Jim Carrey condemns California Governor as 'corporate fascist' in Twitter rant over new vaccination law

Actor reacted furiously to a new law making vaccination mandatory

Heather Saul
Thursday 02 July 2015 17:46 BST
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Jim Carrey
Jim Carrey

Jim Carrey has condemned California's Governor as a “corporate fascist” in a furious Twitter rant about new vaccination legislation in the US.

The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind actor blasted a controversial new California vaccine law that requires the majority of children in the state to be vaccinated in order to attend public or private school. The bill removed an exemption for religious or personal beliefs, meaning exemptions will only be available to children who have serious health issues, according to the Washington Post.

The law was signed into effect by Governor Jerry Brown on Tuesday, causing Carrey, a long-time campaigner against toxins in children’s vaccines, to launch a blistering tirade against Brown on Twitter. He and his former partner Jenny McCarthy have an autistic son and have previously argued that evidence shows a correlation between autism and vaccination programmes.

Carrey accused Brown of agreeing to poison children with toxins by signing it, tweeting: “California Gov says yes to poisoning more children with mercury and aluminum in manditory vaccines. This corporate fascist must be stopped.

“They say mercury in fish is dangerous but forcing all of our children to be injected with mercury in thimerosol is no risk. Make sense?”

Carrey then went onto stress that he was not anti-vaccine, instead positioning himself as anti-thimerosal and anti-mercury.

Thimerosal is a mercury-containing preservative used in some vaccines and other products.

Brown said “the science is clear” that vaccines protect children against a number of infectious and dangerous diseases in his letter announcing his decision to sign the bill. “While it's true that no medical intervention is without risk, he wrote, "the evidence shows that immunization powerfully benefits and protects the community.''

The new law means California is now one of just three states that will only allow medical issues as a reason for being exempt from vaccination.

The US Centres for Disease Control (CDC) said there was no evidence of harm caused by low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor side effects such as redness and swelling where the injection was given.

A spokesperson told The Independent: "CDC has conducted and supported extensive research to study vaccines and neurodevelopmental outcomes such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The findings of that research show that there is no link between vaccines, thimerosal, and ASD.

"Thimerosal has been removed from all routinely recommended childhood vaccines (except some flu vaccines), but the prevalence of ASD has continued to increase. This provides further evidence that thimerosal does not cause ASD."

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