November 13, 2020

Plotkin film wins genre prize for Best Medicine Movie at Vienna Science Film Festival

Vienna Science Film Festival logo

The Vienna Science Film Festival celebrates film as an effective form of science communication. The short documentary film, Stanley Plotkin: Pioneering the use of fetal cells to make rubella vaccine, has been awarded the genre prize for Best Medicine Movie at the 2020 Vienna Science Film Festival.

The film chronicles Dr. Stanley Plotkin, a pediatrician and inventor of the rubella vaccine, as he recalls the rubella epidemic of 1964-65 in the U.S. that infected over 12 million people, including about 20,000 unborn babies. Watch the film to understand Plotkin’s controversial decision to use human fetal cells in his vaccine development and why he ultimately decided it was important, and appropriate, to do so.

Public screenings of the selected films are postponed until further notice due to the COVID-19 pandemic.