Jessica Biel Comes Out as Anti-Vaxx Activist

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Tuesday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental activist whose recent work has focused increasingly on baseless allegations that vaccines are unsafe and can injure a statistically miniscule population of “medically fragile” children, appeared at the California State Assembly beside an unlikely scene partner: actress Jessica Biel. In a series of Instagram posts, first reported in Jezebel by Anna Merlan, the two posed with activists, legislators, and miscellaneous bureaucratic architecture. In the caption, Kennedy called Biel “courageous.”

The duo had come to lobby against SB 276, a California state bill that would limit medical exemptions from vaccinations without approval from a state public health officer. The bill has been decried by anti-vaxx advocates like Kennedy and vaguely critiqued by current Governor Gavin Newsom, over official estimations that it would reduce medical exemptions by nearly 40%.

Although reports circulated in 2015 that Biel and her husband, Justin Timberlake, did not plan to vaccinate their kids (“She feels that vaccination could cause complications,” a source told In Touch Weekly), Biel has never publicly commented on the vaccination debate. But on a phone call with The Daily Beast, Kennedy confirmed that the actress, whose past controversial opinions include insisting it is a “struggle” to get roles because she is too sexy, was “upset about this issue because of its particular cruelty.”

Kennedy, who takes issue with the label “anti-vaxx”—which he deems “pharmaceutical propaganda” and “a lie”—declined to align Biel with the controversial movement. “I would say that she was for safe vaccines and for medical freedom,” Kennedy said, before echoing an anti-vaxx rallying cry: “My body, my choice.”

“She was a very effective advocate,” Kennedy said of Biel. “She was very strong and very knowledgeable. Extremely well-informed. An extremely effective advocate. She knows what she’s talking about…She’s upset about this issue because of its particular cruelty. She has friends who have been vaccine-injured who would be forced to leave the state.”

But vaccination advocates say that the bill will have minimal impact on those with valid reasons for exemption, citing medical authorities like the bill’s prominent co-sponsors: the California Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, California.

When asked about the recent outbreaks of measles, which brought on the largest number of recorded cases in the United States since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000, Kennedy insisted that vaccine exemptions were not responsible. “The measles epidemic has almost nothing to do with unvaccinated children,” he said. “Particularly the medically-fragile children have nothing to do with it.”

Representatives for Biel and her husband, Justin Timberlake, did not respond to requests for comment.

“A Hollywood celebrity and the head of an environmental organization should not have credibility on an issue about how to regulate the medical profession, when an overwhelming number of medical professionals support this bill,” Russin said. “It’s the Jenny McCarthy show all over again.”