Behind 'Shot in the Arm': Filmmaker Scott Hamilton Kennedy on the Anti-Vaccine Movement’s Tactics

Описание: GLP Science Facts & Fallacies Podcast featuring Scott Hamilton Kennedy, creator of the documentary Shot in the Arm.

Watch Shot in the Arm Here: https://www.pbs.org/video/shot-in-the...

When SARS-CoV-2 swept across the world in late 2019, nobody was prepared for the disaster that unfolded. Physicians tried to care for patients sick with an infectious disease they had never seen before, while scientists scrambled to develop effective treatments and vaccines. Although most people saw this worsening situation as a public health crisis, the anti-vaccine movement viewed it as an opportunity. Just three months into the pandemic high-profile figures and activist groups began to assert that COVID-19 was planned, the next step in a prearranged “global immunization agenda” meant to initiate a “techno-communist global government” and benefit the pharmaceutical industry.

Most of us viewed these chaotic events from our living rooms, but filmmaker Scott Hamilton Kennedy had a closer view. In 2019 he was making Shot In The Arm, a documentary about the resurgence of measles, a vaccine-preventable disease that now spreads almost exclusively among unvaccinated children.

Kennedy kept the cameras rolling as the same activists who lobbied against childhood vaccination glomed on to COVID-19 in a bid to expand their influence over public health policy. “They seemed to be excited, in a way, that there was this trauma that they could take advantage of,” Kennedy observes. “They took advantage of a fragile situation to just become more and more cynical.”

Scott Hamilton Kennedy is an Academy Award nominated filmmaker. Follow him on X https://x.com/scotthamkennedy

Dr. Liza Dunn is a medical toxicologist. Follow her on X https://x.com/DrLizaMD

Cameron J. English is a science journalist. Follow him on X https://x.com/camjenglish

Get the audio version of this podcast: https://geneticliteracyproject.org/20...