Watch & Listen: Programs That Expose the Anti-Vaccine Movement

MMR: What They Didn't Tell You

The program that began the unravelling of Andrew Wakefield. Deer showed that Wakefield had undisclosed commercial interests tied to single vaccines, and interviewed a researcher from Wakefield's own lab who said he had found no measles virus in the children's samples. Wakefield declined to answer on camera, then sued Channel 4 and Deer for libel — and dropped the case in January 2007. Channel 4 called that a complete vindication.

Where to find it: Deer has posted the full film on his website, briandeer.com.

The Vaccine War

Frontline set public-health scientists against a coalition of parents, celebrities and activists, with much of the film shot in Ashland, Oregon, a community the CDC was worried about because of its low vaccination rates. It is even-handed in tone — some science-based critics felt it gave anti-vaccine groups too much airtime — but the outbreaks speak for themselves.

Where to find it: pbs.org and the free PBS app.

Vaccines — Calling the Shots

A science-first account of how herd immunity works and how quickly measles and whooping cough return when it erodes. It follows real outbreaks, walks through the genetic research pointing to autism beginning before birth, and is gentle with hesitant parents without conceding the facts. A good choice for a high-school class.

Where to find it: many public libraries carry it through Hoopla; also on PBS outlets.

Conspiracy Files: Vaccine Wars

Made as Britain lost its measles-free status, this BBC film traces the movement back to Wakefield and asks who benefits from spreading vaccine fear. It also explores the overlap between anti-vaccine activism and populist politics — a link that has only grown since.

Anti-Vaccination Movement: Hidden Camera Investigation

Marketplace went undercover at an anti-vaccine rally and VIP event in Washington, D.C., recorded activists swapping tactics for spreading their message on Facebook, and confronted Del Bigtree face to face. In a later Marketplace report, the team also sat in on a paid “vaccine info boot camp” run by Sherri Tenpenny. The central finding: there is a business behind the message.

Where to find it: CBC Gem and the Marketplace YouTube channel.

Vaccinkrigarna (The Vaccine Warriors)

Two Swedish journalists spent a year and a half inside the anti-vaccine movement, posing as makers of a vaccine-critical film. That cover got them interviews with the movement's biggest names, Andrew Wakefield included. The series won Sweden's top investigative-journalism award, the Guldspade. It is in Swedish; worth knowing about for international readers.

The Anti-Vax Conspiracy

Commissioned at the height of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, this feature asks who runs the international anti-vaccine movement and why, and keeps returning to Wakefield's continuing influence. It won an AIB award for investigative documentary and was sold to BBC Select in North America. Brian Deer has publicly criticised the program's handling of his earlier reporting; we list it for its coverage of the COVID-era movement.

Virulent: The Vaccine War

Started before the pandemic and finished during it, Virulent sets families who lost children to flu and meningitis against the activists who campaign against the shots that might have saved them. It looks closely at how the movement targets Black Americans and other minorities by twisting real history, and documents an online pile-on against a paediatric practice. Paul Offit appears; so does Robert F. Kennedy Jr., interviewed before he became US Health Secretary. McGill's Office for Science and Society and Science-Based Medicine have both hosted screenings.

Shot in the Arm

Kennedy (no relation to RFK Jr.) began filming the 2019 measles epidemic and kept going when COVID-19 arrived. Featuring Peter Hotez, Paul Offit, Blima Marcus and Anthony Fauci, plus rare interviews with anti-vaccine figures, it argues that the anti-vaccine movement has grown into a broader anti-science industry. Medical societies, including the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, have used it in their own meetings.

Where to find it: check PBS and your local PBS station; educational copies through the distributor.

Who Do You Trust? Vaccines in the Age of Vaccine Hesitancy

A Canadian film that sits down with hesitant families, health-care workers and public-health officials to get past stereotypes and look at the fears, past traumas and amplified online narratives that erode trust. Less of an exposé than a tool for conversations — useful for nurses, teachers and public-health staff. Distributed to schools and libraries in Canada by McIntyre Media.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver — “Vaccines”

Oliver spends the bulk of the episode on how a “background hum of doubt” leads parents to delay or skip shots, takes apart the internet memes and celebrity claims, and reminds viewers that unvaccinated children put babies too young for vaccines at risk. He ends by telling viewers he would be vaccinating his own young son fully and on schedule. Probably the most widely watched pro-vaccine segment ever made.

Where to find it: the main story is on the show's YouTube channel.

Penn & Teller: Bullshit! — “Vaccinations”

The magicians closed out their long-running debunking series by going after Wakefield and Jenny McCarthy and laying out, in their usual blunt style, what vaccines have prevented. Profane and not for children, but persuasive for a certain kind of skeptic who will never sit through a PBS documentary.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit — “Selfish” and “Granting Immunity”

In “Selfish,” what first looks like a mother (Hilary Duff) killing her baby turns out to be a measles death caught from an unvaccinated child. Executive producer Neal Baer, a physician, said later that he valued how the episode raised a parent's responsibility to other people's children. Six years later, “Granting Immunity” went further: a mother (Missi Pyle) who forged school vaccine records for a group of families is prosecuted after a measles outbreak at a Manhattan private school. Both are on Peacock.

Contagion

Not an anti-vaccine film as such, but the most prescient portrait in popular film of the health-misinformation entrepreneur. Jude Law's blogger, Alan Krumwiede, tells millions of followers that authorities are hiding a cheap homeopathic cure, fakes his own recovery, profits from the stampede for his remedy, and then turns his audience against the vaccine. Watched after 2020, with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine in mind, it is uncomfortable viewing. Widely praised by scientists for getting the epidemiology right.

White Coat, Black Art (CBC Radio)

Goldman's CBC program has returned to the subject repeatedly: “An outbreak of doubt” examines how the movement spreads doubt online and talks to a doctor who received death threats from anti-vaccine activists; “Taking on the anti-science movement” is a long interview with Peter Hotez; and “Alberta's measles problem” covers the 2025 outbreak, the province's largest in almost forty years.

Where to find it: CBC Listen and podcast apps.

The Body of Evidence — Jonathan Jarry and Dr. Christopher Labos

Two Montrealers who take apart health claims with the actual data. Vaccine episodes include 044, “Vaccines and CRISPR Babies” (9 Dec 2018), which goes through the common arguments against vaccination; 049, “Autism and the New York Measles Epidemic” (12 May 2019); 067, “The COVID-19 Vaccines,” a walk through the trial data and listeners' questions; an interview with Timothy Caulfield on fixing vaccine hesitancy (30 May 2019); and an interview with Ryan Armstrong on regulating pseudoscience, including vaccine misinformation on social media (21 Jul 2019).

Where to find it: bodyofevidence.ca and podcast apps.

Front Burner — “Anti-vax update as Canadian measles surges”

Recorded as New Brunswick's outbreak pushed Canada to its largest measles count since 2019, with about two-thirds of cases in unvaccinated people. Caulfield explains how vaccine hesitancy has spread from measles to HPV, flu and COVID shots, how the movement moved from the countercultural left to the populist right, the role of male “wellness” influencers that young people now get their health news from, and what RFK Jr.'s rise meant for Canada. He ends with what works: empathy, patience and “prebunking.”

Caulfield also hosted A User's Guide to Cheating Death (VisionTV 2017–18; Netflix 2018), a two-season series on detoxes, supplements, “natural” medicine and other health fads. It is excellent on the wellness industry generally, though no episode is devoted to vaccines.

The Dr. Joe Show — Joe Schwarcz

The long-running weekly call-in show from the director of McGill's Office for Science and Society, where listeners' questions about everything from food additives to miracle cures get a chemist's answer. Not a vaccine program as such, but for decades a reliable antidote on Canadian radio to the claims anti-vaccine promoters lean on — “toxins,” “natural is safer,” and the rest. Schwarcz has also been a spokesperson for ScienceUpFirst, the Canadian campaign against COVID-19 misinformation, and the Office for Science and Society hosted a screening of Virulent.

Where to find it: CJAD 800 and the iHeart podcast feed.

Throughline — “The Anti-Vaccine Movement”

A history episode running from the Cutter polio disaster of the 1950s to Wakefield's 1998 paper and RFK Jr. at HHS, with Paul Offit and historian-journalist Arthur Allen. Good for listeners who want to know how we got here.

Where to find it: npr.org.

Dr Anti-vax

A tightly told three-part history: Wakefield's fall, his reinvention as a celebrity in the US with backing from famous supporters, and the movement's COVID-era leap into the mainstream with RFK Jr. as its new figurehead. The Guardian's reviewer gave it full marks.

Also worth a listen

Conspirituality — Derek Beres, Matthew Remski and Julian Walker, who started the show after analysing Plandemic; their short “Brief” episodes on RFK Jr. are a quick primer. Maintenance Phase — a two-part series (2023) on RFK Jr. and the mainstreaming of the movement, with a full reading list. It Could Happen Here: “Anti-Vax America” (Cool Zone Media, 2025) — a five-part history whose reading list includes Montreal's 1885 smallpox epidemic, a Canadian chapter most Canadians have never heard of.