One week from today, voters will go to polls to cast their ballots in Maine’s first Presidential Primary in decades. But Mainers won’t just be voting for their preferred presidential candidate. Public health is also on the ballot.
Maine voters will decide whether to uphold or overturn a law passed by the State Legislature that protects Maine children from the spread of disease by expanding medical exemptions and eliminating non-medical exemptions for required vaccinations to attend public schools.
During the last legislative session, Governor Mills signed a bill to remove non-medical exemptions from Maine’s vaccination laws. The Legislature passed this strong public health law in response to Maine’s vaccination opt-out rate that is three times higher than the national average for children entering kindergarten, Maine’s worst-in-the-nation whooping cough rate and several outbreaks in schools across the state. Maine ranks seventh in the country for the rate of non-medical opt-outs among school-age children.
People opposed to the public health law have misleadingly suggested “Big Pharma” is behind its passage, “purposely trying to conflate vaccinations” with other issues. On the contrary, the Legislature passed and Governor Mills signed the legislation because previous laws had not “adequately protected the health of Maine people.”
Maine Democrats are urging Maine people to vote No on 1 at the polls on March 3. A no vote upholds Maine’s strong vaccination law and well help bring Maine’s public school student immunization rate up to safe levels.
“I urge Mainers to vote No on 1 at the polls on March 3. Voting No has nothing to do with big pharma, and everything to do with keeping our children and grandchildren safe and well,” said Kathleen Marra, Chair of the Maine Democratic Party. “Vaccines are safe and effective, investments in public health, and protect the health of the most vulnerable in society, our children. Vaccines save lives.”
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