The Greater Good (film)

The Greater Good
Directed by	Kendall Nelson, Chris Pilaro
Produced by	Leslie Manookian Bradshaw
Written by	Leslie Manookian Bradshaw, Jack Youngelson
Starring	Gabi Swank, Jordan King, and the Christeners[1]
Music by	Stephen Thomas Cavit
Production company	BNP Pictures
Release dates	April 2, 2011 (Dallas Film Festival) October 14, 2011
Running time	79 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Summary

The Greater Good is a documentary film about the risks vs. benefits of vaccines that originally debuted at the Dallas International Film Festival on April 2, 2011,^[2] and which then began playing in Los Angeles, California on October 14, 2011,^[3] which won awards from the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival as well as the cinematic vision award at the Amsterdam Film Festival.^[4]

Stories covered in the film include those of:

• Gabi Swank of Wichita, Kansas, who received an HPV vaccine and attributes a number of adverse reactions, including a seizure, to this experience,
• Jordan King of Portland, Oregon, who regressed into autism following routine vaccination, and was one of the test cases for the autism omnibus proceedings and whose case was rejected by the Special Master, and
• Victoria Grace Boyd Christener of Tulsa, Oklahoma, who died at the age of 5 months after receiving a vaccine.

Well-known vaccine experts who appear in the film include Paul Offit, Melinda Wharton, and Norman Baylor of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. The film was endorsed by Joseph Mercola on his website, as part of "Vaccine Awareness Week", a joint venture with the National Vaccine Information Center.^[5]

The filmmakers, Kendall Nelson and Chris Pilaro, are from Sun Valley, Idaho.^[6]

List of appearances grouped by position on vaccinations

Discussing vaccine benefits

• Dr. Paul Offit an American pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases and an expert on vaccines, immunology, and virology.
• Dr. Melinda Wharton of the CDC
• Dr. Norman Baylor, Director of the Office of Vaccines Research and Review in the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research
• Mark B. Feinberg, Vice President for Medical Affairs and Policy for Merck Vaccines and Infectious Diseases at Merck & Company, Inc
• Walt Orenstein, who formerly held a post at the Centers for Disease Control where he led the National Immunization Program^[7]

Discussing vaccine risks

• Dr. Lawrence B. Palevsky
• Dr. John Green III, a fellow of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine
• Diane Harper, an investigator at one of the sites where the original clinical trials of Gardasil was conducted
• Kevin Conway and Clifford Shoemaker, lawyers who represented the families suing the government in the autism omnibus trial.^[5]
• Renee Gentry, a lawyer at Shoemaker's law firm
• Christopher Shaw, PhD, a professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of British Columbia.
• Barbara Loe Fisher
• Robert Sears (physician)

Airing

The documentary was aired on Current TV on 24 March 2012.^[8]

Criticism

From the medical establishment

• David Gorski criticized the movie in a blog post,^[9] lamenting that the film "which could have been a provocative debate about current vaccine policy based on asking which vaccines are necessary and why, in the end opts to be nothing more than pure anti-vaccine propaganda of the lowest and most vile sort."^[5]

From the media

• The New York Times criticized the movie, calling it "emotionally manipulative," and "heavily partial."^[10]
• Variety (magazine)'s John Anderson reviewed the film, saying that it is "swimming in ethical contradictions." Anderson also stated, with regard to the film's potential bias, "Admittedly, it would have been difficult for the filmmakers to show the other side of those scenes; how do you focus on subjects who haven’t died from smallpox, diphtheria or pertussis because they were immunized as children? But that would require an approach that doesn’t take advantage of the audience’s emotions."^[11] The conjecture presented in the movie that vaccines might cause autism is contradicted by all existing scientific evidence on the subject.^[12]

References

1. Main Characters
2. Film Seeks to Spur ‘Rational Discussion’ On Vaccine Safety
3. The Greater Good at IMDB
4. 2011 Amsterdam Film Festival Announces Awards
5. Anti-vaccine propaganda lands in New York City this weekend
6. ‘The Greater Good’ Takes Child Vaccination Skepticism to Big Screen
7. "Experts in the Film". The Greater Good Website. Retrieved 31 July 2013.
8. Current TV to Air The Greater Good Vaccine Documentary& School District Responds
9. The Greater Good: Pure, unadulterated anti-vaccine propaganda masquerading as a "balanced" documentary
10. The Fight Over Vaccines and Autism, Continued
11. The Greater Good: Variety
12. Doja, A.; Roberts, W. (November 2006). "Immunizations and autism: a review of the literature". Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences 33 (4): 341–346.