Title: 1986: The Act
Author(s): Dr. Andrew Wakefield
Release Date: July 2020
Review by Maria Ryan
This is the latest film by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the director of Vaxxed: From Coverup to Catastrophe and Who Killed Alex Spourdalakis. Maligned by the media for his 1998 academic study which uncovered a potential link between the MMR vaccine and gut issues in autistic children, Wakefield is one of the most controversial people of modern times. Despite all he has been through, he remains a tireless pioneer in the fight for children’s health against the unpublicized dangers of childhood vaccines. He is a champion among parents everywhere in the world.
1986: The Act follows the journey of a fictional, newly pregnant couple addressing the vaccination question for the first time. Mother’s instinct comes first. She begins by asking her husband; “What do you think we should do about vaccines?” He gives the typical, overly indoctrinated answer…”kids need their shots.” His flippant answer is delivered as if vaccinating is a “no brainer.” This typical exchange is where it all begins for many couples. The film uncovers the circumstances that led up to the passage of the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, legislation still largely unknown by most of the American population. It marks the point in time when Congress chose to protect manufacturers and the vaccine supply over children and lays out what the long and short term consequences have been.
The movie does not follow the couple throughout the mundane aspects of pregnancy such as doctor visits but rather it is their journey of discovery regarding the vaccine question. Though the couple moves through their journey via extensive research and taking a deep dive down the rabbit hole, it serves a far bigger function as they reach a brilliantly crafted conclusion. Their story, blended with the historical and legal facts, reveals Wakefield’s brilliance as a producer.
It Begins With the Polio Vaccine
The timeline starts with the ugly facts behind the polio vaccine. Next, the narrative explores the massive number of injuries caused by the whole-cell DPT shot. Fearing bankruptcy and the implosion of the entire vaccine market, the Industry appealed to Congress in 1985 to remove all liability for all injuries caused by every vaccine on the childhood vaccination schedule. Keep in mind that at that point in time, the only vaccines given to children were polio, DPT and MMR. Once the fear of lawsuits was removed by the passage of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, the explosive ramp-up of the vaccine schedule began. With the passage of the Act, there was no incentive to make safe – or even safer – vaccines. The vaccine schedule grew from 24 vaccines administered in 1985, to 72 vaccines children now receive from birth to 18 years of age. What started as a way to compensate vaccine-injured children via the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has become a plan laced with lies, fraud, and blatant refusal to compensate persons who are injured or killed by a vaccine.
All the facts behind how the program began – and how we got to this point in time – are laid out as this couple explores the reasons to vaccinate… or not. As the parents dig deeper into the rabbit hole, documents, interviews, and news footage are woven together in an informative story that keeps the viewer engaged and on the edge of his chair.
Historical backdrop
Before the NVCIP, lawyers litigated individual vaccine injury cases, a difficult and time-consuming process described in the film by the lawyers themselves. When the 1986 program was created, they initially rejoiced. In the beginning, parents were quickly compensated for their child’s injuries. However, this infuriated the Department of Health and Human Service (HHS). They believed the program sent the wrong message: that vaccines could cause the kind of injuries that resulted in death or lifelong disability. They felt the program tainted the “safe and effective” message.
The Vaccine Injury Table was created to control the outcome by dictating which symptoms could be compensated and by specifying a strict timeline between the shot and the reaction. Over time, many serious injuries were removed and the table was essentially gutted. Once most common and serious vaccine injuries were removed, such as seizures, allergies, and encephalopathy (brain inflammation), the injury was no longer associated with the vaccine and could no longer receive compensation.
The couple was horrified to discover that the burden of proof became the responsibility of the victim. Thousands of claims never make it to the Federal Court of Claims, commonly referred to at the Vaccine Court, even though the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) was set up to capture the injuries from vaccines. Instead of being the robust system to protect the public, it remains woefully inadequate, mostly ignored by doctors, and largely unknown to parents of vaccine-injured children. Even today, it is estimated that less than one percent of vaccine injuries are reported.
The Bigger Picture
As the couple unwinds each thoughtful question, the camera cuts to some stunning footage of natural landscapes, reminding us that there is a far bigger world beyond the lies and manipulations of products that are not properly safety tested and are forced upon an unsuspecting and vulnerable population.
“People would be outraged if they really knew how much they don’t know about what vaccines do in the body…” These words were spoken by Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), a non-profit dedicated to vaccine education and choice which includes a state advocacy portal. Every person can join this FREE portal to be notified of vaccine mandates being added to your state’s vaccination program. Fisher started the organization over 35 years ago after her son was injured by his DPT vaccine and is one of the key interviewees in the movie. She was instrumental in getting the 1986 Act signed into law.
1986: The Act is broken down into twenty distinct chapters. The two-hour film is easily absorbed as it has deftly built-in pauses for reflection so the endless truth bombs are sure to land. Vaccine companies are fully aware of what their problematic products can do to the health of recipients before they are unleashed on the public. They simply don’t care what the injuries are; afterall, if a person is vaccine injured, the Industry has a trove of drugs to treat and manage the symptoms and illnesses for the rest of the person’s life. That is why Dr. Sherri Tenpenny has been known to say, “Vaccine-injuries create customers for life for the pharmaceutical industry.”
This is a hard pill for many to swallow. So is the fact that adverse reactions are many times more prevalent than what we are lead to believe. Calling vaccine injuries “rare” and “new” is an insult.
For example, as far back as 1963, Eli Lilly, manufacturer of the DPT shot had a safer version that they refused to use. They kept on injecting kids with a vaccine that they knew was dangerous. They knew that the rate of injury was far higher than what was reported to maintain public confidence. They deceived regulators and lied to doctors. It took them sixty years to license a safer vaccine, one that would have cost less than one cent to produce.
1986: The Act is a movie whose time has come, especially in light of 2020, when the entire global population of 7.8 billion people is expected to be vaccinated against a virus with a 94.6 to 99.99 percent recovery rate. The COVID vaccine has never before been given to humans, is a wholly experimental mRNA vaccine with implications beyond imagination. The COVID vaccine has been with complete liability protection; actually, the 1986 Act was a warm-up round compared the liability protection given to the rushed-to-market COVID vaccines. Think about that.
It’s time for everyone to learn what the real risks are for every shot and the lengths that these companies and governments will go to protect their bottom line. Look to the past to determine what the future will be if we do not change the present.
This movie is asking you to think carefully about what is in that needle and how it may change your life or the lives of your children… forever.
It’s asking you to think for yourself because no one will do it for you.
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Maria Ryan is a freelance content writer. She has contributed to a number of online publications on topics such as fitness, nutrition, food, lifestyle, and parenting. She is an avid reader and book reviewer and works to promote indie authors and their books. She runs the book review blog: bemisreviewsbooks.com.