Vaccination Is Not a Game

A table. A chair. Nine different people sit in that chair, one after another, to make the case for the scientific method against ignorance. We're talking about the documentary Vaccini. 9 Lezioni di scienza (2019), directed by Elisabetta Sgarbi. Doctors, scientists, and philosophers take turns—each in their own way, each drawing on their own expertise—to address vaccination: what vaccines are, why they matter, how infectious diseases spread, and the question of immigration, which some in the public see as a source of dangerous pathogens. The roster includes recognizable names: philosopher Massimo Cacciari, Lampedusa's doctor and European parliamentarian Pietro Bartolo, and academician and physician Roberto Burioni, who closes the film. There is no space for opposing arguments, partly because some of the speakers already acknowledge them: several of the contributors believe that the passion behind vaccine criticism deserves to be taken seriously, and that the answer lies in dialogue and public education rather than science retreating into its own superiority. The direction itself centers on this mission of clarity. To make the concepts easier to grasp—presented simply, yes, but all the more accessible to any viewer—the speakers use objects on the desk. Often they are toys. They help illustrate how tiny a vaccine's effect is compared to the strength of our immune system, especially when set against diseases like polio that cause permanent damage infinitely worse than a few days of fever. And so the expert, the scientist, gives way to the human being. There is no condescension, no claimed moral superiority—only deep humanity when doctors describe children they watched die in Africa for lack of vaccines, or an Italian boy with leukemia who died of measles that could have been prevented if everyone around him had been vaccinated. The documentary's final line is a perfect close to this small but vital work: vaccination is not a game.