I am so glad that the newspaper printed Katherine Paul’s column (“Proposal to require vaccine ‘counseling’ a slap in the parental face,” Feb. 3) supporting parental choice in getting vaccines. As she pointed out, many parents may not know anything about medicine, but they sure know how to find stuff on the Internet.

I, too, have been on the Internet and done my research. I saw on Facebook that there is evidence that someone, somewhere got hurt while wearing a seat belt. Seat belts must be dangerous, so I think parents should be able to “opt out” of the mandatory seat belt law.

I read in The Onion (a very reputable source) that someone, somewhere let their 10-year-old son drink hard liquor and drive the family minivan, and the boy was fine. So I would like to “opt out” of those insulting age limits on drinking and driving.

I saw on YouTube that someone, somewhere got rear-ended while waiting at a stop light, which proves that stop lights are a hazard. We should be able to “opt out” of having to stop at them. Traffic signals, after all, are just a symbol of the government infringing on our freedom.

In all seriousness, we have a serious public health issue on our hands. Maine has one of the highest vaccine opt-out rates, and as a result we have seen a resurgence of whooping cough and other infectious diseases we thought we had eliminated.

Vaccines are one of the most important triumphs of medicine in the last century, but we will snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory if we allow parents to opt out without any good medical reason for it. The real “slap in the face,” as Paul calls it, is that we allow ignorant, selfish parents to jeopardize the health of the rest of our children.

Chris Myers Asch, Hallowell

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