In a Facebook post that caused some to conclude she was talking about the Holocaust, an Arizona lawmaker compared mandatory vaccinations to government-imposed tattoos.

On Friday, state Rep. Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa, wrote about a poll she'd taken in a previous post. The poll, which she later took down, asked whether the government should be able to "forcibly place your id number tattoo on your arm."

In concentration camps during World War II, the Nazis tattooed identification numbers on the arms of Jewish people.

"Perhaps those of you who have had a visceral reaction to this poll might understand a little better the idea of a government forcing you to inject a solution into your body that could very well damage you for life or even kill you," Townsend wrote.

Townsend wrote that the Facebook poll was intended "to illustrate the need for maintaining the sovereignty of the body," but that she took it down because she felt it might upset Holocaust survivors or members of their families.

In an interview with The Arizona Republic, Townsend said she was not trying to compare vaccinations to the Holocaust, though some of the people who commented on her post took it that way.

"Your body is yours, but to put something in it or tattoo something on it, is a whole different level," Townsend said. "I am really trying to help people understand that and many are not seeing what I am trying to say.

"They are assuming I am anti-vaccination. That is not my point," she continued. "My point is your body is your own and at what point do we draw the line and say the government should be able to take your body and do with it what they decide?"

Comments amid measles outbreak

Townsend is commenting on state vaccinations at a time when public debate has erupted over three controversial bills introduced in the Arizona Legislature that critics say will erode vaccine coverage among schoolchildren.

Nationally, Washington declared a public-health emergency in late January as a measles outbreak continued to infect the state's residents. At least 71 people in Washington state have been infected so farthis year.

Last week, Townsend took to Facebook to compare mandatory vaccinations to communism.

Arizona requires children attending public schools to be vaccinated unless they have a medical exemption or what's known as a non-medical "personal belief" exemption.

The percentage of parents seeking non-medical personal-belief vaccine exemptions for their children in Arizona remains small but has been growing in recent years, particularly in some geographic areas, including pockets of Maricopa County, and in some charter schools.

Vaccines called a 'social contract'

While many of those who commented on Townsend's post agreed with her, others did not.

"Comparing tattoos for ID similar to Holocaust victims and vaccinations meant to ward off disease is the worst false equivalence I’ve ever heard," a comment from Facebook user Erin Newton says. "One was used to end lives and the other is used to save lives."

Alma Hernandez, a Tucson Democrat who sits on the state House Health and Services Committee, said she was disappointed in Townsend's post.

Hernandez has a background in public health and had introduced legislation this session to stop allowing personal-belief exemptions in Arizona. Her bill died before it got a hearing.

After introducing her bill to end personal-belief exemptions, Hernandez, who is Jewish, said she received hate mail that compared her to a Nazi. It's not acceptable to hinge an argument about vaccines on a comparison with the systemic persecution and murder of Jews, she wrote in an email.

The public-health community says vaccinations are part of a social contract we all make to protect one another from serious diseases like measles that are killing children in other parts of the world.

The World Health Organization cited "vaccine hesitancy" as one of the top 10 threats to global health in 2019, saying it threatens to reverse progress made in tackling vaccine-preventable diseases.

"This is something the public-health community takes extremely seriously. I feel like it's one of the things we put in our body that is actually so well researched in comparison to other things you can just buy off the shelf at a grocery store," said Kacey Ernst, an epidemiologist and associate professor at the University of Arizona's Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.

"Parents need to be reassured that, yes, there are very rare adverse events that occur with vaccines, but the adverse events that occur with an infectious disease like measles or mumps or pertussis are far greater — that risk is far greater than the potential rare event that could occur with a vaccine," Ernst added.

Some people can't get vaccinated because they have allergies to specific components within the vaccine. One of the reasons why we need high vaccination rates is for people like that, who are not protected, Ernst said.

"When we are all vaccinated, it protects them. It protects really young infants who can't get vaccines," she said..