Editorials from around Pennsylvania

Editorials from around Pennsylvania:

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PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN - BOYS AS WELL AS GIRLS - AGAINST CANCER WITH THE HPV VACCINE, Nov. 19

The human papillomavirus is sexually transmitted. And as the Inquirer reported, genital strains of that virus “are so ubiquitous that almost all sexually active people - not just promiscuous ones - will be infected at some point.”

Nearly 80 million people - about one in four adults - now are infected with HPV in the U.S.

Professor Amy Leader has some advice for parents weighing whether to have their children vaccinated against HPV: Get the vaccine. “Don’t think about preventing a sexually transmitted disease now. Think about preventing cancer in 20 or 30 years.”

We need to start thinking of the HPV vaccine as an anti-cancer vaccine, says Leader, a researcher at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson Health and an associate professor in the division of population science, department of medical oncology, at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

Why wouldn’t you want to spare your child from developing a preventable cancer in adulthood?

Unfortunately, Leader says, the anti-vaccine movement has “done a very good job of promulgating misinformation about vaccines.”

Sadly, we know this to be true. We’ve been railing against the movement for years because of the harm it’s done in scaring parents away from immunizations that can protect children from serious and sometimes deadly illnesses.

As Leader notes, anti-vaccine messages, often disseminated on social media, tend to be narrative-based. “Look what happened to poor Susie … poor Susie.”

The public health community, on the other hand, speaks in data rather than narrative, preferring hard scientific facts to anecdote. The result?

“We get tuned out,” Leader says.

We implore our readers to tune in, to consider these facts, reported by the Inquirer:

- While it’s true that most HPV infections are eliminated by the immune system, high-risk strains “can persist and initiate cancer of the cervix, vagina, anus, vulva, penis, mouth and throat.”

- “Worldwide, that translates to more than 600,000 cancers a year - nearly 5 percent of all cancers.”

- The current version of the HPV vaccine, Gardasil 9, protects against seven high-risk types of the virus “that cause 90 percent of cervical cancers, as well as the two wart types.”

- Precancerous lesions caused by HPV “can progress to cancer and oral infections - the kind that have fueled an explosion in head and neck cancers in recent decades, particularly in men.”

These are subjects we hope pediatricians are discussing with parents and kids. But as parents, too, we know they can be difficult to broach.

Just typing the words - “cancer of the cervix, vagina, anus, vulva, penis, mouth and throat” - made us want to close the laptop screen and walk away.

But if we think of those terms not in terms of sexual activity but in terms of cancer risk, we might get over our squeamishness and feel more urgency to discuss the subject with our kids and their pediatricians.

The HPV vaccine is not a one-shot-and-done deal. Kids 11 or 12 should get “two shots of HPV vaccine six to twelve months apart,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Adolescents who receive their two shots less than five months apart will require a third dose of HPV vaccine.”

Is that inconvenient? Yes. But it’s not nearly as taxing as cancer.

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Even if we start thinking, as we should, of the HPV vaccine as the anti-cancer vaccine it is, some parents still may worry about its associations with sex.

Most of us like to think that our 11- and 12-year-olds are light-years away from sexual activity. But half of all 15-year-olds are engaged in some form of sexual activity, Leader says.

The HPV vaccine is not a get-out-of-sex-free-from-consequences card. It won’t guard against other sexually transmitted diseases - just the most common one. It won’t guard against pregnancy.

The reason it’s given to adolescents as young as 11 is not to encourage them to have sex, but because the vaccine is best administered while their immune response is at its best and before they are exposed to HPV.

“It’s the same reason we get flu shots in October - we want to get our flu shots before flu season hits, so we’re protected if we come in contact with the virus,” Leader says. “Once someone has the flu, the flu vaccine is totally useless. Vaccinate before exposure!”

The HPV vaccine should be viewed as insurance for the future, a way to protect your kids when they make the decision - hopefully years down the road - to have sex.

And when we say kids, we mean boys as well as girls.

As the CDC points out, women undergo Pap tests to screen for cervical cancer. But “there are no recommended cancer screening tests to detect the other five types of cancers caused by HPV.”

“Every year in the United States, HPV causes 33,700 cancers in men and women,” the CDC states. “HPV vaccination can prevent most of the cancers (about 31,200) from ever developing.”

This anti-cancer vaccine is a gift that more of us should be giving our children. It’s a gift we wish had been available to us.

There are so many worries that come with adulthood. For our kids, vaccine-preventable HPV doesn’t have to be among them.

__LNP

Online: https://bit.ly/2S97KiN

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CHURCH DELAYS CHANCE TO RESTORE TRUST, Nov. 18

Before the Pennsylvania Attorney General grand jury report probing clergy child sexual abuse in six Pennsylvania Roman Catholic dioceses, only a handful of dioceses nationwide had published lists of clergy credibly accused of abuse.

After the Catholic Diocese of Erie’s records were subpoenaed, Erie Bishop Lawrence Persico initiated an independent review of church files. Months before Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s report was published, Persico in April disclosed the results of the Erie diocese’s investigation - a list of clergy and laity deemed credibly accused of abuse or other misconduct with children. An adroit action that put the diocese in front of the scathing August grand jury report, it was also morally and pastorally spot on. Other bishops followed Persico’s example, not just in Pennsylvania, but across the nation.

The church implemented laudable reforms after the legacy of clergy abuse and coverup first gained global attention via reporting by The Boston Globe in the early 2000s. But the Pennsylvania grand jury report exposed the role bishops had played in this deplorable cycle, many without facing consequence. Expectations ran high that the just-ended meeting of the U.S. Conference of Bishops in Baltimore would deliver meaningful corrective measures. Persico was among leaders eager to advance reforms targeted at bishops’ accountability.

Instead, the Vatican intervened, requesting American bishops not act in advance of the Vatican’s global meeting on clergy abuse scheduled for February.

The delay deflates hope and, without clear messaging, signals that church leaders do not comprehend the urgent threat posed to their moral authority. Musings by Erie’s own former Bishop Donald W. Trautman, accused in the report of failing to aggressively pursue removal of an abusive priest, reinforce this. Trautman opposed some of the proposed reforms by criticizing journalists and investigators and arguing that sex abuse, part of the human condition, is found everywhere. That is a terrible premise for inaction by an institution whose leaders enabled the visitation of that particular original sin on its most vulnerable members.

Federal and state authorities are mounting investigations similar to Shapiro’s likely to reveal dismal failings of powerful shepherds nationwide. Indeed, the Boston Globe and Philadelphia Inquirer recently reported that more than 130 U.S. bishops “have been accused of failing to adequately respond to sexual misconduct in their dioceses.” The church and lobbyists have for the moment staved off legal reforms in Pennsylvania that would allow victims to sue the church in court.

But two national lawsuits have been filed against the U.S. Catholic Church. One of them levels charges of racketeering. That may out truth, but at what cost?

The pastoral failings exposed by Shapiro’s report reside in plain view in the church’s own records. Make like Luke’s physician and heal thyself.

__Erie Times

Online: https://bit.ly/2KqQ13s

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CREATIVE SOLUTION: STATE PRISONS, ADVOCATES WORK AROUND A BOOK BAN, Nov. 21

It’s one thing to throw the book at a convicted criminal. It’s another thing to not let him read.

But, a book ban - or something pretty close to that - was put in place by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections in the fall in an effort to block a potential illicit drug pathway into prisons via book donations to prisoners.

Reducing drug trafficking behind bars is a good thing.

Limiting prisoners’ access to reading materials was not.

State prison system revises policy, will allow inmates to order books

A resolution has emerged, thanks to the DOC’s willingness to work with prisoner advocates and lawmakers. A new centralized processing center for book orders has been planned.

As things had stood, book donation programs and all mail-order books and publications were prohibited as the prison system battled a new method of drug smuggling: reading materials with paper soaked in synthetic cannabinoids (street name: K2.)

The DOC was to limit new reading material to more expensive e-books as well as to book orders placed on special jailhouse kiosks that, in the end, couldn’t handle the workload.

Under the security crackdown, prisoners were without adequate reading materials. The detriment was obvious.

Outcry from advocates for both books and prisoners ensued. And the DOC became inspired.

The updated policy will allow book donation organizations direct contact with inmates via a centralized screening and processing center at a state institution in Bellefonte. Also, family and friends can order books on behalf of inmates and those books can be shipped directly from publishers or bookstores to the same processing center.

Time is in big supply behind state prison bars. Worthwhile ways to the pass that time? Not so much. The DOC should be doing all it can to encourage more prisoners to read more. As they used to say: Reading is “fun”damental.

__Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Online: https://bit.ly/2Ty6tmU

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ARE ELECTRIC COMPANIES AWARE WINTER IS COMING, Nov. 20

It seems like just yesterday that we were saying that there were too many power outages in Southwestern Pennsylvania and someone ought to pay attention to it.

Actually it wasn’t yesterday. It was August , when the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission said power outages had gone up 150 percent in just one year. Of those 50 statewide incidents, 34 percent were felt by West Penn Power or Duquesne Light customers.

And now it’s happening again.

After last week’s blast of snow and sleet, trees toppled and lines fell and more than 50,000 people lost their electricity. Some were restored Friday but others lingered into the weekend. And Monday. The latest message from West Penn said the last homes will be lit up again by 10 p.m. Tuesday, while Central Electric Cooperative users in Armstrong and Butler counties will remain powerless into Wednesday as they wait for West Penn Power to repair damaged substations.

Come on.

Yes, the storm was unseasonably early. But still, we knew winter was coming, right?

Okay, fine. Snow and ice happen. We can’t plan for everything. Act of God and all that.

But the PUC report shows that the state wants more investment in the infrastructure of power distribution, and that more time and attention has to be paid to maintaining what’s already there.

That shouldn’t be hard to see, even in the dark, when it is taking a massive effort of more than 500 additional lineman and others to work on restoring power. Those are spread across the six states in West Penn Power’s parent company, First Energy, holdings hit by the storm. All told, 248,000 customers were left powerless and 203,000 have been restored .

Let’s remember that is more than 248,000 people. That’s 248,000 electric bills, each of which could mean a family of moms, dads, kids and grandparents. Talking about “customers” is understandable for the utility companies, but it has a natural way of reducing every four or five people hit to just the one name on the envelope.

Hopefully, everyone will have lights again by Thanksgiving morning. Hopefully, everyone will get to watch the Macy’s parade and the holiday meal won’t be ruined by non-functioning stoves and no one will get food poisoning because the refrigerator didn’t work.

And hopefully, the utility companies realize that winter doesn’t even start for another 30 days, and that there will be three months of more snow and ice and wind and rain behind that. Maybe it’s too late to replace that infrastructure and maintain the lines this year.

But brace yourself for next year, electric companies. Winter will be coming. Again.

__Tribune-Review

Online: https://bit.ly/2DN6z5z

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SPIKE IN HOMICIDES TO OVER 300 IS A WAKEUP CALL FOR POLICE AND MAYOR, Nov. 21

Stating what has been unbearably obvious for years, Philadelphia Mayor Kenney declared gun violence a public health crisis in September and ordered his staff to come up with a new battle plan by Jan. 5.

At the time, there were already more than 230 homicides. Since then, about 70 more people have been killed. And, on Monday, police found four bodies in a West Philadelphia basement, kicking the number of homicides over 300 for the second time in two years.

The numbers fluctuate but the steady rain of gunshots, hitting two children on Halloween or four people just before Thanksgiving, doesn’t. It traps residents in fear, turning their homes into prisons.

With this escalation of the violence, it’s clear Police Commissioner Richard Ross can’t wait until the report comes out in January. The bodies are going to keep piling up. Ross should do more of what he knows works and dial back on what doesn’t, such as stop and frisk, which hasn’t reduced violent crime. At the same time, he should broadcast his overarching vision to the city to get more help.

The department employs a variety of reactive tactics, such as deploying police to high-crime areas or driving shooting victims to the nearest hospital instead of waiting for an ambulance.

One thoughtful strategy, however, reduced crime. Beginning in 2013, the city, District Attorney’s Office, and other agencies focused on gangs in South Philadelphia. When one member of a gang got into trouble, the entire gang paid for it with higher bails and sentences as well as enhanced enforcement of child support orders and fines for breaking the rules in public housing. The working group partnered with Temple University to study the program’s effectiveness and learned that it reduced shootings by 35 percent. That’s effective - so why not apply the program across the city?

None of these are bad approaches. The problem is there aren’t enough of them to keep up with the bloodshed. Violence has many causes, including poverty, the rampant drug trade, the opioid crisis, and the proclivity of some to solve problems with a gun instead of talking it out. To reduce violence, the city’s going to have to keep experimenting both with long-term solutions, such as reducing poverty - especially by improving educational opportunities and jobs - as well as short-term solutions, such as smartly deploying police. It also should increase university and hospital partnerships and take notes from other cities. Chicago, for example, teamed up with the University of Chicago to analyze where guns used in crimes are coming from. A similar approach could help Philadelphia get a handle on gun trafficking in a city awash in guns.

Kenney wants to focus on prevention and enforcement, treating gun violence like a public health issue. It’s about time, because policing alone - while critical - won’t be enough to stop the slaughter.

Of the upcoming report, he said, “I don’t want something that sits on the shelf, something that is nice to announce and is forgotten.”

We shouldn’t be waiting for a report. The relentless carnage won’t allow it. Action is required now.

__Philadelphia Inquirer

Online: https://bit.ly/2BoKjw6

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