A controversial new documentary “Vaxxed: From Coverup to Catastrophe” opens in the Chicago area Friday – and there’s a key reason why you won’t find positive reviews in major newspapers or on major news stations.

Hint: It’s not that in the film a CDC whistleblower reveals information the public shouldn’t know.

It’s that major drug companies are some of the biggest advertisers and the crucial drug revenue they share with newspapers and news stations comes with strings attached. Strings that prevent media from reporting news negative about drug companies.

Del Bigtree, a medical journalist and co-writer of the film’s script, spoke withIllinois Review Friday.

“If your news story is that the pharmaceutical industry and the Centers for Disease Control have colluded, and hidden the fact that they have an effective vaccine that’s destroying the lives of children – in this case we have a CDC whistleblower and a top scientist in Dr. William Thompson stepping forward saying “We committed fraud in the MMR-autism study and hid the fact that there’s a causal link between the vaccine and autism – how do you think you get that story told?”

“Vaxxed,” the film that Robert DeNiro voluntarily pulled from the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival because of the ruckus it stirred, was blasted by the New York Times because the film was produced by Dr. Andrew Wakefield. Dr. Wakefield is a physician that, the paper said, was discredited when his findings about the link between vaccines and autism were retracted by the British Lancet.

The New York Times did not mention that “Vaxxed” focuses almost entirely on the testimony of top CDC scientist Dr. William Thompson – who admits the CDC manipulated research findings to muffle concerns parents might have about the triple measles/mumps/rubella vaccine Dr. Wakefield suggested was key to the explosion of autism over the past several decades.