Anti-vaxxers, as they're often called, began sprouting up in the late '90s after one factually erroneous paper — released by an alleged slimy grifter named Andrew Wakefield — made vague connections between vaccines and autism. As the 'truthiness' era of George W. Bush transformed into the post-truth era of the late Obama and then Trump administrations, the idea of 'vaccine skepticism' only grew more. Shot in the Arm is a powerful new documentary about the dangers of anti-scientific messaging, and the ramifications of this among society at large.

It's a potent message that actually began before the Covid pandemic, when Oscar-nominated filmmaker Scott Hamilton Kennedy decided to make a film about a then-growing measles outbreak and the anti-vaxxers with (perhaps more than) figurative blood on their hands like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was interviewed here prior to his current presidential run. But as the world shut down and scientists everywhere...