I’m a pediatrician. Vaccines save our children from debilitating infection

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I am writing as a pediatrician and pediatric cardiologist who trained at Children’s Memorial Hospital (now Lurie Children’s), Northwestern University in Chicago in the early 1980s. I then directed the fellowship training program at Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit for over 30 years.

During my training, one of the worst infections in infants and children was from a bacteria called Haemophilus Influenza type B (H-flu) which caused severe illness and many deaths until a vaccine was released. It was magical as almost overnight we stopped seeing children infected by this deadly bacterium. The fact that you don’t read about H-flu today is solely due to the effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing your children from this deadly disease.

Today, we are in grave danger of a re-emergence of illnesses previously prevented by vaccinations. Parents, your children are at risk of infections affecting the brain, lungs and other organs, which can result in seizures, hearing loss, brain damage, birth defects (from infected pregnant women) and death, all of which are preventable by getting the vaccines recommended by your pediatricians.

You have the power to keep your children safe. You can contact your insurance companies to make sure they cover these safe and effective vaccines and insist that your children’s schools demand that all students have received the recommended vaccines on schedule before attending. Contact your local and federal representatives to express your concerns about your children’s health and safety to counter the false dialogue that vaccines are unsafe or the debunked claim that they lead to autism.

The last thing you want to hear is that your child has a debilitating infection that you could have prevented by following your doctor’s advice to get them immunized on time.

Robert Ross

Bloomfield Township

The real solution for fixing schools

Recently, there was a front page article in the Free Press on politicians fixing the schools. (“Politicians are calling for school reform: What Michigan has already tried,” Detroit Free Press, June 16.) I have taught in public schools for 34 years and have seen these debates come and go. I do have the answer for our educational woes, but unfortunately, it is not a fix that our legislators have proposed over the last three decades or one that they are proposing now.

Giving schools failing grades has not worked. Expanding parent choice with charter school expansion has not worked. Holding students back who can’t read by third grade has not worked. Decreasing the power of teachers’ unions has not worked. State takeover of “failing” schools has not worked. None of these measures have worked or will work when, inevitably, a new version is implemented. The answer to our educational problems can be summed up with one word — money. Allow me to explain.

There are two aspects to this one word, money, that explain our education system’s shortcomings. First of all, the money put into education. Public schools have not been adequately funded for my entire career and then some. This has led to stagnant wages for teachers, which has led to low teacher retention, low teacher morale and low teacher numbers. Opponents to increasing education funding try to distract with all of the aforementioned initiatives, but the bottom line is that teaching has been made unattractive and fewer people are choosing it as a career, understandably.

The second aspect of the word money has to do with systemic poverty. Our society is increasingly becoming one of haves and have nots. Children from families living in poverty consistently struggle in school. Parents working two or three jobs, families being hungry, children not getting educational experiences outside of school, children not getting proper medical care: All of this makes it very difficult for disadvantaged students to succeed in school, regardless of any educational law that is passed.

I know it sounds defeatist, but no educational reform that Lansing implements is going to make any real difference at all. We have to put way more money into education to make it a desirable career again, and way more money in people’s pockets so we don’t have a poverty class. Then we can worry about the latest reading curriculum to try.

Bryan Chase

Huntington Woods

Michiganders don’t have to help those who failed themselves

With Trump’s dismantling of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Michiganders should consider reevaluating their willingness to help out after a disaster.

FEMA aid has frequently been in place to help Florida, Texas, Mississippi and other southern states deal with hurricanes and tropical storms that strike those regions. All of these states supported Trump and his cuts to federal spending.

I suggest that, if pleas for aid come from Texas, Florida or other states that supported Trump, Michiganders instead should contribute to local emergency programs that assist Michigan citizens after ice storms, blizzards, fires, tornadoes, failed dams, forest fires and other disasters.

Michiganders should not replace FEMA aid that was cut by Trump.

John Frenzel

Saginaw