If you were to conduct a public survey as to whether respondents thought a terrorist should be criminally prosecuted, convicted and punished for spraying an aerosol can of dangerous pathogens in a school building, you’d probably get a nearly unanimous affirmative response.

Well on Tuesday, Maine’s voters will be asked in a referendum if it’s acceptable to allow parents to send their unvaccinated children, the human equivalent of aerosol cans, into the state’s school buildings to spray pathogens by sneezing, coughing or exhaling, so long as they have philosophical or religious reasons for doing so.

Most terrorists justify their outrageous acts on religious or philosophical grounds, so what’s the difference between them and those who refuse to vaccinate? The only difference I can see is that terrorists intend to advance their cause by killing and injuring as many innocents as possible, while “anti-vaxxers” delude themselves into believing they can further theirs without harming a soul.

Question 1 will give voters a chance to repeal LD 798, a law passed by the Legislature last year to eliminate religious and philosophical exemptions from vaccination requirements for K-12 and college students (and workers in healthcare facilities).

A “Yes” vote will roll back existing law and allow exempt students to attend school without getting the usual battery of childhood vaccinations.

A “No” vote will leave the law in place and require vaccinations for students.

The issue is often framed by backers of the question (those advocating a “yes” vote) as one of protecting personal choice, but the term “personal choice” is misleading. When you make a decision not to vaccinate, you’re choosing not just to endanger yourself and your own kids but the health of the public at large.

In his 2018 book, “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress, science writer and cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker argues that the Enlightenment — an 18th century intellectual movement which emphasized knowledge “derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis” over unquestioning acceptance of superstition, mythology, religious faith, intuition or authority — gave rise to values that have led to unparalleled human flourishing.  They have enabled more and more of the world’s population, as gauged by nearly every metric, to enjoy longer, healthier, more prosperous, freer, and happier lives.

Nowhere is this progress more evident than in public health programs based upon epidemiology, microbiology and other scientific disciplines, which have greatly increased life expectancy. Pinker points out that no country in 1800 had a life expectancy older than 40.

Today, lifespan has roughly doubled in Europe and the Americas, and the rest of the world is not far behind. Much of the increase in life expectancy is due to a decrease in infant and child mortality. For instance, in Sweden, one of the world’s wealthiest countries, the percentage of children who die before their fifth birthday has plunged from about a third in the mid-1800s to less than 1% today, thanks in large part to vaccination.

To cite but one example of a successful childhood vaccination program: between 1963, when the first measles vaccines were licensed for use in the U.S., and 2012, vaccination programs reduced the incidence of measles in this country from about 4 million annual cases (accompanied by 400 to 500 deaths, 48,000 hospitalizations, and 1,000 cases of encephalitis) to a record low of 55.  That number rose somewhat to a decade-long high of 1282 cases in 2019, largely, is believed, because of lower vaccination compliance.   Worldwide, it is estimated that measles vaccines have saved 120 million lives.

Against these numbers, the arguments of the anti-vaxxer (pro-Question 1) advocates seem lame indeed.  These arguments can be summarized as follows:

First, the pharmaceutical industry, which makes billions from producing childhood vaccines, is financially backing the opposition to Question 1 (which provides the “Yes” camp with its catchy tagline, “Reject Big Pharma”).

Second, the effectiveness of universal vaccination programs is an unsettled scientific question, and Big Pharma and its minions (including the CDC) are trying to cook the statistical books on the issue. (As “evidence” of this, they cite the fact that measles, mumps and pertussis can happen in populations with 100% vaccination rates).

Third, vaccinations can have severe side effects.

Finally, it’s an affront to personal liberty to force people to choose between sending their children to school and violating their philosophical and religious beliefs.

I agree that Big Pharma charges extortionate prices for many patent-protected and generic drugs, a problem which cries out for political action. However, knee-capping vaccination programs just because the pharmaceutical industry will make money from them is nonsensical.  If a pharma company develops a vaccine against the Coronavirus, a virus that is rapidly spreading around the world, disrupting travel and commerce, panicking financial markets, causing lockdowns of major urban areas, and raising the specter of a deadly global pandemic, should we turn up our noses at it merely because it will earn big profits for the drug maker?

As to whether universal vaccination programs can be completely effective, we simply don’t know until we maintain them on a sustained basis. In the past, variations in the type, quality, handling and storage of serums, the timing and dosage of vaccinations, and the difficulty of getting 100% compliance, have accounted for fluctuations in the number of reported cases of preventable viruses.  But even without total success, experience has shown that more vaccination leads to better results.

Are vaccines completely safe? Of course, not. Every drug can have side-effects, and for some patients there may be sound medical reasons not to vaccinate where the risks far outweigh the benefits. But philosophical and religious scruples have nothing to do with the equation of whether it’s medically appropriate to vaccinate.

Does mandatory vaccination remove an element of freedom to make a personal choice? Yes, but, so do legal restrictions on the use of opioids and motor vehicle safety laws, public protective measures the need for which few would question.  Only in the alternate universe of Ayn Rand libertarians does individual freedom always trump collective responsibility for the welfare of the community (in the absence of which individuals could hardly survive, let alone enjoy freedom).

So please vote “No” on Question 1.  The health of your community depends on it.

Elliott Epstein is a trial lawyer with Andrucki & King in Lewiston. His Rearview Mirror column, which has appeared in the Sun Journal for 10 years, analyzes current events in an historical context. He is also the author of “Lucifer’s Child,” a book about the notorious 1984 child murder of Angela Palmer. He may be contacted at epsteinel@yahoo.com

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