Robert De Niro Cancels Screening of Anti-Vaccination Film at Tribeca

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - After initially defending the decision to include the anti-vaccination documentary "Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe" in the lineup at the Tribeca Film Festival, co-founder Robert De Niro has decided not to screen the film.

In a statement issued Saturday, De Niro said that after reviewing the film with the festival team and others from the scientific community, "we do not believe it contributes to or furthers the discussion I had hoped for." De Niro said his intent in screening the film was to provide an opportunity for conversation around an issue that is deeply personal to both him and his family. De Niro has a child who has autism.

The documentary was directed and produced by Andrew Wakefield, a man who is infamously known for presenting a paper in 1998 that claimed the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine was linked to the onset of autism. The findings in the paper have been discredited by the medical community. However, Wakefield's paper wasn't without its consequences. The so-called "Anti-Vaxxer" movement is largely blamed on Wakefield.

The documentary centers around a CDC whistleblower, William H. Thompson, who reportedly admitted to biologist Dr. Brian Hooker that the agency committed fraud in a 2004 study that found no link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

Several people questioned the decision to include the film in the lineup.

LA Times columist Michael Hiltzik wrote a column titled, "How Robert De Niro's Tribeca Film Festival sold out to anti-vaccine crackpots." In the column, Hiltzik wrote, "Wakefield's claims have been conclusively discredited everywhere but in the fever swamp of the anti-vaccine movement -- and now in the glamorous environment of the Tribeca Film Festival."

A post on the scientific blog, "Respectful Insolence," which has followed Wakefield, reads, "What’s going on here? Andrew Wakefield’s antivaccine propaganda film to be screened at the Tribeca Film Festival."

In his initial decision to screen the documentary, De Niro said he was not personally endorsing the film and nor is he anti-vaccination. " I am only providing the opportunity for a conversation around the issue," De Niro said in a statement.

"Tribeca, as most film festivals, are about dialogue and discussion," a Tribeca spokesman said in a statement to the LA Times. "Over the years we have presented many films from opposing sides of an issue. We are a forum, not a judge."

However, many had argued that being a respected forum, the screening of the film would support the conclusion that vaccines do cause autism.

After learning of the festival's decision to cancel the screening, Wakefield issued the following statement:

"To our dismay, we learned today about the Tribeca Film Festival's decision to reverse the official selection of Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe. Robert De Niro's original defense of the film happened Friday after a one-hour conversation between De Niro and and Bill Posey, the congressman who has interacted directly and at length with the CDC Whistleblower (William Thompson) and whose team has scrutinized the documents that prove fraud at the CDC. It is our understanding that persons from an organization affiliated with the festival have made unspecified allegations against the film - claims that we were given no opportunity to challenge or redress. We were denied due process. We have just witnessed yet another example of the power of corporate interests censoring free speech, art, and truth. Tribeca's action will not succeed in denying the world access to the truth behind the film Vaxxed. We are grateful to the many thousands of people who have already mobilized including doctors, scientists, educators and the autistic community. We will be pressing forward and sharing our plans in the very near future. Onward!"

While the screening of the controversial film at the festival has been cancelled, De Niro said the festival doesn't seek to avoid or shy away from controversy.

"However, we have concerns with certain things in this film that we feel prevent us from presenting it in the Festival program. We have decided to remove it from our schedule,” he said.

The Tribeca Film Festival runs April 13-24.

Image by David Shankbone via WIkimedia Commons