蜜芽传媒

Robert de Niro has intervened in a row over the screening of a controversial documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival, which he co-founded. "Vaxxed; From Cover Up to Catastrophe", is directed and co-written by Andrew Wakefield, a discredited former British doctor whose claim of a link between vaccines and autism has been widely debunked. He first published his claim that the triple vaccine for mumps,measles and rubella (MMR) caused autism in the British medical journal the Lancet in 1998 but the study was retracted in 2010 and he was stripped of his licence to practice as a doctor. He has, though, continued to campaign against the MMR vaccine and the documentary is part of that campaign. Doctors and filmmakers are dismayed, but Mr.De Niro - who has a child with autism - says the documentary should be screened although he is not personally endorsing it, nor is he anti-vaccination. Julian Marshall got the reaction of Dr William Schaffner, a professor of preventative medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical School.

(Photo: Individuals with autism have less activity in the amygdala (shown in red), which plays a key role in processing emotions Credit: Science Photo Library)