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Mayim Bialik clarifies her stance on vaccines: ‘My children are vaccinated, I am vaccinated’

Mayim Bialik continues to set the record straight about her stance on vaccines, explaining in an interview with The Daily Beast that she never said she was anti-vax.

The 46-year-old actress talked to the publication about her latest projects, including her role as Jeopardy! host. And while discussing the audition process for the position, and the intense scrutiny that candidates faced from both the network and the public throughout it, Bialik's beliefs about vaccinations were brought to the forefront.

Mayim Bialik says she’s never been anti-vaccine. (Photo: Getty Images)
Mayim Bialik says she’s never been anti-vaccine. (Photo: Getty Images)

"My children are vaccinated, I am vaccinated," the mother of two said when asked about her attitude toward vaccines.

And although people thought differently before, Bialik went on to say there wasn't a change in her stance.

"My kids were vaccinated before [the pandemic]. I think the only change is that I chose to publicly talk about it," she explained. "At the time that I wrote the book about my kids when they were little, it’s true —they were not vaccinated at that time. But no, my kids were vaccinated before the pandemic and I’m typically someone who takes a flu shot when I have to work with lots of people, but many people don’t, so I decided to make a YouTube video about it. And still, there are people who claim that I am not vaccinated. So just go to YouTube. I made a whole video about our decision why we all rolled up our sleeves."

Bialik's video, titled "Anti-Vaxxers and Covid" and posted to her YouTube channel on Oct. 1, 2020, has her providing a 9-minute explanation of her views on vaccines. In it, she said that she would be doing "something I literally haven’t done in 30 years. I’m gonna get a vaccine."

The Big Bang Theory actress said she would be getting the coronavirus vaccine as well as the flu shot, explaining her reasonings for both. She also addressed a few reasons why her children weren't vaccinated at the time that she had written a book about her experience with parenting in 2012.

"Some children have allergies which are exacerbated by ingredients in vaccines, some children are highly susceptible to seizures from fevers which vaccines can cause, some children have compromised immune systems," she said in the video. "As of today, my children may not have had every one of the vaccinations that your children have, but my children are vaccinated. I repeat, my children are vaccinated."

Again, she clarified her stance in The Daily Beast.

"I think delayed vaccinations is something that many people do, and the details of what my children were like as newborns isn’t anybody’s business but my own. To me, that is the statement on it," she said. "If I had been the kind of person to say, 'Don’t get vaccinated,' then yes, people would have an interesting story to write. But I never said to not get vaccinated. I absolutely believe vaccines work and have always said that. To me, it’s a bit of a manufactured [controversy] and there’s not necessarily a change. People delay vaccines for many reasons, and it gets to be personal unless you’re making a stance that no one should be vaccinated, which I never did."

She added, "It’s an unfortunate aspect of being a public person, and I’m not saying I don’t deserve that attention, because the fact is, if you do speak up about anything — you know, people had a lot of problems with me breastfeeding my child after six months. I was asked a lot about that. It’s fine. He weaned. Everything’s fine."

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