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Kristen Bell: 'I believe in trusting doctors, not know-it-alls'
Some people on West Coast not vaccinating their children
Unlike a number of her West Coast neighbors, Kristen Bell is all about vaccinating her kids. So much so, she wants everyone around her children to be vaccinated as well.
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“When Lincoln was born (in March 2013), the whooping cough epidemic was growing, and before she was 2 months old, we simply said, ‘You have to get a whooping cough vaccination if you are going to hold our baby,’ ” the actress told The Hollywood Reporter.
The “Frozen” and “House of Lies” actress is taking the same approach with Delta, her second daughter with husband Dax Shepard, who was born in December 2014. As you might remember, that’s when measles reached the outbreak stage in the United States.
“It’s a very simple logic: I believe in trusting doctors, not know-it-alls,” Bell told the magazine.
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More and more parents in parts of California, especially around cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, choose to opt out of vaccinating their children under the “personal belief exemption.” Dr. Nina L. Shapiro of Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA told The Hollywood Reporter that schools with large numbers of unimmunized children compromise what’s known as herd immunity.
“The non-vaccination rates in schools are astounding, and it is very dangerous,” Shapiro told the magazine. “I think a school that has less than 90% of its children immunized is at very high risk for these diseases to start cropping up.”
She’s referring to diseases that have previously been eradicated or greatly reduced by the use of vaccines, including measles and whooping cough.
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Aside from asking her friends and family members to get their children and themselves vaccinated, Bell has also taken to Twitter to help educate parents about the importance of immunizations.