Mayim Bialik, the anti-vax tv star, has a Facebook post saying she is not either anti-vax so stop being poopy to her.
i would like to dispel the rumors about my stance on vaccines. i am not anti-vaccine. my children are vaccinated. there has been so much hysteria and anger about this issue and i hope this clears things up as far as my part.
It’s not rumors. I’ve read interviews in which she explains why she’s anti-vax. Tara Smith at Science blogs has more:
So did she really change her mind and her stance?
If so, why? Or is she just jumping on the “I’m not anti-vaccine” bandwagon like Jenny McCarthy and others who claim not to be anti-vaccine, but at the same time spew vaccine fear and misinformation? Are her kids fully vaccinated, or did they only have the ones she mentioned previously (such as polio for international travel)? Is she walking back statements that are basically anti-vaccine talking points, and removing her support of anti-vaccine doctors like Bob Sears and Lauren Feder (or her own pediatrician, Jay Gordon)?
I really hope so. But I won’t hold my breath, and take her statements that she’s “not anti-vaccine” with a big grain of salt. After all, that statement, itself, is often an anti-vaccine talking point.
Bialik’s post doesn’t look like a change of mind at all. It looks like saying she’s not anti-vax and never has been, which is very different from saying she was and has now fortunately changed her mind.
And she has the gall to be miffed about what she calls “hysteria and anger.” Yeah gee why would anyone be angry that Hollywood celebrities use their fame to help promote an anti-vax stance that can help to trigger epidemics? Don’t forget, measles was eradicated in the US until the anti-vax bullshit got going.
Shame on you, Mayim Bialik.
She has this in a later post:
So, yeah. Still anti-vax, ISTM.
Clicked on that facebook post. And down the rabbit hold I went.
My favorite was the person asserting that an unvaccinated person cannot catch the disease… The set of assumptions required to make that statement true are truly disheartening unless you are ruthless enough to want natural selection against stupidity.
Standing in the grocery store checkout line yesterday, I heard one fellow say to another, “So just say your kids are vaccinated, not that it’s anyone’s business. But if people insist on trying to shame you for doing what’s best for you and your children, you have every right to lie to them.”
In the wake of the recent vociferouspushback against the anti-vaxxers, methinks this might be the new tactic: lie about your choice to risk the lives of your children and others. Makes me wonder if Bialik might be doing the same.
She doesn’t get to play the “let me live my life” card when she’s out there bragging about her scientific credentials and calling herself a science educator.
I was appalled to hear her on an episode of Neil de Grasse Tyson’s podcast. And NdGT followed up by having Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. — whose Rolling Stone article really got the vaccine-autism thing going in the U.S. — as a guest on a different episode recently.
I realize that few people are perfect on every issue. But when somebody is actively promoting bad science in a way that hurts public health, I don’t think that’s something that should be overlooked just because “well, she’s an actress with a Ph.D!” or “well, RFK Jr. is good on environmental issues!”
A couple of weeks ago, Phil Plait was singing her praises, and then backed down when her anti-vax history was pointed out to him. Good for him.
moar @1 – oh my GOD – can she really be that dense? Or – more likely – deliberately blind? It’s not a “do what’s right for you” thing. It’s a thing that does not affect only the person who does it. How fatuous do you have to be not to get that?
It’s like setting fire to some empty seats on a plane in flight and then telling everyone “you live your life and let me live mine.”
@ 3 bcmystery — Isn’t that a large part of why so many people are pissed at Sears? I think theres a concept in his book about “hiding in the herd” … ie. Using the rest of society to keep your children healthy while underming the entire concept. Must be one of the most selfish things I’ve read recently ….
I’d like to know how she squares her latest statement with her previous statement on the People website that “We are a non-vaccinating family”. They seem contradictory to me, unless she changed her mind completely on the issue.
Yup. Let these people talk long enough and you’ll see germ theory denial loom up at you like a monster out of the mist of incoherent blatherings.