Pictures of DVD and Vaxxed bus at https://www.vaxxed2.com/media

The People’s Censored Truth

Review by Jule Klotter

Vaxxed II: The People’s Truth, a film by Brian Burrowes and Tobias Tommey.

DVD and streaming at www.vaxxed2.com

90 minutes; c. 2019; $20 (US) DVD in NTSC and PAL versions

The documentary Vaxxed II: The People’s Truth begins with the media storm that occurred after the documentary Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe was removed from the Tribeca Film Festival in 2016. Vaxxed was about whistleblower William Thompson’s assertion that CDC scientists had destroyed data that showed a significant increased risk in autism diagnosis among Black boys who received an MMR vaccine before age 36 months. Vaxxed also featured parents of three boys who developed autism after the MMR: Brian Hooker, Sheila Ealey, and Polly Tommey (a producer of the film). Excoriated by corporate media across the US for being “anti-vaccine”—before it had ever been shown—Vaxxed actually requested four very reasonable actions:

1. That Congress subpoena Dr. William Thompson and investigate the CDC fraud;

2. That Congress repeal the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act and hold manufacturers liable for injury caused by their vaccines;

3. That three separate, univalent vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella be made available immediately;

4. That all vaccines be classified as pharmaceutical drugs and tested accordingly.¹

Days after the Tribeca story made headlines, Vaxxed opened at Angelika Film Center in New York City on April 1, 2016, where it played to large audiences for several weeks. Director Andrew Wakefield, producers Del Bigtree and Polly Tommey, and other members of the Vaxxed team took part in question-and-answer sessions after film showings across the country. After these sessions, people invariably lined up to tell Polly their own stories of vaccine injury. She began live streaming the stories, unedited, on Facebook (until she was censored) and Periscope TV. (All interviews are posted on the Roku channel, Peeps TV.)

The Vaxxed team were astounded at the numbers of people who wanted to share their experience with vaccine injury and how it had affected the lives of their loved ones and themselves. The film let people, who had been castigated by doctors, family members, and friends for questioning vaccine safety, realize that they were not alone; they were not “one in a million.”

Tommey soon acquired a used RV, and the ‘Vaxxed Nation’ bus tour began. She and other members of the Vaxxed team recorded hundreds and hundreds of stories. Names of the injured were written on the outside of the bus: a total of 7044 names by the end of the Vaxxed tour. Brian Burrowes, who edited Vaxxed, and Tobias Tommey, Polly’s son, used these videos as the basis for Vaxxed II: The People’s Truth. This new film documents what they learned from the parents, patients, and doctors who agreed to be interviewed.

Over and over and over, parents reported that their child was “hitting all the milestones,” “perfect,” “talking and walking,” “laughing” before being vaccinated. Then, within hours, the child experienced fevers, seizures, diarrhea, vomiting, or inconsolable high-pitched crying. The child “completely shut down.” Children lost the ability to speak and walk. Parents of triplets shared pictures of the two boys and a girl holding hands and smiling at each other before injury. After a single pneumococcal vaccination, the daughter and then the two boys “shut off” within hours. Their mother, who is an audiologist, found that they no longer displayed the stapedial reflex (a muscle in the inner ear that dampens sound as a protection) and had lost other reflexes as well. The triplets no longer engaged with others, held hands, and they lost their smiles. Seven years later, they had not recovered. Mothers—responsible for 24/7 care of adult, vaccine-injured, non-verbal children with seizures and in diapers—talked about the impact their child’s injury has had on themselves and their marriages. They worry about who will care for their child when they no longer can. Parents also shared their grief about the death of their healthy child within hours or a few days after being vaccinated.

The Vaxxed team was particularly disturbed by the teens and young adults who experienced severe injury after receiving the HPV vaccine Gardasil. Unlike infants and toddlers who do not have words to express how their body feels, these young people could tell their own stories of seizures, paralysis, pain, neurological injury, and multiple hospitalizations. Many had been very athletic and high functioning before Gardasil. Some of the Gardasil-injured eventually died or, like Colton Barrett, committed suicide.

Heartsick by the numerous stories of injury and death, the Vaxxed team began talking with the unvaccinated people who showed up at the bus with their families “to support the injured.” Contrary to their own expectations, Polly Tommey and the team discovered that the unvaccinated reported having no major/chronic health issues in their children—no recurrent ear infections, no ADHD, no eczema, no autism. The unvaccinated recovered quickly from colds and other infections. Doctors who were interviewed on the bus concurred. Pediatricians reported that after a vaccine injury parents would often decrease or stop vaccinating their other children; those who had received the most vaccinations had the most health issues, and the totally unvaccinated were the healthiest. Suzanne Humphries, an internal medicine and kidney doctor who toured with the bus for a time, said, “I had never seen health like that. I didn’t know health like that was possible—not needing an antibiotic in one’s entire life.”

The injury and death evidenced by these patient stories is disturbing, but what bothered me the most is how often parents reported being bullied and badgered into getting their child vaccinated—even if the child had reacted badly in the past or, as in one case, had recently been hospitalized. Using guilt and fear, telling parents that their child would surely die without a vaccine and threatening to call CPS, is misuse of power at its worst and defiles the concept of informed consent. And when a parent or patient reported an adverse reaction, too often physicians refused to acknowledge the possibility.

The courageous doctors, interviewed by the Vaxxed team, all stated that their education regarding vaccines in medical school was limited to how to follow the vaccine schedule and how to administer them. They were taught that vaccines are safe and effective. There was no discussion about vaccine ingredients or adverse effects. But these doctors listened to their patients. Suzanne Humphries, for example, was a vaccine believer until one of her kidney dialysis patients reported having normal kidney function before getting a vaccine. Instead of discounting the patient report, she examined the patient’s medical records and then began a deep dive into vaccine inserts and medical literature.

Vaxxed II: The People’s Truth is being heavily censored. Since its premier on November 6, 2019, at over 50 venues across the US, most movies theaters have refused to show it—even for a one-time event. The documentary is being streamed on vaxxed2.com and on Peeps TV. It is also available on DVD. To publicize this new film the Vaxxed bus is on the road again, and Polly Tommey is still live-streaming the interviews. She told Catharine Austin Fitts that the bus now has over 9400 names written on it, as of March 17, 2020.²

References

1. The Four Requests of Vaxxed. https://vaxxedthemovie.com/four-requests-vaxxed/

2. Fitts CA. Solari Special Report: Vaxxed II: The People’s Truth with Polly Tommey. March 17, 2020. www.solari.com