Health journalist and film producer Del Bigtree has just released his new film An Inconvenient Study, which follows Bigtree’s years-long exchange with Dr. Marcus Zervos, head of infectious disease at Henry Ford Health in Detroit, a doctor who is about as pro-vaccine as they come.
In 2016, Dr. Zervos crossed paths with Bigtree, who urged him to take on something public health had avoided for decades: a study comparing the health outcomes of vaccinated and unvaccinated children.
Dr. Zervos agreed, determined to prove Bigtree and other vaccine skeptics wrong. At the time, he vowed, “Whatever the results, they get published.”
Both the buried study and the film are now available for everyone to see.
Before diving into Zervos’s findings, the film laid out prior evidence raising serious questions about vaccine safety.
One striking example came from Dr. Peter Aaby. Once a vaccine believer, Dr. Aaby became a skeptic after discovering that the DTP vaccine he helped promote for African children led to 2.3 times higher mortality among the vaccinated.
Decades after launching the DTP program in Guinea-Bissau, Dr. Aaby realized only half the children there had received the shot — giving him a perfect comparative study between the vaccinated and unvaccinated.
The DTP vaccine did protect against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis, but there was also more than a twofold increase in overall mortality. The results stunned Aaby, who now speaks openly about what he discovered.
“It’s important to recognize that no routine vaccine was tested for overall effect on mortality in randomized trials before being introduced. I guess most of you think that we know what our vaccines are doing. We don’t,” he now teaches.
Hellbound and Down 