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Jessica Biel Supports Anti-Vaxxers

Is Jessica Biel an anti-vaxxer? Biel is getting heat for opposing a California bill to limit exemptions for vaccines and compel more people to get their shots.

Biel teamed up with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vocal critic of vaccines, to oppose the bill. Biel has never publicly addressed the issue of vaccines, but when she married Justin Timberlake in 2015, reports circulated that the couple planned to refuse vaccinations for their future children.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called Biel “a very effective advocate.”

“The biggest problem with the bill, which is something I think Jessica is concerned with,” Kennedy told the Daily Beast, “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 anyway.” Kennedy called the bill “cruel.”

Most opposition to vaccines is based on the long-debunked myth that vaccines cause autism, a theory proposed by a British researcher, Andrew Wakefield, in 1999. Wakefield was later found to have fabricated his research and lost his medical license. However, the myth has lived on, causing vaccination rates to plummet in certain communities. Low vaccination rates have led to an outbreak of measles in several U.S. cities this year, prompting public officials like New York City mayor Bill de Blasio to issue emergency orders for people to get vaccinated or face a large fine.