Warnings About Vaccination Expectations NZ (WAVESnz), formerly the Immunisation Awareness Society (IAS),[2] is a New Zealand anti-vaccination lobby group.
The Board stated that "IAS disseminates information that is not factual and falls well short of acceptable standards in the area of health education.
[9] In July 2009, during a measles epidemic, IAS spokeswoman Michelle Rudgley said "the Canterbury situation proved the ineffectiveness of vaccines... parents had been deceived by the pro-vaccination lobby to believe immunization was safe and could totally protect their children against diseases".
[15] Ian Lipkin, professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, writing in The Wall Street Journal, said "If Vaxxed had been submitted as science fiction, it would merit attention for its storyline, character development and dialogue.
But as a documentary it misrepresents what science knows about autism, undermines public confidence in the safety and efficacy of vaccines, and attacks the integrity of legitimate scientists and public-health officials".
[16] In October 2018, the group funded an anti-vaccine billboard that was raised in the Auckland suburb of Ōtāhuhu, close to Middlemore Hospital.
While Immunisation Advisory Centre research director, Dr Helen Petousis-Harris said "the billboard perpetuated the myth there are concealed issues with what's in vaccines, which is most unhelpful and quite untrue".