Dear Editor:

As a parent of a young child in daycare and soon to enter public schools, I am so thankful that our State Representative Holly Stover, voted to support the bill narrowing the reasons for parents to opt out of vaccines.

 

Maine has a dangerously high vaccine opt-out rate, approaching 15% in some schools. Many people are too young, too old, or too ill to be fully vaccinated and are in danger when opt-out rates go over 5%. There are even a few healthy children that vaccines just aren't as effective on. You wouldn't know if your child is one of them until they come down with a potentially deadly disease. That's why it's so important that we do everything we can to keep vaccines rates above 95%.

 

As the law is currently written, a parent can opt out of vaccinating their kids when they send them to school simply be signing a paper saying they don't believe in it. If this bill passes, they will have to weigh the costs of homeschooling their child before making such a momentous decision that endangers all of us. It still needs to pass the state senate, and Senator Dana Dow has not indicated his position. Please let him know if you feel the way I do about the safety of our kids!

 

And thank Rep. Holly Stover. She did the right thing.