Immunization program a success

Editor:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Change is never easy, especially when it impacts thousands of people. However, sometimes it is more than worth it. This was the case with the adolescent immunization requirements that started this fall.

New immunization requirements compelled seventh- and 12th-grade students to receive Tdap and meningococcal vaccinations prior to starting school. While some found the new requirement to be inconvenient, the majority of parents wholly supported this change. In fact, the state Department of Education announced on Oct. 11 that 99.85 percent of seventh- and 12th-graders were in compliance with the requirements. That's 39,000 students in West Virginia who are now protected from pertussis (whooping cough) and bacterial meningitis! This achievement is something that we as a state should be proud of and celebrate.

Additionally, the protection doesn't end with those students. The students who were vaccinated are not only protecting themselves from these diseases, but through their high rate of vaccination, they are also protecting any friends, fellow students, and family members who can't, for medical reasons, be immunized.

We thank all the school personnel, health-care providers, public health officials, and especially parents and teens for taking the steps to do what is best for the health of our community of students. And we are proud of our state for protecting our children from dangerous, yet preventable, diseases.

Sissy Price

Judy Koehler

Co-chairwomen of the West Virginia Immunization Network

Charleston

Speech therapy center a valued asset

Editor:

My wife and I are advocates for children with speech problems and we thoroughly enjoyed your article "Childhood Language Center hires new director." The Charleston area should be appreciative that The Childhood Language Center is serving children in the community by providing free speech therapy for speech and language disorders. I wish every community in the U.S. had a center like this that provided free speech therapy to kids.

I would like to also point out to your readers that every child in the U.S. has the right to free speech therapy as has been part of federal legislation for 40 years. This benefit of free therapy can start in preschool and run through high school. It covers all speech problems. Every child is eligible and the requirement is not predicated by the parents' economic status. A great source that explains the free speech therapy is the brochure "Special Education Law and Children Who Stutter," which is available on the website of The Stuttering Foundation (stutteringhelp.org). The site of this nonprofit organization also provides many free resources for children and adults who stutter.

I wish there were more clinics like The Childhood Language Center and I hope that someday their great work receives attention in the national media.

Edward S. Herrington

Longmeadow, Mass.

Reporter's work was impressive

Editor:

"Above average," using the words of Tom Friedman, expanded to "much above average" is how I would describe Amy Julia Harris, the departed education, investigative reporter of the Gazette. Amy, a 2011 graduate of the prestigious Stanford University in California, drove to Charleston, accompanied by her father, a year ago, assumed her position with the Gazette and returned to California after her last day of work here on Oct. 5. In that brief period, she impressed many who read her stories, a number of them the products of her own aggressive and perceptive investigations, and who otherwise got to know her as a smart, ebullient, affectionate young lady. We wish her well. As one longtime Gazette reader, ignited, in part, by Amy's creativeness, I hope that the Gazette will focus again on an investigative posture, as in the days of Ned Chilton, and report its own news. That will make the Gazette "above average," maybe even "much above average."

Charles McElwee

Charleston