Elle Macpherson has helped promote an 'anti-vaccination propaganda' movie made by one of the most notorious figures in the movement.
According to the Daily Mail, the Australian supermodel was brought on stage at an event in North Carolina to speak about the film.
It was revealed at the event that she is dating disgraced former doctor Andrew Wakefield, who wrote the now massive debunked 1998 paper linking vaccines to autism.
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Wakefield introduced Macpherson to the stage and called her his girlfriend.
The model addressed Wakefield during her speech, saying "You made this film during COVID, and it's interesting because it's such beautiful, sacred timing when you watch the film, because it's so pertinent and so relevant. ... And for it to come in this divine time where vaccination and mandatory vaccination is on everybody's lips."
The film certainly does come smack bang in the middle of a pandemic that has seen more than 1.4 million people die from coronavirus, as well as at a time where vaccinations for Covid-19 are close to being rolled out.
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Footage obtained by the Daily Mail revealed Wakefield telling the crowd that the death toll had been 'greatly exaggerated' and the effects of the pandemic were 'based upon a fallacy'. None of those claims have been backed up with sufficient evidence.
Wakefield gained notoriety around the world in 1998 when he published a paper that claimed there was a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism.
It reignited the anti-vaxx movement around the world, however saw him struck off as a medical register in the UK.
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The 1998 study, published in The Lancet, saw vaccination rates fall and cases of measles spike across the globe. The paper was placed under heavy scrutiny when other researchers were unable to reproduce his findings.
The question of whether there's a link between vaccines and autism has been extensively investigated since and debunked. Scientists say there is no relationship, causal or otherwise, between vaccines and incidence of autism.
Interestingly, an investigation done in 2004 by the Sunday Times found there were undisclosed financial conflicts of interest on Wakefield's part. It wasn't until 2010 that the British General Medical Council found Wakefield had been dishonest in his research, had acted against his patients' best interests and mistreated developmentally delayed children.
Ultimately, the GMC found he 'failed in his duties as a responsible consultant'.
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He has since been barred from practicing medicine in the UK, however he's since moved to the United States where he has been allowed to promote his anti-vaccination views. He's also been responsible for making anti-vaxx movies and documentaries to further his cause.
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