Tuesday, March 19, 2024

GET OUR FREE E-NEWSLETTER

“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.”

— William Wilberforce

Search

Maine Residents Could Restore Vaccine Exemptions by Popular Vote on March 3 Ballot

state capitol building in Maine

On May 24, 2019, Maine’s House of Representatives passed a bill (LD798) removing religious and philosophical vaccine exemptions to block Maine residents from getting an education in a public, private, parochial or trade school or enrolling in educational courses online. The bill also removed vaccine exemptions for students to attend colleges and universities, and barred adults from being employed in daycare or healthcare services unless they have received all state mandated vaccines.

The bill was strongly opposed by grassroots health freedom groups and passed the state Senate by only one vote.  When Governor Janet Mills signed LD 798 into law the same day, Maine joined Mississippi, West Virginia, California and New York, as states that only offer a medical exemption to vaccination. Unless it is vetoed by Maine voters in a ballot vote on Mar. 3, 2020, the new law will go into effect on Sept. 1, 2021.

Maine Health Department Seeking 100 Percent Vaccination Rate

Maine is one of the 10 least populated states in the U.S. with a population of about 1.3 million people, which is less than one half of one percent of the total population of the U.S.1

In 2018, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services issued the National Immunization Survey Childhood Report of vaccination coverage in Maine for child and teen vaccinations recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and stated, “In 2018, the Health Department reported that, “Maine is either at, or above, the national average for every childhood vaccine, with the exception of hepatitis B. Maine saw an increase of over 1.3% for the primary vaccine series [and] Maine saw an increase in every individual antigen and overall series.”2

State health officials also made it clear that they were seeking a 100 percent vaccination rate among all children in the state:

Vaccination is the most effective and efficient way to ensure these children, their family members and the community, particularly those who are immunocompromised, are protected against these vaccine preventable diseases. This is perhaps one of the most important reasons why MIP will continue to encourage parents and physicians to vaccinate their children and to help reach the goal of the Maine Immunization Program to bring the State vaccine coverage rate for each of these vaccines to 100%.

Opposition to Bill Inside and Outside of Legislature

During public hearings in the spring of 2019 on LD798, testimony was received by 781 citizens and organizations. State House and Senate committees listened to more than 13 hours of testimony from nearly 200 people, 80 percent of whom opposed the bill forcing vaccination with federally recommended vaccines as a condition of getting a primary, high school, college or trade school education in Maine.

Speaking out against the bill, Maine Rep. Heidi Sampson addressed the House, reminding fellow legislators that “the Constitution is designed to protect the minority. How dare we strip these people of their rights?” She said:

I want to be clear. The people will not go away quietly. We as a body have done them a huge disservice. They have been mocked, ridiculed, disenfranchised, dismissed, insulted, ignored, set up for ambush, bullied and stigmatized. Let me tell you, we’ve poked mama and papa bear. We’ve ignited a fire within them and they will fight. Members here may not realize the injustice that they’ve heaped upon these people with this most draconian measure. We have seriously overstepped our role and our oath of office.

Maine Voters Have Opportunity to Restore Vaccine Exemptions on Mar. 3

Mainers for Health and Parental Rights, a political action committee (PAC), filed paperwork with the state for a veto ballot referendum that would overturn the vaccine exemption repeal. In September 2019, the campaign filed 95,871 raw signatures, of which 79,056 were valid, exceeding the minimum of 63,067 signatures needed.3

Cara Sacks, co-chair of Mainers for Health and Parental Rights said on National Public Radio, “Many Mainers have never heard of this incredibly punitive and overreaching law that allows our government to mandate medical intervention in exchange for receiving any kind of education, whether private or public.” On October 17, 2019, Maine Secretary of State Dunlap announced that the veto referendum qualified to appear on the ballot at the statewide election on March 3, 2020.4

The veto referendum will appear on the ballot as “Question 1” and individuals and organizations campaigning to retain the law removing vaccine exemptions are organizing around a “No on 1” slogan. This position is represented by the Maine Families for Vaccines PAC. Yarmouth pediatrician Laura Blaisdell, MD, co-chair and co-founder of the PAC, argues that, “We need to oppose this veto, because our public spaces are not currently safe from infectious disease outbreaks. We know that we’re having outbreaks in schools and in our communities, and that’s because our community immunity has been threatened.”5

The “Yes to 1 Maine to Reject Big Pharma” Mainers for Health and Parental Rights PAC has organized to veto LD 798 and restore religious and philosophical exemptions to mandatory vaccination. The PAC’s spokesperson Cara Sacks pointed out that:

It should be parents’ choice to make medical decisions for their children, and it should not be mandated by the government. Voting “Yes” simply restores Maine’s previous law, which has protected Maine children well for decades and leaves medical decisions between patients and doctors. Rather than letting Mainers decide for ourselves, Big Pharma is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in a desperate attempt to influence this vote.6

Vaccine Industry Jumps In With Big Money to Defeat Voter Referendum to Restore Vaccine Exemptions

By early February, the “Yes on 1” Mainers for Health and Parents Rights PAC had raised far more money than the Maine Families for Vaccines PAC in the fundraising race, securing $315,752 in donations to the pro-mandatory vaccination Maine Families for Vaccines PAC’s $58,097 in donations.7 Sacks commented that:

The vast majority of our donors and donations are from everyday Mainers rather than the typical corporate and out-of-state interests that fund the majority of Maine political campaigns. Among the donors are many who identify themselves as therapists, counselors, acupuncturists, nurses, physicians and chiropractors. Many health practitioners, particularly those who are not funded or lobbied by Big Pharma oppose this terrible law because it removes their patient’s right to informed consent, a sacred and foundational principle of our modern medical system.8

The Maine Families for Vaccines PAC received the majority of their donations from the Maine Hospital Association, Maine Academy of Family Physicians, and the Maine Medical Association.9 Although the PAC has characterized itself as a grassroots organization that has not accepted money from “Big Pharma,” they have engaged Maine Street Solutions, a public relations/lobbying firm. Bobby Reynolds, a spokesman for the political committee linked to Maine Street Solutions, said the group was funded largely by health care groups and vaccine manufacturers.10

Maine Street Solutions has spent $476,000 to blanket southern Maine with television ads featuring doctors and children talking about the value of vaccines and the need to keep the law repealing vaccine exemptions. This has opened up questions about whether Maine Families for Vaccines and those lobbying against repeal of LD798 are beholden to the pharmaceutical industry, especially vaccine manufacturers.11

Questions About Pharma’s Influence Over Vaccine Policy

In her weekly radio address, Gov. Mills said the grassroots PAC campaigning to overturn Maine’s new vaccination law is using misleading tactics by suggesting Big Pharma is behind the law. Mills said the large pharmaceutical companies “hardly benefit at all from producing vaccines….their campaign is purposefully trying to conflate vaccinations with other issues like the opioid epidemic when these issues are distinctly different,” Mills said.12

According to a survey from Zion Market Research, the total market size for vaccines in the United States is estimated to generate $18 billion for the pharmaceutical industry by 2020, and the pediatric vaccine market is expected to more than double from $6.1 billion in 2014 to $13.8 billion in 2024.13 Big pharmaceutical companies like Merck, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, and Sanofi lead the global vaccine market.

According to Dr. Peter Bach, director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, pharmaceutical company revenue from school-required vaccines is a “tiny fraction” of pharmaceutical industry profits.14 Physicians not only benefit financially from directly administering vaccines to patients, but also from industry sponsored incentive programs like CDC’s AFIX (Assessment, Feedback, Incentives eXchange Program) and other insurance related programs.15

After watching pharmaceutical and medical industry lobbyists operate in Augusta, Maine’s Capitol, last May, Rep. Sampson observed that, “Maine is a small state that’s easily bought. We have 1.3 million people and special interests don’t even need a lot of money… for a million dollars they can convince policy makers to do their bidding. Policy makers here don’t even look under the hood of these laws.  We’re like a cheap date. And if you can get Maine to do it, you can get the rest of the country to do it.”16

Vaccine Coverage and Exemption Rates in Maine

Before LD 798, Maine was one of 17 states that provided a philosophical exemption to vaccination, in addition to the religious and medical exemptions.  In the 2018-2019 school year, a total of 6.2 percent of entering kindergarteners were exempt, with 0.6 percent holding a medical exemption, 0.4 percent claiming a religious exemption, and 5.2 percent claiming philosophical exemption. During the same period, exemptions for seventh graders were lower:  a total of 4.7 percent were exempt, 0.1 percent holding a medical exemption, 0.3 percent claiming religious exemption and 4.3 percent claiming philosophical exemption.17

Between kindergarten and first grade, vaccination rates go up because many parents wait until the end of the acceptable age range for boosters, which the CDC says is between four and six years old. Parents of five year olds will often use a philosophical exemption for kindergarten and get the booster before first grade.

In 2015-2016, vaccination coverage rates in Maine for children entering kindergarten were 96.1 percent for the DTaP (diptheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis), 95.1 percent for the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), 96 percent for the polio vaccine, and 96.1 percent for the varicella (chickenpox) vaccine.18 In 2018-2019, vaccination rates for the DTaP was 94.5 percent, MMR was 93.8 percent, polio was 94.5 percent and varicella was 95.9 percent.19

Infection Rates in Maine: No Deaths and Zero Cases of Measles

Maine’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports the incidence of infectious disease in 2018 (the last year for which a report is available) for which schoolchildren receive vaccines as follows: measles (0), mumps (4), rubella (0), diptheria (0), pertussis or “whooping cough” (446), tetanus (0), hepatitis A (9), meningococcal disease (1), varicella or “chickenpox” (252).20 There were no deaths resulting from these infections in Maine.

Maine has more pertussis (whooping cough) cases than other states, for reasons that are not entirely clear but which may have to do with waning vaccine immunity, changes in the pertussis bacteria, asymptomatic and undiagnosed vaccinated carriers who unknowingly transmit the disease, or pockets of unvaccinated individuals. Nationally, in 2018 there were 15,609 reported cases of pertussis, down from 18,975 in 2017. The CDC has stated that 37.9 percent of reported pertussis cases in children under age six were in individuals who had received the primary 3-dose series of pertussis-containing vaccine and only 9.4 percent had not received any pertussis containing vaccine.21

Maine had one case of measles reported just days before the May 2019 vote. The child, who recovered, was fully vaccinated. It was unclear where the child, contracted the infection and whether it was vaccine strain or wild type measles. The only other measles case reported in Maine the past 20 years was in 2017.

Citizens Want Legal Right to Make Voluntary Vaccine Decisions

“The new law is a grotesque government overreach masquerading as public health,” says Rep. Sampson. She has been joined in opposition to LD 798 by Rep. Justin Fecteau, who said:

In Maine, we don’t have a vaccine issue, we have an issue with government telling us what to do with our bodies. The “No on 1” campaign has resorted to “cheap fear-mongering. This has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with authoritarianism.

A Plea From Parents

In testimony last May, Rep. Robert Foley shared his perspective as a father whose daughter died hours after getting vaccinated:  “Unless you believe that healthy babies die for no reason, then I ask you to respect parents who have gone through what my wife and I have gone through,” he pleaded.22

Sarah Saffiere, whose five year-old son was diagnosed with a condition that compromises his immune system testified that she is “petrified” for him to be exposed to unvaccinated students. “It is one group against another.  Both parties can’t win and so it is emotional,” said Staffiere.

On March 3rd, Mainers will vote for whether or not state health officials will have the power to enforce the use of federally recommended vaccines for every child and adult seeking a school education in Maine.


References:

1 World Population Review. US States –Ranked by Population 2020. U.S. Census 2017 State Estimates.
2 Maine Department of Health and Human Services. 2018 National Immunization Survey Childhood Report.
3 Leary M. Group Seeking to Overturn Maine’s New Vaccine Law Submits Petitions. Maine Public Radio Sept. 18, 2019.
4 Department of the Secretary of State of the State of Maine. People’s veto effort to repeal vaccination law qualifies for ballot. Oct 17, 2019.
5 Voters to decide whether to repeal or keep Maine’s vaccine exemption law. WMTW Jan. 17, 2020.
6 Lawlor, J. Pharmaceutical companies fund ad campaign to support Maine’s new vaccine law  The Portland Press Herald Feb. 10, 2020.
7 Lawlor, J. Campaigns begin public fight over Maine law limiting vaccine exemptions The Portland Press Herald Feb. 4, 2020.
8 Russell, E.  Chiropractors give a big boost to people’s veto campaign against new vaccine law The Portland Press Herald Oct. 16, 2019.
9 Lawlor, J. Opponents of Maine vaccine law have big lead in fundraising race Portland Press Herald Jan. 17, 2020.
10 Andrews, C., Piper, J., Shepherd, M. Pharmaceutical companies help launch TV ad drive backing Maine vaccination law, Bangor Daily News  Feb. 10, 2020.
11 Lawlor, J. Pharmaceutical companies fund ad campaign to support Maine’s new vaccine law  The Portland Press Herald Feb. 10, 2020.
12 Thistle, S., Citing coronavirus, Mills urges voters to uphold Maine’s new vaccine law Portland Press Herald Jan. 31, 2020.
13 Doughman, E., Global Vaccine Market Revenue to Reach $5.9 Billion by 2020, Pharmaceutical Processing World May 20, 2019.
14 Voters to decide whether to repeal or keep Maine’s vaccine exemption law, WMTW Jan. 17, 2020.
15 Parpia, R., Doctors Incentivized by CDC to Increase Vaccination Coverage The Vaccine Reaction Aug. 11, 2016.
16 Interview with Rep. Heidi Sampson Feb. 17, 2020.
17 Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. 2018-2019 School Vaccination Rates.
18 Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. 2015-2016 Maine School Immunization Assessment Report.
19 Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention 2018-2019 Maine School Immunization Assessment Report.
20 Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. 2018 Infectious Disease Annual Report.
21 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2018 Final Pertussis Surveillance Report.
22 McEvoy B. Hundreds of Mainers descend upon the State House to testify about vaccine bill News Center Maine  Mar. 13, 2019.

19 Responses

  1. I have to say that I think it’s hilarious that people are “terrified” of unvaccinated children. As if they’re cesspool of germs, a killing machine masked as an ordinary child!!!!!! Those damn monsters. Look my father has a compromised immune system and he handles himself and educates himself. When he goes out into this terrifying world he doesn’t DEMAND that everyone LEAVE the place he enters nor does he DEMAND to see or know everyone’s health record…parents of children with compromised immune systems should do with their children, educate them and let them know what to look for and stay away from…like I do with my kids. If a child is coughing and has a running nose stay away and be nice about it. Same with parents of children with severe allergies to food. Just because a child isn’t vaccinated doesn’t mean they’re going to infect people with diseases. Get OVER it.

    1. If the vaccination was safe and effective, emphasis on effective, why would this parent be worried about unvaccinated children?

      When the known side effects of this ‘medicine’ is more frightening than the illnesses it supposedly prevents.

      Colorado is actively trying to deny us a public education if we refuse to get lectured by authoritarians with false claims, at government buildings. They are saying the student opt out will only be honored if parents submit to ‘become educated on medical industry propaganda’. They’ll probably have a test or something so it will become a super mess in a hurry. So when I refuse to attend this class, they’ll kick both of my young bright girls out of public education and this will completely disrupt our lives. //

      It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.

      What are the consequences of such a perversion? It would require volumes to describe them all. Thus we must content ourselves with pointing out the most striking.

      In the first place, it erases from everyone’s conscience the distinction between justice and injustice.

      No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them.

      The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the case that, in the minds of the people, law and justice are one and the same thing. There is in all of us a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are “just” because law makes them so. Thus, in order to make plunder appear just and sacred to many consciences, it is only necessary for the law to decree and sanction it. Slavery, restrictions, and monopoly find defenders not only among those who profit from them but also among those who suffer from them. Bastiat.

  2. Illinois is trying to strip parents of their right to a religious exemption. We need help protecting that exemption. Illinois is also trying to make the HPV mandantory. Help us get a real campaign started.

    1. Yes, yes, please jump on board. My children (now grown) both had medical reasons for not being vaccinated yet I could never get a medical exemption because their doctors feared retribution. I opted for religious exemption (I had philosophical, medical and religious reasons for not wanting vaccines for them) and now they want to strip parents of that option as well. And for anyone out there who believes this push is for health reasons, think again. It is written in the IL by-laws that if a school district falls below a certain percent of their population not being vaccinated, they would lose their state funding. It’s about the all mighty dollar, not about health.

  3. I’m not sure how many out-of-state students attend Maine colleges and universities, but I know we wouldn’t consider sending our son the for school with this law in place.

  4. I don’t understand how taking away religious exemption is even possible when religious freedom is what this country was founded on.It is un Constitutional. The dishonest media; mostly owned by Rupert Murdoch, who owns CSL vaccine company, will never tell the truth about vaccines because it is about the money & control. I now hand people the CDC Vaccine Excipients Summary list of the actual ingredients. Most are shocked when they read that 11 mandated vaccines have aborted fetal cells , the blood/cells of monkeys,dogs,pigs,cows,guinea pigs, mouse brains,and army worms. There are antibiotics, MSG,antifungals,steroids,industrial detergents/solvents, tons of aluminum salts and POTASSIUM CHLORIDE [used to stop the heart in executions]. PC along with mercury is found in flu shots and shingles shots for the elderly. Most of the VAERS claims are now paid to the elderly from damage done by these shots because hey we are no longer productive and just a drain on the system.

    1. Polysorbate 80 = crosses the blood brain barrier; this is what is used in drugs for people with depression – so the drug crosses the BBB. It’s in several vaccines.

      Then you add an aluminum and/or mercury adjuvant; hello that will also cross the BBB…What are all these diagnoses of autism, ADHD, anxiety disorders, dyslexia and so on…these are all Brain Inflammatory Diseases! Gosh, wonder where that came from.

  5. The people of Maine must Vote to re-instate the exemptions for vaccination. No Govt. should be so controlled by big Pharma that the people lose their right to make health choices for their own body, family.
    How can any entity think it is permissible to force citizens to take anything against their will, like injecting substances than contain toxic ingredients such as DNA of the African Green Monkey, Pig DNA and the worst yet..HUMAN ABORTED FETAL CELLS? All to create an immune response, how many times do you think you can try to trick your immune system without repercussions such as auto immune disease (at an all time high) how about the continually growing list of mandated injections now at 72 beginning on the 1st day of life.

    I say NO THANK YOU, I am healthy I know how to build my immune system, I do not agree with the Government making health choices for my children, my body. How is it a woman can choose to abort her child but not protect her children from harmful substances that have never been placebo tested NEVER tested for long-term exposure to Polysorbate, Aluminum, Other species’s DNA ?

    Wake up American before all your RIGHTS are stripped away.

    Tamara
    Missouri

  6. 80% of the testimony was opposed to the bill. The bill was passed on partisan lines. The Democrats, so-called “defenders of liberty” threw their hat in with mandatory vaccination despite all the testimony.

    Sadly, with all the money being poured into advertising by Pharma, the referendum has gotten a lot of attention and the NO votes are, at present, outnumbering the YES to overturn the law. It’s astonishing how ignorant people remain, how indifferent they are to those who have damaged family members, simply to promote vaccinatons which “might” protect them from infection. We in Maine will keep fighting, nevertheless!

    1. The persons masquerading as representatives of the people, really bought and paid for advocates of these pharmaceutical corporations. Dialing for dollars, on behalf of the monopoly corporations. It is important that they know, that we know. NO DEALS.

  7. All the pro-vaxxers argue to “save the poor immunocompromised” …. Okay then, so what disease falls under immunocompromised/immunodeficiency? What percentage of the population fall under this category in Maine? If you include the 14+ auto-immune disorders T1 diabetics, lupus, MS, cancer and more patients you probably have well over 1/3 of the population so they will never get to the 100%.

  8. Illinois also going to pass same vacination law ! We need to gather together and start campain like in Main. Let start it now! Tomorrow will be too late.

  9. Feb 22, 2020 Financial Incentives to Doctors for Vaccinating- CT Public Health Comm on HB 4055

    HB 4055 would remove the religious exemption to vaccination for school attendance. Public comments went all day and through the night until 8am the next day!

    https://youtu.be/s1vIw_stlbs

  10. Is the awful weight of liberty so great? Is taking the trouble to do research so horrible? The fear of infectious disease so powerful, it’s prevention so arcane, we trust the industrialists of the chemical sector to inject whatever they want into the public and never have to answer to anyone? After all what industrialist would ever put the safety of his own profit ahead of the safety of the public? That has never happened has it?

  11. You are not free if you are forcefully vaccinated.

    Feb 24, 2020 VACCINE ACTIVISTS: THE EVOLUTION

    How did RFK Jr. and Del Bigtree, two luminaries of the vaccine safety debate, get involved in the nation’s most controversial movement?

    https://youtu.be/mRLkahJ6Y7A

  12. In order to get the problem of forced vaccination under control we as a people need to petition the United States government to return financial obligation for any harm caused by vaccines back to the pharmaceutical companies. American people should not have to pick up the tab for vaccines gone wrong. There is a government entity called the national vaccine injury compensation program started in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan which removed all financial obligation of any wrongdoing for vaccines from the pharmaceutical companies, and placed that burden on the United States of America a.k.a. the American people themselves…you and I, taxpayers. Until we fight to return that financial burden back to where rightfully belongs, the pharmaceutical industry then we as Americans will be bombarded with constant and overwhelming amounts of vaccines and our rights will be stripped away in order to line the pockets of big business and government representatives. If I’m understanding it right the health resources and services administration state that over $4.2 billion have been paid out for compensation for vaccine injuries. That’s $4.2 billion dollars that came out of the pockets of the American taxpayers pocketbook, not the pharmaceutical industries pocket. And let’s get real how often do you think people actually fight and how often do you think people actually win against the government. Again, return financial burden back to the pharmaceutical companies that is the fight. I truly believe they have to pay for their mistakes and they’re bad product that they won’t be pushing it quite as hard on all of us and on all of these precious children.

  13. It’s time to put big pharma executives and cdc insiders in handcuffs.

    This sword swings both directions.

    As RFK Jr points out constantly; Many of the pharmaceutical executives are convicted felons. Yet they still run corporations whom control legislative activity.

    We will not comply with mandatory vaccination policy.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Search in Archive

Search in Site

To search in site, type your keyword and hit enter

Search