(UN)VAXXED: a photographic survey

“Some people who come to the clinic tremble for the whole time of the visit, they are terrified of getting vaccinated, and it's not the fear of the needle but the vaccine”. These are the words of my mother, a nurse in the adult vaccination department at Ramazzini hospital in Carpi. Her testimonies, although trivial, have always struck me, both because I was curious to know her work, and both because I wondered how it was possible that, even today, some people would continue to oppose the use of vaccines, questioning their safety.

This is how I decided to show a glimpse of the Italian reality on the issue of vaccinations, without dividing the subject into two opposing factions (Novax and Provax), but rather trying to deepen the different shades of truth that revolve around it. Since 2017, the year of the introduction of the Lorenzin Decree, making ten major vaccines compulsory, there have been many protests throughout Italy. With the Coronavirus pandemic, the issue of vaccination has returned to public opinion, fuelling old protests, and attracting the interests of pharmaceutical companies in the running for a vaccine.

From the very beginning I realized that, to properly deal with such a topic I had to look at reality from above, without taking a position and without judging anyone. This photo investigation, which began in December 2019, brought me into contact with researchers, scientists, companies, sportsmen, families, children, directors, lawyers, soldiers, and many other people from various parts of Italy, of all ages and social backgrounds, because vaccines affect all of us and our health. Looking at the photos and reading the stories of its protagonists, (UN)VAXXED leaves the choice to the reader, exactly as the title does: Vaxxed or Unvaxxed?

© Francesco Andreoli - Image from the (UN)VAXXED: a photographic survey photography project
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Edward Jenner, First vaccine inoculation (May 14, 1796). Painted by Gaston Mélingue (1880), Goupil & Cie photoengraving, Library of Congress.

© Francesco Andreoli - Image from the (UN)VAXXED: a photographic survey photography project
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A newly vaccinated child at the Ramazzini hospital in Carpi. Since 2017, the year of the introduction of the Lorenzin Decree, compulsory vaccinations for children have increased from four to ten. The greatest number of injections are concentrated in the first year of life, to consolidate and train the baby's immune system, thus protecting it from diseases such as diphtheria, polio, and hepatitis. During the adolescence, some vaccinations are repeated to extend their effectiveness over the years, following an articulated schedule that is reviewed by the Ministry of Health.

© Francesco Andreoli - A billboard indicating the patients' shift at the community pediatrics ward.
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A billboard indicating the patients' shift at the community pediatrics ward.

© Francesco Andreoli - Image from the (UN)VAXXED: a photographic survey photography project
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Dr. Lucia Borsari (36). Lucia Borsari is a doctor of the public health department of the Modena AUSL. With the Covid epidemic underway, her task is to organize interventions to contain the outbreaks, which are spreading out into the schools of the province. Testing, tracing, and treating, are the “3T” of the method used by the health system to counter the spread of Covid-19.

© Francesco Andreoli - Image from the (UN)VAXXED: a photographic survey photography project
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The Rosia production site of GlaxoSmithKline. GlaxoSmithKline is among the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. It manages the manufacturing and distribution of drugs, vaccines, and over-the-counter products, with a turnover of approximately 30.8 billion pounds (in 2018). The Rosia plant, with almost 2000 employees, is the only one in the world to produce vaccines against all the main strains of the meningococcus, and the only site within the GSK network, where highly relevant vaccines, such as the one against meningococcus B, are created. In 2019, approximately 47 million doses of the vaccine were produced in Rosia and then distributed to 54 countries around the world.

© Francesco Andreoli - Image from the (UN)VAXXED: a photographic survey photography project
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Packages of some vaccines on the market. Over a lifetime an individual is vaccinated against at least ten different diseases or pathologies (Italy). The number rises to seventeen if non-compulsory vaccinations are considered, and eighteen if the flu vaccine is given (once a year). To prevent epidemics from spreading, it is essential that vaccination coverage is held to a value of more than 95%.

© Francesco Andreoli - Image from the (UN)VAXXED: a photographic survey photography project
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Street demonstration in Florence. Shortly after the end of the first lockdown, a party born in Emilia-Romagna organizes a street demonstration in Florence entitled “Let’s save the Constitution”. According to the police, 5000 people joined the event. The organizers claimed there were more than 12000 participants, most without masks and without respecting the social distance. The interventions of the speakers ranged from the claim of freedom of vaccination choice to the riskiness of 5G antennas, through the desire of a school with no masks and the abolition of the health dictatorship. The organizers of the event were denounced a few days later for not enforcing anti-contagion measures.

© Francesco Andreoli - Image from the (UN)VAXXED: a photographic survey photography project
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Exorcization of Bill Gates. Some protesters exorcize the antichrist Bill Gates, considered a philanthropist aiming to reduce the global population through the vaccines. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is, according to some theories, an association whose real purpose is to control global politics in a dictatorial way, developing new vaccines that can reprogram our immune system. An Italian parliamentarian, speaking at the 3V Movement demonstration in Florence on June 20, 2020, said that Gates should be arrested for crimes against humanity.

© Francesco Andreoli - Image from the (UN)VAXXED: a photographic survey photography project
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Sara (25). Sara is an unvaccinated girl. She was born from a natural birth at home and since then she has never taken any chemical drugs. Homeopathy, herbalism, and Ayurveda medicine are the preferred disciplines of the mother who, born into a family of white coats with her medical father, her nurse sister, and her researcher brother for a pharmaceutical company, she decided to go upstream. As a child, her questions about the use of vaccines have not been answered clearly, triggering her doubts over the years. She believes that contemporary medicine is based on the use of vaccines to weaken the immune system, thus making people life-long customers for pharmaceutical companies.

© Francesco Andreoli - Image from the (UN)VAXXED: a photographic survey photography project
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Alice and her daughter Anja (4). Anja is a very lively and energetic child. Her nature was marked by an event happened when she was only forty days old. After contracting whooping cough, presumably in her older brother's school, the child remains in the hospital for several months and once cured, her mother Alice decides to launch an online petition, asking for the reintroduction of compulsory vaccination within schools. The Emilia-Romagna Region, given the success of the petition, decides to introduce the mandatory requirement for the regional territory and, subsequently, the law becomes national with the Lorenzin Decree in 2017. Since then, Alice has received several death threats and has encountered a lot of obstacles.

© Francesco Andreoli - Image from the (UN)VAXXED: a photographic survey photography project
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Vaccination syringes. Almost all vaccines on the market are administered by injection, and the length of the needle is identified depending on the drug inoculated. For intramuscular administration, in adults, the needle used is 25-30 mm long, for the subcutaneous one it is about 16 mm, while for intradermal one it is only 1.5 mm.

© Francesco Andreoli - Image from the (UN)VAXXED: a photographic survey photography project
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The Rimini skyscraper. The city of Rimini, and its province, have always played a key role for the movements claiming freedom for the choice of vaccination. In the years leading up to the introduction of the Lorenzin Decree in 2017, vaccination coverage in the province had fallen significantly to around 78% for some diseases.

© Francesco Andreoli - Image from the (UN)VAXXED: a photographic survey photography project
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Andrea Lanfri (34). Andrea Lanfri is an Italian Paralympic athlete, mountaineer, and sportsman. In 2015 he contracted a severe form of meningitis that left him without legs and 7 fingers. The vaccine, as revealed by the doctors, would not have protected him from the strain of the disease that hit him, but it would have significantly limited the damage. Immediately after the illness Andrea found the strength to start over, winning some European athletics titles and also a silver medal at the London World Championships (2017). In 2019 he reached Punta Hiunchuli, in Nepal, with an altitude of 7246 meters. Now he is training to climb Mount Everest. If he succeeded, he would be the first man with both upper and lower limb amputations, to climb the roof of the world.

© Francesco Andreoli - Andrea’s leg prosthesis.
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Andrea’s leg prosthesis.

© Francesco Andreoli - Image from the (UN)VAXXED: a photographic survey photography project
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Alessandro Amori (46). Alessandro Amori is a Roman director. During his career he worked in advertising and television, but in 2015 he created his own brand “PLAYMASTERMOVIE”, with the aim of promoting free information. In 2017, frightened by the decree on vaccines issued in Emilia-Romagna, which became national law with Minister Lorenzin, he decided to document the protests that were spreading throughout Italy. The result is a documentary, entitled “Vax Over, the silenced protest”. Alessandro, finding no producer, decided to self-produce his work and spread it through a trip, a camper tour through Italy with the goal of sharing the stories of families damaged by vaccines.

© Francesco Andreoli - Image from the (UN)VAXXED: a photographic survey photography project
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Andrea Rinaldelli (65). Andrea Rinaldelli is the father of Francesco Rinaldelli, a soldier of the Alpine Corps who died in 2008, at the age of 26, after falling ill with Hodgkin's lymphoma. Francesco had enlisted as a volunteer in 2004, fascinated by the stories of his grandfather's military campaigns and because of his youthful enthusiasm. After being subjected to the regular cycle of vaccinations, Francesco is sent to the petrochemical site of Porto Marghera, with the task of carrying out surveillance activities for the Domino mission. Here he stayed for six months, working in an environment extremely polluted by dioxins and without any kind of protection. In November 2004 Francesco was placed on sick leave, following a visit in which he was diagnosed with lymphoma. In the next four years he faced several cycles of therapies, which however did not have the desired effects. He died in March 2008.

© Francesco Andreoli - Image from the (UN)VAXXED: a photographic survey photography project
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Two photographs of Francesco in comparison. The photo on the left shows Francesco just enrolled, the one on the right just before he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. In four months, he had lost twelve kilos. His parents, during his service in Porto Marghera, visited him regularly once a month. They realized that their son was changing dramatically, but none of the superiors had sounded an alarm. Furthermore, it was found that periodic medical examinations, scheduled every fortnight, were never carried out. The last recorded one was just a week before the diagnosis of the disease.

© Francesco Andreoli - Image from the (UN)VAXXED: a photographic survey photography project
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The lawyer Roberto Mastalia (54) in his office. Roberto Mastalia is a lawyer specialized in medical malpractice, and for many years he has been engaged in the disclosure of his personal experience. His second-born son, after the first vaccinations, showed signs of adverse reactions, such as gastrointestinal problems and mood swings. However, in a period close to the administration of the MMR vaccine (Measles, Mumps, Rubella), the child stopped reacting to the words and stimuli of the parents, showing a strong regression. Paediatricians underestimated the issue, but the situation did not seem to recover. The diagnosis of the children's neuropsychiatry department of Perugia is clear: autism spectrum disorder. Roberto, not satisfied with the motivations and treatments proposed by the health system, decided to undertake a personal research path, and discussing with other families all over Italy, he concluded that one of the causes of his son's disorder may have been the vaccination.

© Francesco Andreoli - Image from the (UN)VAXXED: a photographic survey photography project
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Massimo Rodolfi (64). Massimo Rodolfi has always been a great lover of oriental philosophies, psychology, and alternative therapies from an early age, starting in the 1980s to teach yoga and esotericism classes. Massimo founded a publishing house which he named “Draco editions”. He published twenty books of his own, and among his clients there are also anti-vaxxers. He is also a member of the group “Free choice vaccines”, who has been expressing the side effects of vaccines for several years, publishing dossiers and revealing documents. The “task force”, as Massimo defines it, engaged in this area is now focused on the Coronavirus issue, and it is putting in relevance the disastrous effects of mRNA vaccines, which according to their hypothesis would modify the human genome. In some of these new drugs there would also be some “luciferase”, a bioluminescent substance that would make it possible to capture, through an app, the presence or absence of the vaccine within an individual.

© Francesco Andreoli - Image from the (UN)VAXXED: a photographic survey photography project
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“Vaccines will save us”. One year after the first lockdown in Italy, the hopes of the world governments are directed to the new vaccines against Covid-19. The issue had, since the beginning of the epidemic, an exponential increase in media coverage, so that the word “vaccine” is among the ten most searched according to Google statistics (end 2020).

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