Latest news with #PedroVilela
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Cruzeiro bow out of the Sudamericana after a dull draw at Mineirão
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here. In Mineirão, Cruzeiro drew 0-0 with Unión Santa Fe, this Wednesday (28), in the last round of the group stage of the Conmebol Sudamericana. Already eliminated in advance, the Fox entered the field with a totally reserve team. But, even with one more player since the first half, Cruzeiro couldn't impose itself on the field and created little to open the the result, Cruzeiro finished in third place in Group E with five points. The Fox returns to the field next Sunday (1), when it receives Palmeiras, at Mineirão, in a match that can be worth the leadership of the Brasileirão. 🕘 Fim de jogo no Mineirão.🔷 #CRUxCAU | 0-0 | #LaBestiaNegra — Cruzeiro 🦊 (@Cruzeiro) May 29, 2025 📸 Pedro Vilela - 2025 Getty Images
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
West Virginia House rejects vaccine exemption bill, a priority for Morrisey
The House of Delegates rejected a bill that would have allowed religious exemptions for West Virginia's school vaccination laws on Monday, March 24, 2025. (Pedro Vilela | Getty Images) The House of Delegates on Monday rejected a bill that would have allowed religious exemptions for West Virginia's school vaccination laws. Delegates voted 42 to 56 against Senate Bill 460. The legislation would have allowed families who object to vaccinations on religious grounds to submit a written statement to their school administrator. It would have allowed the state's private and parochial schools to set their own requirements for vaccines. Gov. Patrick Morrisey mandated that the state allow religious exemptions for the vaccines on his second day in office. During a two-hour debate Monday, several delegates spoke in favor or against the legislation. In a statement following the vote, the state Democratic Party called on Morrisey to rescind the order. 'Today's vote was a victory for common sense, public health, and bipartisan cooperation,' Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, said in the statement. 'Gov. Morrissey must now immediately rescind his ill-advised, dangerous, and deadly executive order, respecting the clear voice of our constituents. This administration cannot continue to put political pandering ahead of the health and safety of West Virginia families.' Morrisey's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. This is a breaking news story and will be updated. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Mother of 5 kids and WV doctor: Consider risks of Senate Bill 460
A child under 12 years old receives a vaccine Jan. 18, 2022 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. (Pedro Vilela | Getty Images) Recently, I testified before the West Virginia House Committee on Health and Human Resources about Senate Bill 460 which would weaken our childhood immunization laws for child care and school entry. West Virginia has long been a national champion in ensuring that our child care and school entry immunization laws remain strong. Naming all of the benefits of ensuring these policies remain in place would have pushed me over the 3-5 minutes I was allotted for my testimony. I would like to supplement my testimony to the West Virginia legislators and others who are following this bill with this editorial. Our immunization policies help maintain our robust herd immunity to protect those who are vulnerable. When the argument is made that if one immunizes, they shouldn't have anything to worry about if someone else doesn't is faulty. My kids attend school in West Virginia. One of their classmates was diagnosed with congenital neutropenia. This disease makes her susceptible to bacterial illnesses. It is imperative that those around her are immunized so that she remains protected when attending school. She is one example of numerous immunocompromised children that attend private and public schools in West Virginia who need and deserve protection. Thank you to her mom for allowing me to share her story. On a personal note, a relative in my family recently returned to school and obtained her nursing degree. She is now a nurse working in West Virginia. Despite receiving the immunization, she is unable to generate an immune response to the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. She is on the medical front lines caring for our community's sickest, and our herd immunity is the strongest protection she has against measles, mumps, and rubella. Thank you to my relative for allowing me to share her story. Similarly, our teachers who are caring for our kids and starting families of their own need protection when they are pregnant. Pregnant women who are not immune against rubella due to waning immunity or an inability to generate an immune response to immunization are vulnerable to passing rubella to their unborn infants. In 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 32,000 children were born with congenital rubella. About 33% of infants with congenital rubella die before their first birthday. Since the start of 2025, three of five states that border West Virginia have reported measles cases — Kentucky, Maryland and Pennsylvania. Last year, measles did find its way to West Virginia. Due to the efforts of our public health officials in disease containment and contact tracing as well as our current immunization policy for school and child care entry, our one case of measles remained just one case. Our modern day travel capabilities make everyone a target for diseases like measles appearing in our communities. If we let our guard down, it will make us susceptible to more cases and potential outbreaks. A measles outbreak is something that West Virginia cannot afford. And I mean this from a standpoint that we cannot afford the money and manpower it would take to contain and manage an outbreak. Most of all, we cannot afford to risk death and disability to those living in our great state. Finally, Texas is reeling from the death of a child from measles. This was a rude awakening by many that children in fact can die from measles. Now is not the time to let our guard down. What I love about West Virginia is how we can come together as a state when a neighbor or loved one experiences hardships. We do not want to come together and mourn the loss of a child from a terrible disease such as measles knowing that their death could have been prevented. I am asking our legislators to think about the ones already born and the ones yet to be born. I am asking our legislators to understand that schools and child care settings are high-risk settings, and that our day care workers, teachers, school staff and children across West Virginia need the best protection against terrible diseases that are easily transmissible but preventable through immunization. Children in West Virginia are precious and deserve a chance at life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Senate Bill 460 puts their chance at risk. It is not a risk worth taking. I ask that our legislators reject changes to our current immunization requirements for child care and school entry. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would we? Keep West Virginia's immunization policy strong
A child under 12 years old receives a dose of Pfizer vaccine as part of the COVID-19 immunization campaign on Jan. 18, 2022 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed an executive order to allow religious exemptions for school vaccines. (Pedro Vilela | Getty Images) Growing up, my mom had a signature response to my sister and me whenever we begged to do something just because 'everyone else is doing it.' Her go-to line, like many of our parents of that time, was, 'If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you?' So goes the logic of many of our elected officials in the wake of Gov. Patrick Morrissey's day one executive order 7-25. The order directed the Bureau for Public Health to write a policy to permit non-medical exemptions to West Virginia's child care and school immunization requirements. It claims, 'No state action may substantially burden a person's exercise of religion unless it is essential to further a compelling governmental interest.' A state delegate added on LinkedIn: 'If you are concerned that the executive order allowing medical and personal exemptions for vaccines in West Virginia will put everyone in danger, consider this: every state surrounding us already offers exemptions.' Yes — we as parents, teachers, health care providers, educators, school nurses, child care providers, working professionals, business owners, and West Virginia citizens are concerned about any changes to our policy (which already offers medical exemptions), and for good reason. To us, our kids, and our communities this concern falls firmly under the rubric of 'compelling government interest.' Let us outline some of the reasons why: West Virginia leads the nation with its effective immunization policy, which has inspired other states to adopt similar measures (and on the flipside, no state has added non-medical exemptions through legislative action in more than 20 years). Our policy is highly effective for all West Virginians, moving the state's immunization rates prior to the age of 5 (which is among the lowest in the nation) to some of the highest rates of immunization in the country for school-age children. High rates of immunization are essential to keep infectious diseases at bay. Our school immunization policy offers the crucial milestone for kids to catch up on protection as they enter the school system. Even one child's immunization status can impact an entire community. Experts have explained to me that when our immunization rate is high enough to support herd immunity (for example, 95% of a population immunized to achieve herd immunity for measles), that helps prevent a disease from spreading. When every child who is medically able gets immunized, that protects not only that child but those around them in their schools and communities, too. This is particularly important in our child care facilities, where many babies and small children are too young to get certain shots, so they rely on those around them for protection. There are approximately 109,000 children under 5 years old in West Virginia. And that's just our youngest vulnerable communities — there are even more who rely on protection from herd immunity (such as our elderly, pregnant and immunocompromised residents). For those with medical reasons not to be vaccinated, West Virginia currently has an effective process in place for medically necessary exemptions from the child care and school immunization policy. Let's also consider just a few examples among many that illustrate what our state is currently doing a great job of preventing: 83 young children died in the United States territory of Samoa in 2019 after relaxing legacy childhood immunizations for highly infectious diseases such as measles, pertussis and polio in the wake of government complacency, disinformation campaigns that sowed distrust in vaccines, and a suspension of routine immunizations schedules, leaving them unprepared and exposed when the disease returned on its shore from an infected traveler from New Zealand. Reports have shown that in surrounding states such as Ohio with lax immunization requirements, recent measles outbreaks not only put 35 young children in the hospital, but also cost the state an estimated $3.5 million to remediate 77 cases. Due to a measles outbreak in Washington state in 2019, approximately 800 children who were considered exposed had to stay home from school up to three weeks, devastating the local economy and working families' access to child care and their ability to go to work. As of January 2024, in other states that allowed for these exemptions, several measles outbreaks in Chicago, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are already shattering records of this previously eradicated disease, with cases outpacing the entire year of 2023. Of these cases, 89% were unvaccinated; but the concerning statistic is the number of patients who had been vaccinated — 7% of the cases had one dose of the MMR vaccine and 4% of cases had two doses of the MMR vaccine. A man contracted polio in New York in 2022 after the United States had not seen a case in over three decades. As of December 2024, our neighboring state of Pennsylvania has the most cases of whooping cough in the nation (a disease that can be deadly, especially for babies), whereas West Virginia has the least. In 2019, while 31 states faced measles outbreaks and some saw polio cases, West Virginia had none. Supporters who seek to change the school immunization policy to expand beyond non-medical exemptions often invoke a desire for religious or philosophical freedom. However, such freedoms have always been balanced against the risks they might pose to others. This nation was founded on the principle of a 'social contract,' which underscores that a free and fair society depends on balancing individual liberties with collective responsibilities. To enjoy societal protections like security, health, education and survival, individuals must sometimes accept certain limits on personal freedoms to safeguard the health and safety of other citizens. For example, a person of legal age can make the individual decision to drink alcohol, and they absolutely have the freedom to do that; this person does not, however, have the freedom to drive drunk due to the threat that the behavior poses to others on the road. Parents who choose not to vaccinate their children have access to alternative educational options and can exercise their constitutionally protected right to education; they simply cannot join our schools' congregate settings to put others at higher risk of the contagious diseases that the school policy has protected against for decades. As the president of the West Virginia Women's Alliance (WVWA), a cross-partisan organization dedicated to lifting up women and children in West Virginia, I've had the privilege of engaging with West Virginians last year at over 20 events we hosted. From 'House Parties' with working mothers and families to 'Cocktails and Conversations' with candidates and elected officials from both sides of the aisle, we were able to share our top concerns and hear their vision on how to make West Virginia a place we can all thrive. We also participated in numerous symposia, forums, conferences, and events to learn about our most pressing issues and explore areas of opportunity to improve outcomes for all West Virginians. One common thread we continue to encounter is the deeply shared pride in our state and how much we all sincerely want West Virginia to win. In countless conversations, we have heard and continue to hear that keeping the child care and school immunization policy the way it is, nation leading and paving the way for other states, is a top desire across the state. In fact, many of these supporters are leaders from various churches who also advocated for former Gov. Jim Justice to veto a bill last year that would have also altered the policy, as they also wish to protect kids and vulnerable populations. In this era of deep political polarization, the WVWA is working to bridge divides and encourage bipartisan collaboration to address the urgent challenges facing our state, especially those impacting quality of life for West Virginia women and children. While we have seen notable economic development wins and other advancements, several significant issues remain that demand our collective focus and cooperation. Addressing these pressing problems will require innovative ideas and a united effort. Among these challenges, West Virginia currently ranks: 49th in GDP 50th in 10 year job growth rate 49th in personal income 49th in venture capital investments 48th in 25-year housing appreciation 49th in workforce participation 3rd in the nation for numerical population loss (with an expected loss of 150,000 people by 2040 for a projected population of 1.6 million) 49th in 4th grade reading and math 48th in 8th grade math 49th in 5th grade reading 51st in the nation with 2019 SAT scores 49th in the nation for percentage of population with a bachelor's degree or more 49th in median household income 56th in female headed families living in poverty To our elected West Virginia leaders and representatives, we sincerely ask you: please slow down before making a decision on any policy to weaken these requirements for your younger fellow citizens and constituents who cannot vote, who cannot donate to your campaign, who do not have lobbyists to come meet with you, who do not have a voice or power but who deserve our care and protection all the same. Do not allow the statistics at the beginning of this article to only be numbers on a page but take time to read the articles and look at the pictures outlining the helplessness and despair of the many families who needlessly lost a child due to government complacency. With stakes as high as these, do not act with impunity but peer out from partisan foxholes, review data and reviewed evidence, and reply on subject matter experts and doctors who have spent decades of their lives after taking the Hippocratic Oath 'to do no harm' to inform your decision — not on debunked fringe theories, unsubstantiated claims or dogmatic ideologues. While strong political parties are vital to our democracy, they should not function as rigid monoliths. Every elected representative has a duty to serve as a thoughtful steward for their constituents, prioritizing their well-being through informed and discerning decisions. True leadership requires the courage to rise above the loudest voices, to carefully consider verifiable facts, and, most importantly, to adapt and change one's mind when the evidence demands it. If any voices should guide your decision, let it be the tragically too-late pleas from the parents of needlessly lost children, the chorus and refrain of 'God, why? Why, my baby?' To my fellow West Virginian parents, families and neighbors: it is never too late to stand up for our kids and communities. Reach out to your representatives. Call them, email them, and set up meetings with them. Engage respectfully, as the art of civil discourse and constructive debate has unfortunately become rare but remains essential for achieving the best outcomes through collaboration and compromise. Differing party affiliations or stances on issues should not make you disloyal or sworn enemies. With stakes as high as these, we should heed the words of others who have experienced the consequences of poor policy decisions. After experiencing the devastation of the measles deaths in neighboring Samoa, the governor of Hawaii Josh Green said, 'Vaccines and public health vaccination programs are not just medical interventions; they are also moral imperatives. They embody our commitment to saving lives, ending disease, and protecting the health and well-being of future generations.' This is not a time for apathy but a call to action to make our state the best it can be — not just for those with resources or power, but also for those who need our support the most. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose legacy continues to inspire so many, 'Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
