Mainers are fiercely independent, so it should come as no surprise that resistance to the mandatory vaccine law has been so strong. The law – mandating vaccines for all children and some adults – removes the right to make voluntary medical decisions without risk of punishment. We were told that this law was passed to […]

I am one of four pediatric lung specialists from Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital who serve Maine’s most vulnerable children. My patients are premature infants, children with cystic fibrosis and toddlers with muscular dystrophy, among others. My extensive medical training occurred in states that have the lowest vaccination rates in the country, and I have witnessed […]

In 1979, I was a 20-year-old college junior studying abroad in Kenya working at a polio rehabilitation center for children who had been unable to be vaccinated against polio in a remote part of the sub-Saharan desert when there was an outbreak of pertussis. I learned firsthand why it is also called “whooping cough” and […]

Maine’s Constitution, art. IV, part 3, §18, allows the “direct initiative of legislation.” In the same vein §17, the Constitution’s referendum provision, allows “… acts, bills, resolves or resolutions…passed by the legislature”to be submitted to the voters. In other words, Maine’s Constitution clothes the people with the power to initiate/create new legislation and to overturn […]

One side of Elizabeth Warren’s campaign bus contemporizes the wisdom of Teddy Roosevelt: “Courage over Cynicism;” the other side blasts “Hope over Fear.” Both are clarion calls to the nearly 60 percent of all registered voters reporting that they’re exhausted by the Trump administration. Warren reminds us that if we’re serious about addressing the urgent […]

Maine’s legislators have an opportunity to change lives by voting for LD 1984, a bill eliminating waiting lists for adults with disabilities to receive assistance. I have three children, two of whom have autism and receive special education services. My daughter, Allison, will be 17 this summer – the age at which many students with […]

When my daughter, Bailey, was six weeks old she was potentially exposed to pertussis, commonly known as whooping cough, via an unvaccinated student. Another parent’s philosophical beliefs put my baby in grave danger. My mother, a vaccinated educator, had been in close contact with a student and found out the following day – after cuddling […]

This is our issue, too. The tribes in the land we call Maine (Penobscot Nation, Passamaquoddy Tribe, Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians and Aroostook Band of Micmacs) deserve the rights, privileges, powers, duties and immunities similar to those of other federally recognized Indian tribes within the United States. I understand that this is not an […]