Recent editorials from West Virginia newspapers:
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March 29
The Charleston Gazette-Mail on vaccinations:
Few things, if anything, should be more important to West Virginians than the health of children. No doubt that is why, with the best of intentions, some people are at least temporarily misled by high-profile, celebrity campaigns that raise questions about the safety of vaccines. If you think for yourself, of course, you evaluate what you expose your children to.
But state lawmakers should know better by now. They have the benefit of aides and researchers, and any number of experts across the state who read and understand legitimate research that should be used to guide public policy on important subjects - such as which people should be allowed to skip vaccinations.
A bill (SB 537) would amend state law to allow students to attend school without vaccinations if they have “a notarized certification signed by any parent or legal guardian of the child that the religious beliefs of the signator are contrary to the compulsory immunizations.” That bill was last seen in the Senate Health and Human Resources Committee on second reading. We urge lawmakers to keep it there and kill it.
The bill would change state law to let any parent or guardian sign their kids out of getting vaccinated before starting school. State law allows exemptions only if a doctor says that a specific immunization could harm the child.
Requiring vaccines to enter school is one of the main ways West Virginia has enjoyed such high vaccination rates for a couple of generations now, and why frequency of terrible diseases has plummeted.
“If you are under the age of 50 years, you probably don’t know anyone who has had measles, mumps or rubella. And so you haven’t seen the birth defects, hearing loss, paralysis and death that can result from these diseases,” WVU’s Gregory Hand and Dr. Clay Marsh recently wrote. They also refute many of the myths spread about vaccines in recent years.
SB 537 is a terrible idea, because letting unvaccinated children attend school puts them at risk of terrible diseases. It also puts even their classmates at risk, and the rest of the population. There are people who are unable to be vaccinated, people with compromised immune systems because of cancer, treatments or other causes. It is difficult to believe that any West Virginian wants their grandparents or other aged relatives, or themselves, now and in the future, exposed to more disabling and killer diseases. That would be the outcome of such a bill.
The bill cites religious preference for skipping vaccines, but that is a polite fiction, at best. No one supposes there are many people for whom this is a problem, but there are plenty of people who might be misled by 25 years of anti-vaccine campaigns that got their start largely thanks to one corrupt study.
That “study,” by Andrew Wakefield, examined 12 kids and alleged a potential link between the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella with autism and other problems. New parents of the time will remember the fear and quest to either corroborate or disprove those findings as well-baby check-ups and vaccination dates ticked ever closer.
But since then, the journal Lancet, which published the study, retracted it. Wakefield lost his medical license after a British medical board found that he had treated his child subjects with “callous disregard” and had acted “dishonestly and irresponsibly,” failing to mention that he was being paid by lawyers for parents who believed vaccines had harmed their children. It was bad science. Good science ultimately corrected it.
But in the anti-vaccine fervor that has followed, measles and other diseases have made comebacks in places where they had been largely eradicated.
For all the poor health conditions West Virginia young people have endured over the years, one of the consistent bright spots, lauded by health experts from around the country, has been our insistence that every child be protected from and immunized against disease.
The Senate bill’s lead sponsor is Sen. Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson. Other sponsors include Sens. Mike Azinger, Ryan Ferns, Robert Karnes, Mark Maynard, Richard Ojeda, Randy Smith and Dave Sypolt.
They should be made to explain why, in the face of established science, they want to endanger West Virginia’s children, their parents and grandparents, and their futures.
Online:
https://www.wvgazettemail.com/
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March 29
The Register-Herald on Law that would help prevent elderly exploitation:
Taking financial advantage of elderly citizens is not really a new thing, but experts say it is on the rise.
In fact some surveys show that of all the types of elder abuse - physical, emotional, neglect - financial abuse is becoming the most common. A recent AARP survey of West Virginians over the age of 45 found that about one in five respondents said they knew someone who had been a victim of financial abuse.
Certainly the increase in internet and telephone scams has played a role, and those go far beyond the simply “phishing” for passwords and Social Security numbers to include sophisticated scams involving annuities, trusts, deeds and reverse mortgages - to name a few.
But many of the perpetrators are not strangers. They are family members, caregivers, neighbors, acquaintances or professionals who use their positions of trust to gain access to older resident’s finances.
A number of states have been working to strengthen their protection of vulnerable seniors, and this session lawmakers in West Virginia House are considering action as well.
House Bill 2404 would enhance criminal penalties regarding abuse, neglect or exploitation of vulnerable individuals, but it would also make it more difficult for those found guilty of these crimes to benefit financially. In some cases, even though a family member may have been convicted of taking advantage of an older loved one, they still stand to inherit property and money from their victim.
It makes sense to close that gap.
West Virginia has “disinheritance” legislation that prevents killers from inheriting from their victims. HB 2402 would expand that law to disqualify someone from inheriting if they have been convicted of financial exploitation of the deceased.
But it is also important that families and seniors educate themselves about these problems. For more information or to report suspected exploitation, you can contact that group at 1-800-352-6513 or the Attorney General’s Elderly Hotline at 1-866-241-5062.
Online:
https://www.register-herald.com/
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March 26
The Parkersburg News and Sentinel on West Virginia innovation:
West Virginians - lawmakers, business owners, workers, students . all of us - are struggling mightily with how to make the changes that will propel us past the mess we have been trying to clean up for the past few years. We are proud, tradition-based people who sometimes lose sight of the horizon because we are focused so firmly on the task at hand. And so, we have suffered through business-as-usual, government-as-usual, education-as-usual, even as we tell ourselves a transition is essential.
Unfortunately, numbers released as part of WalletHub’s State Innovation Index show where throwing money at those problems without making any truly difficult decisions or implementing change has left us. Dead last.
West Virginia ranks 51st overall among the 50 states and District of Columbia: 51st in share of technology companies; 49th in share of Science Technology Engineering and Math professionals; 47th in projected STEM-job demand by 2020; 46th for eighth grade math and science performance; 45th for both research and development spending per capita and average internet speed; and 37th for share of science and engineering graduates over age 25.
Meanwhile, according to the U.S. Census Bureau 2014 Annual Survey of School System Finances, West Virginia ranks 21st in per-pupil spending. Handing more money than 31 other states to public elementary and secondary school systems has not yielded improvement. In fact, tossing around ever-larger amounts of money we do not have has created more problems that chase away potential employers. It has certainly done nothing to keep the best young minds we have from leaving the state, or entice any of them to return.
Regulatory reform; tax reform; the death of King Bureaucracy; an education system that lets teachers (and parents) turn our young people into well-educated, productive, responsible members of society; a real plan to fight back against the drug epidemic; and proof to employers that state government understands its role and knows how to fulfill it - these are what Mountain State residents need. It is an attitude shift that has so far proven nearly impossible to make. Lawmakers are running out of time to find the innovative solutions this year that will make that shift possible.
Online:
https://www.newsandsentinel.com/
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