In 1986, the federal government passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. It was established to protect pharmaceutical companies from lawsuits related to vaccine injuries. The taxpayer-funded program has awarded more than $4 billion in compensation to victims of vaccine injury to date.

In Maine, mandatory vaccination for students and health care workers is now the law and will take effect Sept. 1, 2021. Declining even one dose of one mandatory vaccine makes people ineligible to go to school or be employed as a health care worker in Maine. Vaccine injuries will continue to happen. Someone’s life will be changed forever and some will even die. People can check for themselves on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System website.

Parents often choose not to vaccinate a child because an older sibling was vaccine injured. That choice is now eliminated because the state has removed the right to an education for their child and has essentially removed the right of a patient to refuse a medication. If that child is vaccine injured, who is responsible for that? Should we thank the parent of the injured or dead child because they took one for the team in the interest of public health?

How noble, but is there anyone who would offer up their child for such a noble cause?

By voting “yes” on Question 1 on March 3, the people of Maine can correct the error legislators made by creating a law for forced vaccination that is a violation of civil rights and medical ethics.

Susan Anderson, Auburn