Independence is a crucial Maine value, but it’s equally true that we all depend on one another. Farmers grow our food, doctors, nurses and hospitals deliver our health care and government protects our access to clean air and water.

This being the case, it requires all of us to make some sacrifices for the greater good — for example, we all need to be vaccinated to protect ourselves and others from easily prevented disease, like polio, measles, hepatitis and other scourges that have killed, maimed and caused great suffering to people before the advent of modern medicine and vaccines that are scientifically proven to be safe and effective.

Vaccines also protect our vital health care workers from getting infected so they can stay healthy and take care of us. Vaccine skepticism and refusal are a public danger because it weakens our collective herd immunity, and makes all of us more vulnerable to diseases that should already be eradicated.

The Trump administration’s war on trust in science and demolition of best practices for public health are taking us backward, causing unnecessary suffering and death. Those who decline vaccines for themselves or their children should stop using our shared health care facilities because they are willfully weakening our community and placing everyone else at unnecessary risk.

Because we all need each other on some level to maintain a safe and livable society, being a citizen of Maine has become a team sport in which we are all interdependent, and therefore required to do what’s best for the public good.

Phil Coupe
Scarborough