After reading the story in the Sun Journal, “Vaccine debate forges strange alliance” (Feb. 7), I have to share my thoughts.

My personal experience in the 1960s with having a child develop severe difficulties after having been given a vaccination leads me to believe that a parent should have the right to say “no” to vaccinations and not be penalized. Although it has not been proven that shots occasionally cause terrible reactions (such as Guillain-Barre syndrome), doctors know of many such cases.

Maine law requires a child to have the vaccinations in order to attend school. Those children who get a reaction have to live with it, sometimes for the rest of their lives. And the mothers get blamed for the illness when they were just following the law.

There needs to be more research, more laboratories to do more testing so the shots will be safer. Until then, parents should have the right to determine if they want to have their children vaccinated.

Eleanor Welch, Wilton