AUGUSTA, Maine - The recent measles outbreak that surfaced at Disneyland in California has fired up the debate over vaccinations, with high-profile politicians like U.S. House Speaker John Boehner and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie weighing in on whether they should be mandatory.
Maine lawmakers will have a chance to weigh in on the controversy when they consider a number of vaccination bills this session.
Democratic Rep. Ralph Tucker says he got the idea for his vaccine bill well before the measles outbreak at Disneyland, which has now grown to more than 100 infections spread across 14 states. "I put it in when I discovered that the rate of unvaccinated kids in our kindergarten in Maine went up to 5.5 percent of the entering kindergarteners," he says.
It's one of the highest rates in the nation. To reduce the number of unvaccinated kids, Tucker's bill would eliminate Maine's philosophical exemption from vaccines, while still allowing medical and religious exemptions.
Tucker says the majority of people who opt out do so on philosophical grounds. The problem with that, he says, is that the decision is not just a private matter for one's own family. He says it affects three other groups - first, infants who aren't old enough to get immunized.
"The second group are the kids who, for one medical reason or another, can't get vaccinated," he says. "Currently these people are protected because almost everybody else is vaccinated, so they get this cushion around them. The third group I'm concerned about are vaccinated children for whom the vaccine may not take."
Andrew MacLean, of the Maine Medical Association, says physicians are increasingly concerned about the rising number of Maine parents who take the philosophical exemption. "You start losing the benefits of herd immunity once you drop below about 95 percent of immunization.
The Maine Medical Association helped draft a different bill that also seeks to increase the number of vaccinated children. Sponsored by Democratic Rep. Linda Sanborn, the bill would require parents to get consultation from a doctor before taking a philosophical exemption. Currently, parents must only give written notice to their child's school when they choose not to vaccinate.
"We're not seeking to eliminate choice with vaccinations," Sanborn says, "but it's not only your own child that you're putting at risk."
Maine lawmakers will also consider bills that seek to strengthen parent's choice not to vaccinate. Republican Sen. Garrett Mason is sponsoring a bill that would create a state vaccine injury office that would provide more transparent data on vaccine injuries.
Ginger Taylor, of Brunswick, prompted Mason to sponsor the bill. She says her son had a reaction after receiving a DTAP vaccine when he was 18 months old. Taylor says soon after, he was diagnosed with autism.
"What I found many years later was that the Federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has what's called vaccine encephalopathy, which is vaccine-induced brain damage," she says. "They say the pertussis vaccine, which he received, can cause brain damage, the symptoms of which are loss of eye contact, not responding to anything except loud shouts, and not seeming to recognize familiar people or places."
Though some parents have received federal compensation for vaccine encephalopathy, studies cited in the National Institutes of Health have found vaccines are safe and effective and find no clear evidence they trigger these symptoms.
Taylor says her son is 12 now and largely recovered. But the experience led her to become director of the Maine Coalition for Vaccine Choice. "We want the attack on family's rights and wise choices to stop," she says. "And what we want is to deal with the actual problems in the vaccine program that are making these parents cautious about getting involved in it and distrusting the vaccine recommendations."
The Democratic co-chair of the Legislature's Health and Human Services Committee, Drew Gattine, says in the upcoming public hearings on these bills, his goal is to ensure that all views on vaccines are considered.
"I think what becomes difficult is when it actually comes down to making decisions and trying to set the right course from a policy perspective," he says.
Gattine says he believes children should be vaccinated, but he says he also recognizes there are other points of view and lawmakers need to allow for some level of independence.
