Maine Battle Over "Philosophical"/Religious Exemption Eliminations (LD 798)
Last updated: 3 May 2019
(back to Main Vaccine Page)

This page is intended to provide resources to the people who are fighting in opposition to the Maine bill intended to strip "philosophical" and religious vaccine exemptions, leaving only a rigid medical exemption.
  1. Maine Coalition for Vaccine Choice (MCVC)
    1. Website
    2. Facebook

  2. The Laws
    1. LD 798: "An Act To Protect Maine Children and Students from Preventable Diseases by Repealing Certain Exemptions from the Laws Governing Immunization Requirements"
      1. Legislature's online text
      2. Local formatted PDF
      3. LD798's changes to Maine Law
    2. LD 987: "An Act To Provide Autonomy for Health Care Providers To Practice Patient-centered Care by Amending the Laws Governing Medical Exemptions to Immunization Requirements"
      1. Legislature's online text
      2. Local formatted PDF
      3. LD987's changes to Maine Law
    3. LD 1616: "An Act To Establish the Vaccine Consumer Protection Program"
      1. Legislature's online text
      2. Local formatted PDF
    4. DHHS immunization rules (includes medical exemption rules)
          Medical exemption rules PDF (from pages 4-5 of the above)

  3. The Legislature
    1. The legislators
      1. Senator contact information
    2. Joint Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs
      1. Mailing list signup
      2. Committee members and LD798 sponsors
    3. Committee on Health and Human Services
      1. Mailing list signup
      2. Committee members and LD1616 sponsors

  4. The LD 798/987 Hearings -- March 13, courtesy of Ginger Taylor and MCVC
    1. Complete videos of hearings -- MCVC, 13 parts
    2. Selected testimonies

  5. Materials for discussion with legislators
    This is a set of materials addressing many of the issues of safety, efficacy, herd immunity, immuno-compromised protection, and individual rights, for use by those talking with their state legislators. It was initially used in a discussion with Sen. Louie Luchini, March 22, 2019

  6. Must-hear short interview segments for Vaccine Safety Awareness people
    1. Dr. Christopher Exley
      Christopher Exley is the world's foremost authority on the role of inorganic aluminum in biological systems. In dissected brains of autistic and Alzheimers victims, he found aluminum levels far higher than he'd encountered in any other human tissue, and distributed in particular parts of the brain and of its cells. (5:50 mins)
      local audio excerpt
      full video
    2. Dr. Paul Thomas
      Paul Thomas is a Portland (Oregon) pediatrician with a large (thousands) practice, who wrote "The Vaccine Friendly Plan" detailing a rational way to deal with vaccines, along with great tips for understanding kids at each stage. He has been very outspoken about choice, despite endless attacks, and is now also engaged in "vaxxed-vs-unvaxxed" research. (36:39 mins)
      local audio
      video
    3. J.B. Handley
      J.B. Handley, a founder of Generation Rescue, an organization working on recovering autistic children, has been following aluminum research.
      In this interview, he discusses the article he wrote on the progress of research on aluminum's relationship to the brain, from CalTech's Dr. Paul Patterson's work on brain immune activation events to more recent rat studies by Dr. Zhibin Yao in China revealing vaccine effects on brain immune activation. (9:08 mins)
      local audio excerpt
      video
    4. Dr. Theresa Deisher
      Theresa Deisher is probably the leading researcher on the use of adult stem cells in biotech applications. She worked with leading commercial biotech companies for over 20 years, eventually founding her own pharmaceutical institute (Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute) doing research into alternatives to embryonic tissue cell culture lines in pharmaceuticals. Her concern is not with the religious/moral aspect of these cell-culture lines (although adult stem cells completely avoid those), but rather with teh biological risks involved. Embryonic stem cells are inherently tumor-forming, adult stem cells are not. She points out that the use of non-human DNA in vaccines is not problematic because the DNA is "decorated" differently from human-DNA, so the fragments of DNA from non-human cell lines do not present the risk of mutagenesis (incorporating into human DNA), whereas using human cell lines presents this risk, and is one of the reasons the non-aluminum non-mercury containing MMR vaccine may present the risks that it does. (Her website has a table of pharmaceuticals produced using human cell-lines and non-human alternatives.) (16:25 mins)
      local audio excerpt
      video

  7. Local letters to Maine newspapers
    1. Vaccine debate is oversimplified, May 2, Dick Atlee
    2. Vaccine questions, April 24, Ann Anda
    3. Informed choice, April 12, Dr. Blake Rosso
    4. Vaccine bill a positive step, March 29, Dr. Mary Ann Handel et al
    5. Vaccine injuries, March 29, Marjorie Monteleon
    6. Why Americans Don't Trust Vaccine Makers, March 28, Dr. Meryl Nass (op-ed)
    7. Vaccine benefits outweigh risks, March 22, Jill Goldthwait (columnist)
          Point-by-point response, Dick Atlee (PDF)
    8. Vaccine mandates, March 8, Dick Atlee

  8. Published letters to legislatures
    1. Herd Immunity: Can Mass Vaccination Achieve it; Tetyana Obukhanych, Ph.D. (2015) -- online, local PDF