Actress Jessica Biel is being called an anti-vaxxer after appearing with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to oppose a California vaccination bill that limits medical exemptions. In recent years Kennedy has been outspoken about vaccinations, putting forth the (scientifically-disproven) claims that vaccines can cause autism, among other problems. “They can put anything they want in that vaccine and they have no accountability for it,” he said in 2015. “They get the shot, that night they have a fever of a hundred and three, they go to sleep, and three months later their brain is gone…This is a holocaust, what this is doing to our country.” (Kennedy later apologized for the “holocaust” remark. Several members of the Kennedy family—including former lieutenant governor of Maryland Kathleen Kennedy Townsend; Joseph P. Kennedy II, a former member of Congress from Massachusetts; and Maeve Kennedy McKean, the executive director of Global Health Initiatives at Georgetown University—have spoken out against Robert Kennedy’s vaccine position.)
On Wednesday (June 12), Kennedy, founder of the Children’s Health Defense anti-vaccination group, posted photos of himself with Biel at the California State House. “Please say thank you to the courageous @jessicabiel for a busy and productive day at the California State House,” he wrote on Instagram.
Jezebel was the first to call attention to the post and later The Daily Beast spoke to Kennedy who confirmed that the two were in Sacramento to lobby against SB 276, a bill that would limit medical exemptions from vaccinations without approval from a state public health officer. Basically, this bill would make it harder for anti-vaxxers to get out of vaccinating their children by increasing oversight by medical professionals.
Choosing not to vaccinate is a public health issue. Unvaccinated individuals can put other people at risk of getting life-threatening diseases—experts point to the anti-vaxx movement as the cause of the recent measles outbreaks across the U.S. that have now affected 28 states and more than 1,000 individuals.
Kennedy, speaking to The Daily Beast, would not call Biel an anti-vaxxer directly. “I would say that she was for safe vaccines and for medical freedom,” he said. “My body, my choice.” “The biggest problem with the bill,” he continued. “Which is something I think Jessica is concerned with, is that a doctor who has made a determination—if he has found children in this state whose doctors have determined that they’re too fragile to receive vaccinations—this bill would overrule the doctors and force them to be vaccinated anyways.”
