An Inconvenient Study, plus 17 More

Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated Studies of Chronic Illnesses including Autism

The Highwire’s Del Bigtree produced the movie An Inconvenient Study which premiered on October 12th at the 2025 Malibu Film Festival and won the “Best of Festival” award. It highlights an unpublished study of vaccinated vs unvaccinated children that shows a dramatic increase in chronic illnesses in the vaccinated children. The results were announced on September 9th by Senator Ron Johnson, chairman of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, in a hearing titled “How the Corruption of Science Has Impacted Public Perception and Policies Regarding Vaccines.”

This mainstream breakthrough is a far cry from the reception received by Bigtree’s initial vaccine movie production in 2016 when Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe was pulled from the Tribeca Film Festival by co-founder Robert De Niro. It was directed by physician Andrew Wakefield whose 1998 Lancet paper “Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children” was retracted under controversy. The movie focused on a CDC whistleblower who revealed a coverup of a link between autism and MMR vaccines.

The new movie originated from a challenge Bigtree made to internist and epidemiologist Marcus Zervos, Division Head of Infectious Diseases at Henry Ford Health, in Detroit, MI. He was asked if he would be willing to do a retrospective study of vaccinated vs unvaccinated children health outcomes under the condition that he would publish the results no matter what they showed. Dr. Zervos is a highly respected researcher who is known for blowing the whistle on the link between lead in the water and an outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease in Flint, MI.

Zervos is no stranger to vaccine-related controversy despite being adamantly pro-vaccine. His Henry Ford COVID-19 task force group published an important paper in May 2020 showing that hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) was effective in treating COVID at a time when the FDA and BARDA were demonizing HCQ in favor of the vaccine agenda and promoting fraudulent papers about the risks of HCQ that were later retracted. His paper threatened the Emergency Use Authorization for the vaccine which was contingent on there being no effective treatments for COVID.

Unfortunately, the experience of being harshly criticized for the HCQ paper may have depleted his supply of courage resulting in his failure to publish his “inconvenient study,” although a copy of the paper was obtained and released into the Congressional record. It found that exposure to vaccination was independently associated with a 2.5-fold increase in the likelihood of developing chronic health conditions such as asthma, atopic disease, eczema, autoimmune disease, and neurodevelopmental disorders when compared to children unexposed to vaccination.

When the initial trailer for the movie was released, the Henry Ford Health Foundation sent a cease and desist letter to Bigtree and the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) stating that the study did not meet their scientific standards. They claimed it was fatally flawed and cautioned against the spread of dangerous disinformation. ICAN’s response was to double down and release a second trailer featuring a hidden camera recording of a dinner conversation about the paper between Bigtree and Zervos, as if to dare them to defend their “vaccine religion” in court against Aaron Siri.

The conversation recorded without his knowledge revealed that Zervos considered the study to be of the highest possible quality and provided unexpectedly important information about the safety of childhood vaccinations. When Bigtree reminded him that he had promised to publish the paper no matter what the results, Zervos noted that he could not do that now or it would be the end of his career. He said it would be attacked for the flaws inherent in any retrospective study and picked apart by the pro-vaccine skeptics. Instead, it has become an international news story with huge impact.

The movie provides important background information on other vaccinated vs unvaccinated studies that had been done prior to the Henry Ford study all showing similar alarming results. Six studies were done by the Danish pro-vaccine researcher Christine Stabell Benn whose TEDxAarhus2018 talk revealed that the DTP vaccine caused a 5-fold increase in overall mortality. A recent review by the McCullough Foundation listed 11 other studies showing greater risk for autism, although one was retracted due to conflicting with the official “safe and effective” narrative.

The career-ending story of that author, pediatrician Paul Thomas, is a cautionary one. For many years he had offered the families in his busy pediatric practice 3 options regarding childhood vaccines; the CDC schedule, the Vaccine-Friendly Plan minimizing aluminum containing vaccines and allowing a delayed schedule, and no vaccines at all. He published a 2020 retrospective study of his patients showing a marked decrease in chronic illnesses such as asthma, allergic rhinitis, and sinusitis in the unvaccinated group who also had no ADHD and one fifth the rate of autism.

Unfortunately, the Oregon Medical Board punished him for his policy of informed consent in his practice and suspended his license claiming he “posed a threat to public health by failing to vaccinate his pediatric patients according to the CDC’s schedule.” The board ignored the data in his study despite having requested Thomas to produce peer-reviewed evidence to support his alternative approach. After his paper was read over 250,000 times, it was retracted in 2021 following an anonymous complaint about the methodology which has since been refuted.

Although the board withdrew its suspension of his license, Thomas elected to close his practice since the publication of The Vaccine-Friendly Plan book led to a marked decrease in revenue due to a drop in his vaccination rate to 1%. Instead, he now offers vaccine coaching services based on his 2024 book Vax Facts: What to Consider Before Vaccinating at All Ages & Stages of Life. He has also been exposing details about the “perverse incentives” for pediatricians to push vaccines discussed by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in an interview with Tucker Carlson.

Thomas disclosed that most pediatric offices rely on vaccine-related income to stay afloat, and that he was losing a million dollars a year when his patients chose not to be vaccinated. The reimbursement for the actual vaccine administration is not a big money maker, but there are lucrative value-based care “pay for performance” incentives amounting to more than $100,000 per year when a typical benchmark such as 80% of patients being fully vaccinated by age 2 is met. Blue Cross Blue Shield provides a $475 bonus for every 13-year-old child, if all the shots are given.

Pediatrician salaries are near the bottom of all physicians at $260,000 per year, and impending changes in the CDC vaccine schedule by the Childhood and Adolescent Immunization Schedule Workgroup may have a significant impact on practice revenue. RFK, Jr.’s HHS shake up of ACIP at the CDC is resulting in the re-evaluation of vaccines including the ubiquitous use of neurotoxic aluminum adjuvants. They may even finally validate the long suspected connection between vaccines and SIDS. In the meantime, let’s get rid of all of the Faulty 5: Vaccines We Don’t Need.