Andrew Wakefield's 1998 claim linking autism to vaccination is patently false. His results have never been duplicated. He is legally barred from practicing medicine after it was discovered that his results were not only incorrect, but their data was harvested in an extremely unethical manner. Yet he continues to insist in the truth of his claims to this day, damaging the autistic community and the chance for many non-autistic people to better understand us.

As an autistic man in the United States, it breaks my heart to see that this lie is still believed and that children are being sickened because their parents genuinely do not seem to be able to love them even if they were disabled. It is Andrew Wakefield and his outright lie that created this environment of ableism, and it is immoral to allow him a larger audience.

Mr. De Niro's decision to allow the film to be screened at Tribeca does not seem to have been made in ill will, but allowing Wakefield this much of an audience will only amplify his blatantly false propaganda and potentially damage many lives in the process. For the good of advancing a proper conversation about autism, we petition the Tribeca Film Festival to pull Vaxxed from being screened.