One way to “Reject Big Pharma” is the opposite of the vote promoted by the current crop of roadside signs.

Growing up in the 1950s through the 1970s, I received all required vaccines for everything from measles and mumps to the swine flu. I even looked forward to the sugar cube vaccine for polio. Those who have never heard of these diseases are the direct beneficiaries of my immunizations.

It wasn’t until my 40s that a vaccine for chickenpox became available. I worked as a personal trainer 10 years before that, when one of my clients contracted the adult version of the chickenpox, known as shingles.

Absent from the gym for months, he was unable to eat during the course of the illness, as the rash invaded his throat in addition to his skin. Upon his return, people asked where he had been and how he had lost so much weight. I chimed in, joking that he had been on the controversial “Chickenpox Diet.”

I never contracted the pox as a child, and was relieved to have dodged that bullet as an adult. When the vaccine became available I received it immediately.

It stands to reason that not being vaccinated would benefit Big Pharma, especially when an at-one-time eradicated life-threatening disease such as whooping cough re-emerges, and causes a frenzy for prescriptions.

Connect the dots! Drug companies benefit when we do not vaccinate. When we vaccinate, we win! Vote “no” on 1!

Lisa DeAngelis Lane

Waldoboro