Director/editor/producer Tjardus Greidanus, whose documentary Virulent: The Vaccine War examines the rise of the antivaccine movement before and after the pandemic, joined Dr. Novella and a certain other person for a virtual Q&A.

Director/editor/producer Tjardus Greidanus, whose documentary Virulent: The Vaccine War examines the rise of the antivaccine movement before and after the pandemic, joined Dr. Novella and a certain other person for a virtual Q&A.
Science-Based Medicine is hosting a virtual screening of Virulent: The Vaccine War. Get your virtual ticket to stream it and be part of the Q&A with the filmmakers hosted by Drs. Gorski and Novella on Jan. 29?
Last month an antivax propaganda film Died Suddenly was released. it’s so bad that COVID-19 cranks are pushing back. Hilarity is ensuing.
Everything old is new again when it comes to antivax tropes. Died Suddenly resurrects the old antivax conspiracy that vaccines kill, the plan being to cause “depopulation” that would allow “global elites” to control the world.
There is a type of “vaccine injury” story promoted by the antivaccine movement that is particularly pernicious, a narrative I call “death by Gardasil.” The stories, which use tenuous connections between vaccination against HPV to prevent cervical cancer and the unexpected death of a teen or young adult, are always tragic, and you can’t help but feel incredible empathy for the parents. However, none of these stories constitute compelling evidence that Gardasil kills young people. Basically, antivaxers exploit the grief of these parents and their understandable desire to find a cause for their child’s demise to demonize HPV vaccinations as dangerous and deadly.