The Maine Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee will consider a bill Wednesday that would outlaw all non-medical exemptions for vaccines that are required to attend school. Currently, Maine parents can forgo immunizations for their schoolchildren by signing a form objecting on religious or philosophic grounds.
Maine’s opt-out rates are climbing and typically among the worst in the nation.
The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention released a report last week showing that the voluntary opt-out rate for students entering kindergarten had increased from 5 percent in the 2017-18 school year to 5.6 percent in 2018-19, the highest rate ever recorded. Maine has had extremely high rates of pertussis, also known as whooping cough, over the past few years, with 446 cases in 2018 and 136 through March 2019.
The 2018 per-capita pertussis rate in Maine was eight times the national average.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.