Letters & Shout-outs (March 27, 2015)

Shout-out: A thank-you to Safeway for support of SLV schools
Editor,
Safeway has donated many thousands of dollars to our local schools through its eScrip program.
The SLV High School Cougar Parents Club would like to thank Safeway, and particularly the staff and managers at our local Felton Safeway, who have always been helpful and supportive of our fundraising efforts during Back to School promotions.
With their help, we have been able to raise nearly $20,000 per year to support our academic programs, pay for field trips to college campuses, and promote career and college readiness.
This year, our focus is to purchase as many Chromebooks for student use as possible, as next school year each high school student will need to have a suitable electronic device for use in school and at home.
So, thank you Safeway, for helping make this possible!
Jill Collen, President, SLVHS Cougar Parents Club
Letter: Student’s trip to Washington highlights need to heed diabetes research
Editor,
Regarding “SVHS Student Advocates for Diabetes in DC” (March 20, 2015, page 4): How encouraging to read the story of high school student Allanah Schwartz’s trip to Washington, D.C. to address legislators regarding such an important topic as diabetes research — especially at a time when so many adults are not even able to name their congressional representatives, let alone offer an opinion about the record of those representatives on issues that are important to them.
Kudos to Allanah and her supportive father for their public spiritedness.
However, I am urging us all to keep in mind that it isn’t enough to conduct more research.
It is just as important not to ignore the results of the huge volume of research that has already been done, which, tragically, occurs over and over in so many health areas, including diabetes treatment.
Far too often we continue to recommend outdated, harmful practices for management of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, such as low-carb eating and “management to the numbers” of serum glucose levels through injection of excessive insulin, in spite of decades of research on the superiority of an approach that improves the responsiveness of cells to insulin through whole foods, plant-based nutritional excellence.
This approach reduces the amount of insulin needed, which can eliminate the increased damage to blood vessels that excessive insulin causes, and can eliminate Type 2 diabetes completely.
My bigger point here is not to extol any particular course of diabetes treatment over another, and especially not to denigrate the life-saving benefit of properly managed insulin injections, but rather to remind us all that continuing to conduct more research won’t help anyone if we are going to continue to ignore the results.
Let’s resolve to always pay appropriate attention to, rather than waste, the valuable research that has already been done.
Ed Lomasney, Scotts Valley
Letter: State vaccination bill will deny children access to education
Editor,
There is currently a California State Senate bill (SB277) that will serve to violate a parent’s right to informed consent as it applies to vaccinations by removing all options for personal belief exemptions (PBEs) to include those for religious reasons.
This type of government overreach forces a medical procedure on non-consenting individuals that carries a level of risk of injury (or even death) and is deemed unethical by the American Medical Association.
This is unnecessary legislation in light of the recently implemented AB2109 (Jan. 1, 2014), which requires parents to speak with their physicians before making their decision to file a PBE.
This bill has already served to decrease the number of personal belief exemptions by 20 percent and should be given more time to succeed.
The latest percentage of PBEs is approximately 2.54 percent, which includes families who may only opt out of one vaccine. This bill will also deny parents the ability to delay or spread out over time their vaccine choices.
SB277 controls all aspects of vaccinations, completely disregarding the wishes of parents and recommendations by their pediatricians.
It must also be noted, those who do not comply will be denied an education, which violates California’s Compulsory Education Law. These children will be ineligible to attend public, private, charter, and home schools.
As a result, they will be considered truant by the state, which will force consequences of which we do not yet know.
In the end, this bill will make California the only state in the country to deny its children access to an education.
Darla Beuerman, Boulder Creek