About Leslie Manookian, Writer and Producer of the Award-Winning Documentary, The Greater Good
As a Wall Street insider in the booming 1990s, Leslie Manookian witnessed the routine prioritization of pharmaceutical profits over public and individual health. In 2003, wrestling with a crisis of conscience, she left her lucrative and high-powered career at its peak to pursue a documentary investigation into the imploding vaccine safety issue. In this candid interview, Leslie shares her journey from confusion to clarity through a labyrinth of interviews with players on both sides of the issue, ignored research gaps, marketing tactics she recognized from her Wall Street days, and intimate, bedside views of the wreckage families with vaccine-injured and killed children face every day. Leslie believes the vaccine safety issue is a “sleeping dog now awakening” as part of a larger, global movement away from industry dictated choices and toward the more scientifically and ethically defensible respect for individual choice.
While the film’s stated goal is to educate and spur rational discussion, its final impact will not only lead the viewer to a greater understanding of the vaccine safety issue, but to the discovery of what and who is sacrificed when informed choice is exchanged for the promise of The Greater Good.