Press Kit 1 x 90 Minute Science Documentary Writer, Director, Producer: Sonya Pemberton Executive Producers: Michael Cordell, Nick Murray & Sonya Pemberton Press Kit 1 x 90 Minute Science Documentary Writer, Director, Producer: Sonya Pemberton Executive Producers: Michael Cordell, Nick Murray & Sonya Pemberton Website: http://www.sbs.com.au/shows/jabbed Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jabbedtv Twitter: #JabbedSBS Twitter account: @JabbedTV CONTENTS Synopsis I. one line II. one paragraph III. one page Media release Publicity Quotes The Families The Experts Key crew Director’s statement Production information Contacts ©2013 Genepool Productions Pty Ltd ABN 17153091019 www.genepoolproductions.com ©2013 Genepool Productions Pty Ltd Jabbed Love, fear and vaccines. PRESS KIT 1 SYNOPSIS: one line Jabbed Love, fear and vaccines. To vaccinate, or not? What would you do to protect the ones you love? SYNOPSIS: one paragraph Jabbed Love, fear and vaccines. Diseases that were largely eradicated forty years ago are returning. Across the world children are getting sick and dying from preventable conditions because nervous parents are skipping their children’s shots. And it’s not just kids: adults, too, are being hard hit. Yet the stories of vaccine reactions are frightening, with rare cases of people being damaged, even killed, by vaccines. How do we decide whether to vaccinate or not, and what are the real risks? Jabbed, made by 2012 Emmy Award-winning Australian documentary filmmaker Sonya Pemberton, travels the globe to look at the real science behind vaccinations, tracks real epidemics, and investigates the real cost of opting out. Talking with vaccine-makers, alternative healers, psychologists, anthropologists, and parents, the film posing the potent question: what would you do to protect the ones you love? Two years in the making Jabbed will confound your expectations, whatever your position on the most important and divisive public health question of the decade. ©2013 Genepool Productions Pty Ltd Jabbed Love, fear and vaccines. PRESS KIT 2 SYNOPSIS: one page Jabbed Love, fear and vaccines. Diseases that were largely eradicated forty years ago are returning. Across the world children are getting sick and dying from preventable conditions because nervous parents are skipping their children’s shots. And it’s not just kids: adults, too, are being hard hit. Yet the stories of vaccine reactions are frightening, with rare cases of people being damaged, even killed, by vaccines. How do we decide whether to vaccinate or not, and what are the real risks? Jabbed, made by 2012 Emmy Award-winning Australian documentary filmmaker Sonya Pemberton, traverses the globe to look at the real science behind vaccinations, and the real cost of opting out. Two years in the making, this thoughtful and wide-ranging documentary is packed with surprises for vaccine supporters and opponents alike. We hear from vaccine makers, alternative healers, psychologists, immunologists and anthropologists, and parents who have, and have not, chosen to vaccinate their kids. What they have to say will confound your expectations, whatever your position on the most important and divisive public health question of the decade. Highlighting real cases, Jabbed tracks outbreaks of communicable diseases and demonstrates just how fast they can spread – and how many people can fall sick – when a community's immunity barrier falls. The documentary also reveals cases where children have become ill – sometimes very ill – after having routine inoculations. Is the vaccine really to blame, or is there something else, something unseen, at work? The answers will intrigue you – as will the opinions of the parents who must now care for their disabled sons and daughters. In global terms, the development of vaccines is surging. Work is under way in labs around the world to develop vaccines for a wide range of current devastating conditions, including cancers, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease. But could deadly rumours sabotage this new revolution in disease prevention before it gains momentum? In Bhutan, a land better known for herbal remedies than hypodermic needles, schoolgirls are being vaccinated against cervical cancer. In neighbouring India a similar program is axed over unsubstantiated reports that girls are dying due to the vaccine. Meanwhile, all this is monitored in London by a crack team of rumour-trackers, who map exactly how single pieces of half-truth expand and mutate, via the Internet, into front page scare stories that can terrify parents and plunge them into asking the potent question – to vaccinate or not to vaccinate? What would you do to protect the ones you love? ©2013 Genepool Productions Pty Ltd Jabbed Love, fear and vaccines. PRESS KIT 3 MEDIA RELEASE NEW DOCUMENTARY ASKS THE QUESTION: WHAT WOULD YOU DO TO PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN? Jabbed, the new feature length documentary from Emmy-winning Australian writer-director Sonya Pemberton, presents a game-changing look at the often controversial subject of vaccination. Jabbed will screen on SBS 1at 830pm Sunday May 26, 2013 The documentary, filmed in Australia, USA, England, Ukraine and Bhutan, takes a close look at the cases for and against the routine vaccination of children. Highlighting real science and real cases, Jabbed tracks current epidemics of preventable diseases that many people thought had been pretty much wiped off the face of the earth. Over the past few years, stories about alleged toxic effects of vaccinations have received wide coverage, going viral across the Internet. As a result many parents around the world are increasingly scared, questioning the best way to protect their loved ones – to vaccinate, or not to vaccinate? “We posed the question, do the vaccines scare us today because we rarely see the diseases anymore?" explained Ms Pemberton, who worked on Jabbed for over two years. "We decided to revisit the diseases, to see whether it was time to recalculate the risk." To her surprise, she found that it was a question that many major players in public health and epidemiology were also asking. Jabbed features interviews with some of the towering figures in conventional and alternative medicine, including rotavirus vaccine creator Dr Paul Offit, immunology 'super-star' Sir Gustav Nossal, and Dr Peter Fisher, clinical director of the largest alternative health centre in Europe – and the Queen's personal homeopath. Their honest and frank opinions about the costs and benefits of childhood shots may well come as a surprise to many. Although vaccinations against a range of killer diseases such as polio, smallpox, measles and diphtheria have undoubtedly saved millions of lives, Ms Pemberton and her team unearth cases of people, including children, who have suffered serious reactions and in some cases permanent damage linked to routine inoculations. In a television first, she talks to the victims, the parents, and the specialists recruited to search for answers. Are the vaccines to blame, as anti-vaccine activists often claim, or is there something else, something more mysterious, operating behind the scenes? Once again, the documentary, together with the opinions of those most directly affected, seem set to turn the persistent vaccine controversy on its head. Delving deep into history, Jabbed shows that vaccination, even in its earliest forms, has never been free from controversy. The documentary shows that this is still the current state of affairs, and often leads to tragic, fatal results. In Bhutan, schoolgirls are among the first in the developing world to be vaccinated against cervical cancer thanks to a team headed by ©2013 Genepool Productions Pty Ltd Jabbed Love, fear and vaccines. PRESS KIT 4 Australian immunologist Professor Ian Frazer. In neighbouring India a similar program is halted abruptly following reports of deaths falsely attributed to the vaccine. "We are witnessing a global wave of mistrust, fuelled by a powerful new force – the Internet," said Ms Pemberton. "Never before has such conflicting and confusing information been so readily available. In the film, we talk to some researchers in London – we call them the rumour-trackers – who work full time monitoring the growth of scare stories from local half-truth to viral news flash." At its heart, though, Jabbed is a story about people, especially children, and the dangers inherent in its central dilemma - to jab or not to jab. It follows the heart-rending journeys of an Australian baby battling whooping cough, a Minnesota girl who contracts pneumococcal disease, a young boy who experiences devastating seizures shortly after vaccination, a brave young man crippled by the very polio vaccine that was supposed to protect him, a 10 year- old Swiss girl who unwittingly starts a French measles epidemic, and many more. Jabbed is a major and compelling contribution to television science, which will make waves right around the world. It is the latest production from Ms Pemberton, triple winner of Eureka Award for science journalism, and follows her 2010 documentary on the science of aging, 'Immortal', which won the 2012 Emmy Award for Best Science Documentary. Jabbed was made by genepool Productions, a joint venture between Pemberton Films and Cordell Jigsaw Zapruder, with the participation of SBS Australia and Screen Australia. It was written, directed and produced by Sonya Pemberton. Executive producers were Ms Pemberton, Michael Cordell and Nick Murray. DOP: Harry Panagiotidis. Editor: Mark Atkin. Music: Peter Dasent. Animation and design by