Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Archives

10Apr 2019 by Lynda Waddington

One less barrier to vaccination

Gazette Column

Amid measles outbreak and emergency mandates, Vatican makes position change public For vaccination advocates, there’s bad news and good news. Let’s start with the bad. Although deemed eradicated in 2000, measles is making a record comeback in the United States. Health officials have, for the second week in a row, added dozens of new cases, bringing the nationwide total to 465 as of last week. Not only does this mark the highest number of cases in a five-year period, highly contagious measles is now present in a third of U.S. states, including Iowa neighbors Illinois and Missouri. More measles cases occurred in the first three months of 2019 than in all of 2018, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although 2014 remains the year since 2000 with the most…

24Feb 2019 by Lynda Waddington

Lawmakers should end religious exemption

Gazette Column

Iowa lawmakers dispatched two proposals that would have allowed more parents to forgo required and necessary vaccinations for their children. That's good, but not enough. It's time to take a closer look at the state's lax vaccination rules. According to the Iowa Department of Public Health, more parents are seeking religious exemptions to vaccination requirements - four times the number from only 15 years ago. At the county level, the percentage of parents taking a religious exemption varies widely. In Buchanan County, for example, 356 religious exemptions were filed in a total enrollment of 3,515. Larger Linn County had 744 religious exemptions from a total enrollment of nearly 40,000. That's partly because state law doesn't require parents to cite specific religious teaching against vaccinations to claim the exemption. All it…

19Feb 2018 by Lynda Waddington

More than reactionary gun violence plans needed

Gazette Column

Pro-gun legislation in the Iowa Statehouse has succumbed to a barrage of bullets. Unfortunately, this is not a metaphor. The nation’s latest mass shooting, this time at a Florida high school, contributed to the demise of an Iowa bill aimed to loosen gun-permitting regulations. Instead, lawmakers want school districts to adopt security plans that address “active shooters” and other disasters. Sen. Jason Schultz, R-Schleswig, who managed Senate File 2106, said the untimely and unnecessary deaths of 17 Floridians “apparently changed the optics.” Well, it’s about damn time. [caption id="attachment_1934" align="aligncenter" width="690"] Students, friends and family gather at the memorial crosses at Pine Trails Park in Parkland, Fla., to remember those where were killed and injured in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, on Friday, Feb. 16, 2018. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/TNS)[/caption]…

21Dec 2017 by Lynda Waddington

Congress was warned of farmer suicides

Gazette Column

Americans are waking up to a new reality, one in which farmers are killing themselves in record numbers. Residents also should know that members of Congress have been aware, but have refused to provide help. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found people working in agriculture — farmers, laborers, ranchers, fishers and other harvesters — take their own lives at a rate higher than any other occupation. Data suggests that suicide rates for agricultural workers in 17 states is nearly five times higher than the general population. In some states, according to Newsweek, the suicide rate for farmers is greater than for military veterans. And, when compared to studies from the 1980s farm crisis, which captured suicide rate peaks in 1982 at 58 for every 100,000 farmers and ranchers,…

10Jul 2017 by Lynda Waddington

Ferret out root causes of opioid epidemic

Gazette Column

Locals gathered at diners and other venues, I thought, would be abuzz with news of a man who crashed into a parked semi-trailer only moments after injecting heroin. I was wrong. The crash happened one sunny afternoon in Manchester, N.H., a town I was visiting for a work-related conference. When a 33-year-old man inexplicably drove his Chevy head-on into a parked truck, an eye witness came forward to say the driver had injected heroin before the incident. Both the driver and a 26-year-old male passenger were taken to a hospital with serious injuries, and the driver later was charged with operating while using. The driver of the truck was making a delivery at a nearby business and not present when the crash occurred. I was gobsmacked by the news, both for the…

27Feb 2016 by Lynda Waddington

This is no time for a food fight

Gazette Blog

Raise your hand if you remember when Congress debated making ketchup a vegetable. Many people remember the absurdity, even as they’ve forgotten the context. In 1981 — back when I was just another kid in the school lunch line — Congress hoped to take a ride on President Ronald Reagan’s spending-cut coattails by demanding the USDA cut $1 billion from child nutrition programs. But proposed legislation neglected to specify what should be slashed. School lunches were then mandated to have a meat, a grain, a dairy and two servings of fruits or vegetables. USDA officials told Congress they could make the cuts and still meet the requirements if pickle relish and ketchup could be reclassified as vegetables. You’d think after the subsequent backlash that Congress would have learned Americans want…