Highwire with this Emmy Award polishing it, like, that's not for me.

Just wanted to welcome you to the show.

Dr. Paul Offit, you've been saying a lot of things that make a whole lot of sense to everybody.

And so I really wanted to talk to you about this It is your place in society to make sure that you protect not only your child, but those with whom they come in contact, and that is the fundamental dialogue that I think, you know, exists between me and you.

Take this as a good example you guys, to stop treating each other so mean and so badly And spending your time arguing so we can get somewhere.

And there's nothing I can do [piano solo playing] [clapping and cheering] [news reporter 2] The Indian government gave emergency approval to a new low cost, patent free vaccine.

The vaccine was developed by two doctors... [news reporter 3] Maria Elena Bottazzi and Doctor Peter Hotez are nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Though I'm past 100,000 miles I'm feeling very still And I think my spaceship knows which way to go We love you, and we look forward to the world that you will rebuild anew.

Ground control to Major Tom your circuit's dead is something wrong?

Can you hear me, Major Tom?

Can you hear me, Major Tom?

Can you hear me, Major Tom?

Can you hear me, Major Tom? ''

Thank you.

[Karen] The thing about the social contract is to think beyond our immediate desires for other people.

Are we going to live in a world where we care about each other?

Or are we going to live in our own little pod bubble away from everyone else?

[closing theme music fading] [Shot In The Arm by Wilco playing] Maybe all I need is a shot in the arm.

Maybe all I need is a shot in the arm.

Maybe all I need is a shot in the arm.

Maybe all I need is a shot in the arm.

Maybe all I need is a shot in the arm.

Maybe all I need is a shot in the arm.

Maybe all I need is a shot in the arm.

Something in my veins, bloodier than blood.

Something in my veins, bloodier than blood.

Something in my veins, bloodier than blood.

Something in my veins, bloodier than blood.

The ashtray says you were up all night.

(fades) This program is made possible by Rhode Island Department of Health Preventing disease and protecting and promoting the health and safety of the people of Rhode Island Ioway Public Health Association and Iowa Imunizes.

Together, we are bulding a public health movement.

Indiana Imunization Coalition.

Working to reduce vaccine- preventable diseases.

And by...