17 celebrities who've shared views on vaccines

1. Kristen Bell

"When Lincoln was born, the whooping cough epidemic was growing, and before she was two months old, we simply said [to], 'You have to get a whooping cough vaccination if you are going to hold our baby.'" (source)

2. Jennifer Garner

"I want to help make sure that all moms across the country understand that influenza is serious and that vaccination should be a family priority." (source)

3. Julie Bowen

"I cried making the decision, I'm not gonna lie. But I spoke with my sister, who is an infectious disease doctor—and then also with my own doctor and my pediatrician, who said to me: 'By not vaccinating your children, you're putting them at serious risk.’ That was it for me. Once I made that decision, there were a few tears—mostly mine—but now all three boys are on regular vaccination schedules." (source)

4. Sarah Michelle Gellar

"Having children is the greatest gift anyone’s ever given me, and if I can help protect anyone else’s gift, then it’s not just my pleasure, but it’s my responsibility to do it." (source)

“Yes, I made the decision to vaccinate my children at a schedule that I agreed upon with my pediatrician. I can only speak in depth on the pertussis vaccine. And I can tell you that all of us have had the vaccine and none of us have had any symptoms related to anything.” (source)

5. Barack Obama

"People need to understand that this [H1N1] vaccine is safe. Michelle and I just got the shots ourselves.... We wanted to make sure nationwide that children were getting it before adults did. And now there's enough vaccine so that adults should get it as well." (source)

6. Amanda Peet

“We are this close to eradicating polio. It would be amazing if this could happen in our lifetime.... We need to get children the vaccines they need and remember that polio anywhere is a threat to children everywhere. We live in a global community, and we are responsible for not only our own children but also our neighbor’s children.” (source)

7. Selma Hayek

“The thought of losing a child to a disease which can be easily prevented seems unbearable, especially when it is within our power to prevent it. If you knew how to help save a child’s life, what could stop you?” (source)

8. Jennifer Lopez

"This issue is important to me. I didn't know too much about it before becoming a parent, but whooping cough is on the rise. There has been a significant increase in reported cases over the past decade. Parents don't realize that they can get pertussis and transmit the disease to their babies.... The message is that infants are at risk of getting pertussis from the adults around them and the disease can be so severe in babies and sometimes even fatal." (source)

9. Bill Maher

“I’m not an anti-vaxxer, I never have been. I’m an anti-flu shot guy. I think that’s bullsh*t and I think the fact that it was 23 percent effective this week [Feb. 6, 2015] bears that out. But if Ebola was airborne, I’d get the vaccine tomorrow.” (source)

10. Kendra Wilkinson

"If I had gone off Hollywood or media, I wouldn’t have vaccinated him, but it was my choice." (source)

11. Kristin Cavallari

"Here's the thing: At the end of the day, I'm just a mom. I'm trying to make the best decision for my kid.... There are very scary statistics out there regarding what is in vaccines and what they cause—asthma, allergies, ear infections, all kinds of things. And we feel like we're making the best decision for our kids.” (source)

12. Mayim Bialik

“The number of vaccines that you and I received when we were kids is a third or a fourth less than what kids get now. So my feeling is you can really do whatever you want, just like I get to do whatever I want, but I don't inherently think that no one should get the flu, for example. And that's my personal opinion." (source)

13. Rob Schneider

“The efficacy of these shots have not been proven. And the toxicity of these things—we’re having more and more side effects. We’re having more and more autism.... You can’t make people do procedures that they don’t want. It can’t be the government saying that. It’s against the Nuremberg Laws.” (source)

14. Alicia Silverstone

“While there has not been a conclusive study of the negative effects of such a rigorous one-size-fits-all, shoot-’em-up schedule, there is increasing anecdotal evidence from doctors who have gotten distressed phone calls from parents claiming their child was ‘never the same’ after receiving a vaccine. And I personally have friends whose babies were drastically affected in this way.” (source)

15. Donald Trump

“You know, I have a theory—and it’s a theory that some people believe in—and that’s the vaccinations. We never had anything like this. This is now an epidemic. It’s way, way up over the past 10 years. It’s way up over the past two years. And, you know, when you take a little baby that weighs like 12 pounds into a doctor’s office and they pump them with many, many simultaneous vaccinations. I’m all for vaccinations, but I think when you add all of these vaccinations together and then two months later the baby is so different, then lots of different things have happened. I really—I’ve known cases.... It’s also very controversial to even say. But I couldn’t care less. I’ve seen people where they have a perfectly healthy child, and they go for the vaccinations and a month later the child is no longer healthy.” (source)

16. Toni Braxton

"Maybe it's just a coincidence that after my son's first MMR vaccine, I began to notice changes in him." (source)

17. Jenny McCarthy 

“I believe in the importance of a vaccine program, and I believe parents have the right to choose one poke per visit. I’ve never told anyone to not vaccinate.” (source)

“I am not a doctor, and I am not trying to tell you how to treat your child. But . . . I feel it’s good to be aware of the dialogue surrounding a possible link between vaccines and autism.” (source)

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