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Jessica Biel Jumps the Shark
Yesterday the Daily Beast broke the news that actress Jessica Biel had teamed up with Robert Kennedy Jr. in order to push back against a new bill proposed in California that would make it more difficult for parents to enroll their children in school without the recommended series of vaccinations. Vaccine refusal has been linked to outbreaks across the country, and making sure California, a hotbed of vaccine denial, is better vaccinated is a win for public health across the country.
Across the rest of the country, especially within media, vaccine refusal is far from a popular stance. But in Hollywood and across California, as evidenced by celebrity anti-vaxxers and the vaccination rates in their zip codes, it’s like a different world. My friend Bridget, who lives in Los Angeles, noted on Twitter:
Yeah right — most of Hollywood is DL anti-vaxx.
— Bridget Phetasy (@BridgetPhetasy) June 13, 2019
Biel’s anti-vaccine stand is just another way those in Hollywood, while preaching about the sacredness and importance of science, while scoffing at the stupidity of regular Americans, have a hard time practicing what they preach. The same folks who wear all black in support of the #MeToo movement, but who let Harvey Weinstein walk in their midst for years.
For her years of anti-vaccine activism, actress Jenny McCarthy has been the subject of scorn, she even has a website devoted to the death count her activism is responsible for: https://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/
When McCarthy did a stint on the View and when she hosted a radio show, the social media accounts for the shows were deluged with fans sharing their feelings about her presence. With Biel joining in on the movement, any projects she undertakes should be followed by the same reminders of the toll her activism takes on public health.
Published in General
Keep in mind that we don’t know which ones failed to become immune. You may have vaccinated your child and discover only when they are caught up in an epidemic that he was one of the unlucky. If he caught from another vaccinated-but-not-immune child, that’s terribly bad luck. If he caught it from a willfully un-vaccinated child, I’d call that both a shame and a crime.
For what it’s worth, I lead a group of older people who like to discuss current events. They are all fascinating folks, retired professionals.
I brought up the anti-vaxer topic per the recent spikes in measles outbreaks, and we talked more than an hour about this.
All of those guys/gals are over 70–Silent Generation and Great Generation–so all of them had stories about being terrified to go to pools or to interact with large groups or to just go out and play at various times in their youth per the scourges of diseases like Polio that vaccines have blessedly eradicated.
Each and every one of them from all political persuasions–progressives, conservatives, libertarians–thought that people who are arguing the theoretical here per government compulsion are simply unaware of what the world was like before vaccines created the herd immunity we enjoy today.
They were really quite confounded by the anti-vax movement. I mean… completely perplexed. They worried that people today have no context for what a very rational fear of disease was really like when they were in school, and they thought that was why people fight these things. In their minds, the anti-vax community has created fear that is not real because they have gotten too comfortable in a world that has forgotten about iron lungs and paralyzed teenagers….
Drive them from public spaces.
And immunocompromised adults. Among those unvaccinated are kids like my grandson who is 7 months old, and still needs many of his immunizations. Some are kids who can’t be immunized because of illness. They shouldn’t be casualties because others are irresponsible.
Many older people also become more susceptible… People who have things like cancer and are taking chemo. Their immune systems are suppressed.