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What if the polio vaccine had come during the cable news era? | Letters
Here’s what readers are saying in Monday’s letters to the editor.
 
Martha Ann Murray was 2 months old when she was placed in an iron lung. She is watched by nurse Martha Sumner in St. Mary's Hospital in Tucson, Ariz., Sept. 23, 1952, where she was critically ill with polio.
Martha Ann Murray was 2 months old when she was placed in an iron lung. She is watched by nurse Martha Sumner in St. Mary's Hospital in Tucson, Ariz., Sept. 23, 1952, where she was critically ill with polio. [ AP | AP ]
Published Dec. 6, 2021

Imagine polio today

Get a COVID booster to look out for yourself and others | Editorial, Dec. 5

There is a simple reason why the COVID-19 variants are likely to remain with us unlike polio, which was extinguished in the United States. I had polio at an early age several years before the first vaccine. Once the vaccines were available, nearly every child received it. This was in the mid-1950s when only three television channels were available and before cable news shows exploded on the scene, some propagating conspiracy theories about the COVID vaccines. Once doubt takes hold in a large enough segment of the population, it’s improbable to expect COVID to totally disappear.

George Chase, St. Pete Beach

If season splits, so will the fans

Tampa and the Rays want you to stroll, bike or hop a scooter to new Ybor ballpark | Dec. 2

So the Rays’ owners want a new stadium in Tampa? Makes sense. The idea of playing in St. Pete was a dumb idea right from the start. But sharing the team with Montreal or any other city, what a ridiculous idea. How many other Major League Baseball teams can claim multiple cities as their home? Oh, that’s right, none. You think attendance is bad now? Wait and see what happens under a sharing plan with some other city.

Terry Vaught, Dover

A tax-deductible fetus

Throwing out ‘Roe’ would tear country apart | Column, Dec. 5

If a fetus is considered a human life, then we should be able to claim it as a dependent on our taxes before it’s born.

Eileen Stafford, St. Petersburg

There are baby daddies, too

Throwing out ‘Roe’ would tear country apart | Column, Dec. 5

There are those who would force a woman to become a mother. Why don’t any of them want to force a baby daddy to become a father?

Charles E. Lehnert, Sun City Center

Shelter kids or let them take wing?

What about the right to read? | Letter, Nov. 28

On the censorship of certain books in schools: As parents, we need a constant reminder that the world in which we grew up is not the same one our children experience. Time rolls forward as new information emerges and new opinions develop. We are tasked with providing tools and knowledge to bring our children into a new era. Do we want to put our kids into a box or give them wings to fly?

Mary Butler, Lutz