Medical Doctor to Maine Legislators: Diseases Persist Due to Vaccine Failure – Not Unvaccinated

My name is Dr. Meryl Nass. I am here today to oppose LD798 and support LD987. I am a physician in Ellsworth, Maine. I graduated from MIT and the University of Mississippi School of Medicine. In 2010, I was the chair of a commission established by you, the legislature, “to protect the lives and health of members of the Maine National Guard.” I have testified to 6 Congressional committees, primarily on anthrax vaccine and Gulf War Syndrome, and the permanent injuries suffered by service-members who received military vaccines of questionable quality. There is no crisis of infectious diseases caused by lack of vaccinations, here in Maine or in the rest of the United States. The rates of vaccine preventable diseases are approximately the same as always. I have attached the official statistics, so please check me on this! According to the CDC, effective vaccine exemption rates in Maine are not higher than they have been, and they are consistently better than the US average. The truth, not widely known, is that immunocompromised children are not catching diseases from their unvaccinated classmates, and they are not dying. Look at the numbers. The diseases that persist and have been in the news remain a challenge, simply because the vaccines have a high failure rate–not because of the unvaccinated.