‘Jeopardy!’ Host Mayim Bialik Says She’s Not Anti-vax

The world is still resolving its feelings about new Jeopardy! hosts Mike Richards and Mayim Bialik. It was announced this week that the show’s executive producer will succeed Alex Trebek by hosting the daily syndicated program, while Bialik will emcee prime-time and spin-off specials, beginning with the Jeopardy! National College Championship in 2022. Since this news broke, controversial actions from both Richards’s and Bialik’s past have resurfaced.

Richards faced renewed backlash over his implication in multiple pregnancy discrimination and wrongful termination lawsuits while producing The Price Is Right. (He denied the allegations in a memo sent to Jeopardy! staff on Monday.) Meanwhile, Bialik has received criticism for previously discussing her vaccine hesitancy in her 2012 book, Beyond the Sling. “We made an informed decision not to vaccinate our children,” Bialik wrote in her parenting guide, “but this is a very personal decision that should be made only after sufficient research, which today is within reach of every parent who seeks to learn about their child’s health regardless of their medical knowledge or educational status.”

A representative for Bialik has now clarified her vaccine stance. “She has been fully vaccinated for the COVID-19 virus and is not at all an anti-vaxxer,” Bialik’s spokesperson said in a statement to  TheWrap. This isn’t the first time the Big Bang Theory star and neuroscientist has rebutted anti-vax rumors. In 2015, Bialik tweeted, “dispelling rumors abt my stance on vaccines. i’m not anti. my kids are vaccinated. so much anger and hysteria. i hope this clears things up.”

She further explained how her thinking about immunization had evolved in an October 2020 YouTube video titled, “Anti-Vaxxers and Covid.” Bialik shared that she and her two kids would be receiving both COVID-19 vaccines and flu shots. “This year I’m gonna do something I literally haven’t done in 30 years: I’m gonna get a vaccine. I know! And guess what? I’m actually gonna get two,” she said.

“You might be saying, ‘Hey, wait a second, Dr. Mayim Bialik, you don’t believe in vaccines! You’re one of those anti-vaxxers,’” Bialik continued. “I wrote a book about 10 years ago about my experience parenting, and at the time my children had not received the typical schedule of vaccines. But I have never, not once, said that vaccines are not valuable, not useful, or not necessary, because they are.”

She added, “The truth is, I delayed vaccinations for reasons that you don’t necessarily get to know about simply because you follow me on social media…. As of today, my children may not have had every one of the vaccinations that your children have, but my children are vaccinated.” Bialik then detailed her beliefs that children receive “way too many vaccines in this country” and that “the medical community often operate[s] from a place of fear in order to make money.” Still, she found it “very disturbing” that some people would not be vaccinated against COVID-19.

“I want my immune system to have the best chance at fighting anything that comes its way, especially if that’s COVID,” Bialik said.

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