Letters on WIC funding, gun permits, defeating cancer

WIC deserves full funding

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children gets results we can all support. WIC results in lower infant-mortality rates and better school performance, and each WIC dollar produces $1.92 to $4.21 in Medicaid savings for newborns and their mothers.

The Sedgwick County Commission’s decision to reduce WIC nutrition funding is shortsighted (Oct. 8 Eagle). Rather than cutting funding for WIC, county commissioners should support efforts to enroll more qualified women and children to realize maximum long-term savings for the county and to reduce our county’s infant-mortality rate, which is higher than the rate for Kansas.

WIC delivers nutrition education and services, breast-feeding promotion and education, monthly food prescriptions, and access to maternal, prenatal and pediatric health care services during the critical 1,000 days between pregnancy and a child’s second birthday. Each of these services is essential.

Full funding of WIC is a quality-of-life investment that we need to make so that every child in our community gets a good, healthy start. We ask that all our county commissioners become champions of all WIC services, including retention of three part-time breast-feeding peer counselors who work with young mothers.

Need gun permit

I was shocked, but not surprised, to read that we have had 45 mass shootings in schools this year (“Time for action on gun violence,” Oct. 6 Letters to the Editor). That’s like one a week. I agree with the letter writer that two simple requirements – a permit to own and proof of training – would not negate the Second Amendment.

I do not agree with the “Archie Bunker” mentality that the answer to too many guns is more guns. Some of the students at the Oregon shooting said they were armed but didn’t try to intervene because they were afraid of being mistaken for gunmen and shot by the police.

A gun, like a car, deserves a permit and a licensed operator.

Defeat cancer

I traveled to Washington, D.C., recently with more than 750 of my fellow American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network volunteers from across the country to urge Congress to support lifesaving policies that help people prevent and fight cancer. I called on lawmakers to increase federal funding for cancer research, co-sponsor legislation to improve patient quality of life and remove cost barriers to colorectal cancer screenings for seniors.

When I met with a staff member of Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Wichita, I told him that Congress should seize these opportunities to put partisanship aside and make defeating cancer a top national priority.

I let our lawmakers know that people and families touched by cancer in Kansas and across the country are counting on them to support legislation that would help make cancer history. With 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women being diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, we can’t let another year pass without taking legislative action.

This story was originally published October 14, 2015 at 7:05 PM with the headline "Letters on WIC funding, gun permits, defeating cancer."