Who Is Mayim Bialik? A Terrible Choice for Jeopardy Host

[douglas9]

Yesterday, the producers of the long-running gameshow Jeopardy! announced two new co-hosts to replace the late Alex Trebek: the show’s executive producer Mike Richards and actress Mayim Bialik. Richards has his own issues—including being named in a pregnancy discrimination employment lawsuit—but I’ll let others open that can of worms.

Instead, I’ll focus on Bialik. On paper, she seems like a great choice for a show that celebrates the human intellect: Most famous for her starring roles in the TV sitcoms Blossom and The Big Bang Theory, she also has a PhD in neuroscience. Yet despite her scientific bonafides, Bialik has dabbled in realms that are distinctly anti-science. Let’s take a look at her track record.

First, there’s Bialik’s mixed messages on vaccines. Back in 2009, she told People magazine that her family was “non-vaccinating.” In 2012, in a post on the website Kveller, she endorsed anti-vaccine parenting books, including one by Dr. Bob Sears, the California pediatrician who had his medical license revoked for handing out dubious medical exemptions for immunizations. She’s since backtracked on that statement—in 2015, she said in a tweet that her kids were vaccinated. Last year, she released a YouTube video in which she said, cryptically, that she “delayed vaccinations for reasons you don’t necessarily get to know about.” She has publicly endorsed the COVID-19 vaccines, yet she told Yahoo Life in January, “I have a lot of questions about the vaccine industry, as do a lot of people. I have a lot of questions about the profits involved.”

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/08/who-is-mayim-bialik-a-terrible-choice-for-jeopardy-host/

[Srkdqltr]

1. She is a good choice. It is for a GAME SHOW .

She is not running for office. Get a grip. GAME SHOW.

[StClone]

2. I am not a big TV watcher

And what I have seen of "The Big Bang Theory" and Bialik's part/acting as not being attributes lending to a great (or even average) host of Jeopardy! Now reading her anti-vax bull crappery, she fails the IQ test as a contestant let alone as host.

Thanks for the info.

[TallJohn]

3. I've never cared for Jeopardy one way or another.

But having questions about the vaccine industry, especially about the profits involved does not seem to be an anti-science position at all.

[panader0]

9. Welcome to DU!

[Aristus]

10. Really?

Honda makes a very high-quality automobile. The corporation also makes huge profits from car manufacturing. Should I stop buying their excellent cars just because they make a lot of money?

And BTW, to the whole "just asking questions" crowd: The pharmaceutical industry doesn't make its huge profits from immunizations. They make their money from, among other things, The Three V's, Valium, Vicodin, and Viagra. But those huge profits don't deter patients from asking me for them.

[Celerity]

23. Pfizer agrees to pay $345 million to resolve EpiPen pricing lawsuit

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-agrees-pay-345-mln-resolve-epipen-pricing-lawsuit-2021-07-16/

snip

Multinational pharmaceutical company Pfizer has agreed to a payout of $345 million to resolve allegations that customers overpaid for EpiPens due to anti-competitive practices by Pfizer and Mylan, the company that markets the anaphylaxis treatment.

https://www.lawyer-monthly.com/2021/07/pfizer-agrees-to-345-million-payout-to-resolve-epipen-pricing-lawsuit/

The proposed class action settlement was disclosed in a federal court filing in Kansas City. However, the deal does not resolve claims against Mylan, with a trial scheduled for January 2022.

Despite the settlement, Pfizer has said in a statement that it denies any wrongdoing and believes its actions were appropriate. The litigation follows public outrage in 2016 when Mylan increased the price of a pair of EpiPens, a handheld device that treats severe and life-threatening allergic reactions, to $600 from $100 in 2008. The move by Mylan became central to the ongoing debate about the often unaffordable cost of medicines and healthcare in the United States.

Consumers accused Mylan and Pfizer, which produced the EpiPens for Mylan, of anti-competitive practises that gave them a monopoly over the market for anaphylaxis treatments. Last month, US District Judge Daniel Crabtree dismissed most, but not all, of the allegations against Mylan. The remaining claims concern a patent settlement that is said to have delayed the launch of a generic epinephrine auto-injector. However, Mylan has said it believes its conduct was lawful.

Back in 2017, the company agreed to a $465 million payout to resolve US Justice Department claims that it overcharged the government for the EpiPen.

[Aristus]

24. And this affects the safety, efficacy and accessibility of vaccines how?

What you posted is not science; it's arithmetic.

[Celerity]

26. never claimed it was science, it is just an example of big pharma skulduggery

[Aristus]

29. Oh, I'm right there on board with you on that.

But I'm also thankful that they produce vaccines.

It's kind of like being thankful to Nixon for the EPA.

[Celerity]

30. Yes, agree on that. Nixon was a very complicated mixed bag as well.

[lagomorph777]

17. Enjoy your short stay.

[left-of-center2012]

22. So, your #1 post gets you 'alerted' on

[TallJohn]

33. I shoulda read the TOS closer.

I had no idea that "Big Pharma" was a sacred cow to some.

Who knew?

[gopiscrap]

39. welcome to DU

[DenaliDemocrat]

4. Considering that Hollywood has stars that name

Their children after pieces of fruit and make scented candles purported to smell like a vagina, she’s probably an okay choice.

[Blues Heron]

5. Sounds like she dabbled in antivaxxer nuttiness

hope she's seen the light in regards to the covid vaccines. Has she been vaxxed?

[obamanut2012]

7. Yes, she and her family have received the Covid vax

[Blues Heron]

8. Cool, thanks

[obamanut2012]

13. I had a lot of concern about her, too

She's a well-known anti-vaxxer. I was semi reassured when I read she was pro Covid-19 vax.

[obamanut2012]

6. She has vaxxed herself and her family against CV-19

I am also a bit wary of her, because of her anti-vaxx stance and other woo ideas, but she did step up for the Covid vax.

[MichMan]

11. Does the host select all the questions and provide the answers ?

Or do they read those that are prepared by the staff?

While not a big fan of her, she is hosting a game show that occasionally has science questions, along with those of many other categories. Not sure what her personal views have to with anything.

[LanternWaste]

34. Really? You're unaware that personal views have a consequence

"Not sure what her personal views have to with anything."

Really? You're unaware that personal views often have a direct consequence within the marketplace?

Well, now you are aware: the marketplace often moves predicated on personal views.

[Ellipsis]

12. Remember the TV show Blossom? That was her. Plus...

She has Doctor of Philosophy degree in neuroscience from UCLA. Her dissertation was an investigation of hypothalamic activity in patients with Prader–Willi syndrome, titled "Hypothalamic regulation in relation to maladaptive, obsessive-compulsive, affiliative and satiety behaviors in Prader–Willi syndrome.

She is very intelligent.

It's all about demographics and future audience.

[lagomorph777]

19. "Blossom" not "Bosom"

[Ellipsis]

21. AGHHHH. Damn autofill.

Thanks.... how typical of me.

[lagomorph777]

28. Computers think they're smarter than we are now.

They are wrong.

[UTUSN]

14. Whoa, didn't know all that about her, had a good impression before

That said, when I first saw the thread title (without quotes) my first thought that it was the O.P. talking and bit my tongue against posting, "If somebody doesn't know something, why do they judge?" Also, that it appeared to be an "entertainment" topic.

That said, when I clicked-in all that info about her beliefs bummed me out about her, her beliefs definitely not "entertainment". Besides that the other host has his own problems.

That said, I agree with the posters who say it's just a game show (that I never watch) and that I don't care about that show.

I differ that the show has some kind of high standard of knowledge: It's just "facts" that some people might know and most never will. O.K., so it's really about the *breadth* of what the contestants know.

And as for Alex, well, the lionizing of him says more about how scarce the qualities of being pleasant, courtly, nice are that somebody with the image of them gets that much attention for them.'

[leftyladyfrommo]

15. I love her. nt

[brooklynite]

16. And why should you care about the scientific opinions of a game-show host?

She's....a GAME SHOW HOST. Her job is to ask questions, provide answers, report scores, and banter with contestants, all while standing in front of a TV camera.

[LanternWaste]

35. Probably for the same reason you care...

"why should you care about the scientific opinions of a game-show host?"

Probably for the same reason you care enough about someone's benign and inconsequential opinion to both comment on it and respond to it.

Easy, peasy, George and Wheezy.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

[Wingus Dingus]

18. Unless she's truly a bad and immoral person (and I see no evidence of this)

why would any of this matter?

[redstatebluegirl]

20. I like her, she is a brilliant woman with a PhD in neuroscience.

I loved her in the Big Bang and am looking forward to seeing a woman in that spot.

[Polly Hennessey]

25. It is a game show. Highly amused at all

the fuss over a game show. I occasionally watch Jeopardy but find it boring over the long haul. Remember folks, it is a game show. Who cares who the host(s) are/is. Why would someone on DU be slapped down for comments about game show hosts. How funny.

[obnoxiousdrunk]

27. She is

a game show host. We will survive this....

[MichMan]

31. "Vaccine conspiracies for $200, Mayim "

Is that what people are seriously expecting ?

[LanternWaste]

36. You seriously think that's what people are expecting?

Even in my southern Baptist church as a youth we learned to avoid literalism when other literary devices presented their options.

But we get it...

Again...

[tishaLA]

32. She's the only Jeopardy host I've had lunch with

back when we were both PhD students at UCLA. I know she has some very eccentric parenting ideas and I'm sure some people will find her (basically unwavering) support for Israel problematic. And that's OK. She's also very, very bright, genuinely funny, and nice.

[MichMan]

37. Alex Trebeck had a philosophy degree from University of Ottawa, but his love was broadcasting

Most beloved host of all time and very little science background. Nobody cared

[Blasphemer]

38. I was suspicious of her for years over her vaccine stance....

But, it seems she was more vaccine hesitant than anti-vaxx. There are all sorts of reasons that a certain demographic of mothers started questioning vaccines. As a public health person who is strongly pro-vaxx, I have some sympathies for their position. At the end of the day, she did the right thing and her children are vaccinated and that's what's most important.