The Trump administration’s effort to undermine the use of vaccines is one of the year’s more mystifying developments.

Wander through any of Maine’s old cemeteries and you can’t help noticing the many old markers noting the deaths of children. Thanks to vaccines, disease doesn’t take such a terrible toll these days. The last death in Maine from smallpox came in 1929, the last fatality from diphtheria in 1964, the last from whooping cough in 1967 and the last from tetanus in 1970.

One of my heroes, Thomas Jefferson, was so happy in 1801 to get his family vaccinated against smallpox that he declared, “I know of no one discovery in medicine equally valuable.”

Cases of measles, mumps, rubella and diphtheria are each down by more than 99% since the pre-vaccine era, state statistics show. In terms of public health and family happiness, it’s a story of unmitigated success. And Mainers understand that.

Just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, a statewide referendum asked voters to decide whether to reverse a new state law that eliminated religious and philosophical exemptions for childhood vaccinations. Opponents of the move argued that parents should make those decisions, not the government.

One of the critics of the law, an Auburn nurse named Laurel Libby, testified in Augusta that if lawmakers backed it, her family would skedaddle “to a state that supports freedom of choice.”

Voters made it clear they wanted more vaccinations, not fewer. Just shy of 73% backed the change to restrict vaccine exemptions only to those who had medical reasons.

That was only five years ago, yet support for vaccines has weakened enough that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — the nation’s secretary of health and human services — fired the entire Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices with barely a ripple of protest.

Kennedy routinely insists he wants to “ensure the American people receive the safest vaccines possible.” But the vaccines Americans receive have already been tested thoroughly and used safely for generations. Questioning by people like Kennedy and Libby raises unwarranted doubts.

In Libby’s case, she didn’t move out of state after losing the 2020 referendum. Instead, she became one of Maine’s fiercest foes of COVID vaccination requirements and restrictions. At one rally in 2021, Libby told a crowd that forcing health care workers to receive COVID vaccines set “an incredibly dangerous precedent” before declaring, “To be clear, this is war!” Instead of fighting the disease, Libby chose to fight its foes.

We lost more than a million Americans to COVID-19 and more than 7 million worldwide. Almost everyone who died never got a vaccine. We should be pushing vaccines, not fretting about them.

Politicians like Kennedy and Libby have prospered in part by spreading doubt about one of history’s greatest developments. Other than securing safe drinking water, there hasn’t been anything as useful to human health. At that 2021 rally, Libby declared, “When we win this war, you will be able to look your children and your grandchildren in the eye and say you fought for their liberty.”

Maybe. But it’s more likely that if the anti-vaccine crowd triumphs, there will be fewer children and grandchildren to lecture about anything.

Steve Collins will be away until July 12.