With a new school year underway, things like homework, back-to-school nights and PTA meetings are on all of our minds right now. As a parent of three elementary-age children, I certainly understand the busyness of keeping up with everything to start the year.
To help set our kids up for success this coming year, we also need to prioritize staying up to date with children’s vaccinations. As we return to classrooms and spend more time indoors, respiratory viruses are sure to rise and can spread quickly. Keeping up to date on vaccinations protects not only your child from serious illness and school absence, but is also a responsibility we all share to help protect our neighbors, teachers and communities.
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Recently, the Illinois Department of Public Health released its new immunization guidance for children and adults heading into the fall respiratory virus season and school year. Reviewed and approved by 20 highly qualified medical experts on the Illinois Immunization Advisory Committee, this science- and fact-based guideline is our best protection against influenza and other respiratory viruses.
Recent outbreaks remind us why these protections matter. In the last few years, we have seen high numbers of cases of whooping cough and our largest measles outbreak since 1991. These dangerous illnesses are all completely preventable and serve as a reminder of the importance of proper vaccines to protect the health of our families and children. And childhood vaccines do more than protect the child receiving them. They also help protect the people with whom they have close interactions — including infants, older adults and people with weakened immune systems or who are vulnerable to serious illness.
As we kick off the school year and feel the fall season upon us, making sure our children are up to date on their vaccinations is one of the simplest and most effective steps we can take to protect the health of our children and our shared communities.
Here’s to a safe, healthy and exciting new school year ahead.
— Robert D. Anderson, CEO and president, Respiratory Health Association
I hope carp barrier works
I am so glad that work on the carp barrier at the Brandon Road Lock and Dam has been restarted (“Work resumes on project to keep invasive carp out,” Sept 15). The Romeoville barrier does not protect the Des Plaines River above where the river and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal join. There is carp fencing between the river and the canal in the Lemont area, which may or may not prevent carp from getting into the canal in flood stage.
I have paddled near Starved Rock where the carp are found. They jumped over our boats and over our heads. They are big and can injure anyone they hit. They are aggressive.
The Des Plaines River provides scenic recreation and fishing as well as running through many suburban villages. The Des Plaines River Canoe & Kayak Marathon hosts hundreds of paddlers every May, as an example.
Rivers flood and take the fish with them when they do.
I pray that the barrier beats the carp and works.
— Don Mueggenborg, Lemont
Writer Ben Hecht’s career
Chris Jones’ review of the Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur Chicago-set play “The Front Page” as performed at Northlight Theater includes a couple arguable assertions (“Northlight Theatre’s old-school welcome home,” Sept. 23). While the film “His Girl Friday,” Howard Hawks’ 1940 version of the play, is a delight due to its cast — Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell — making the most of the gender switch that Northlight retains, it doesn’t render forgotten “The Front Page” from 1974 starring Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau and Susan Sarandon. Or the 1931 original starring Pat O’Brien and Adolphe Menjou, a sharp pre-Code classic.
Furthermore, Hecht scorned Hollywood but could hardly have regretted the decadeslong career he had as a protean screenwriter, from getting the first Academy Award for Original Screenplay in 1929 to penning the first script for 1967’s “Casino Royale” just before he died. Along the way, Hecht co-wrote the screenplays for 1932’s “Scarface,” “Gunga Din,” 1939’s Wuthering Heights, “Gone with the Wind” and “Notorious,” among many, many other films. And complained about it all the way to the bank.
— Howard Mandel, Chicago
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A name with 2 purposes
Here’s my idea for a name for the giant boulder discovered at O’Hare International Airport: “Chicago Rocks!”
Maybe it could even spark a new ad campaign for our city. After all, tourism rocks!
— Sheryl Slone Tarkoff, Chicago
More stories like this, please
Regarding “Police officer delivers baby hours into first shift” (Sept. 19): Congrats for a heartwarming story about Grayslake police Officer Kelsey Watson delivering Baby Ellowyn! This story should be on the front page.
Please continue to look for good news.
— Nan Hinchsliff, Glenview
Op-ed on Indiana is spot-on
Regarding the op-ed “A Chicago-native Bears fan’s love letter to Hoosier State” (Sept. 19): Hot damn. Will Kamin nailed it!
— Dave Rust, Bloomington, Indiana
Trauma to the whales
The story of the rescued beluga whales at the Shedd Aquarium brings to mind what happens to people in declining health who are kept alive with a machine because the family just can’t bear to let them go. Perhaps these whales have lived their life.
Bringing them to the aquarium to keep them alive likely causes great trauma to the whales after many years of being left alone. Rather than insisting that these whales continue with their life, which is a human decision, perhaps they should be allowed to die gracefully and respectfully on their own.
— Dale Bunner, Kansas City, Missouri
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