In a video shared by The Huffington Post this week, a well known Māori doctor crashed a screening of the anti-vaxxer film “Vaxxed” in New Zealand and shared his feelings on the dangers of this particular brand of pseudoscience with a stunned audience.
The video shows Dr. Lance O’Sullivan taking the stage to warn audience members about the fraudulent message the movie pushes.
“When I heard they were coming into town, there was no way I was going to let them come and peddle this misinformation and falsehood on my watch,” O’Sullivan said during a radio interview.
The doctor was invited to the screening, but he made it clear that he wasn’t there to watch the documentary.
“I come here with a lot of anger,” O’Sullivan says in the video after storming the stage. “That’s because I am adamantly opposed to this — because this position, this idea of anti-immunization has killed children around the world and actually will continue to kill children … whose parents have put off immunization because of misinformation ― misinformation based on lies, quite frankly.”
“Your presence here will cause children to die,” he added.
From HuffPo:
The film O’Sullivan was protesting, known fully as “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe,” was directed by former doctor Andrew Wakefield. He was labeled an “elaborate fraud” after an investigation found that he had misrepresented or altered patients’ medical histories used in a 1998 study he authored that suggested a vaccine was linked to autism, according to CNN.
Wakefield’s study was discredited and the United Kingdom took away his medical license in May 2010.
His documentary caused outrage when it was released in 2016, with the Tribeca Film Festival pulling “Vaxxed” from its lineup.
Dr. O’Sullivan spoke about his actions with a local morning talk show:
Featured image via screen grab
