Fully fund global child immunization programs

I agree with Willie Dickerson in his letter, “Compassionate Sharing on Vaccines,” (Nov. 7). I would also extend these sentiments to vaccines for other diseases beyond COVID-19, such as childhood killers like measles, polio, rotavirus and pneumococcal virus.

Around the world, one in five children still lack access to basic vaccines for child killers like measles, polio, rotavirus and pneumococcal virus. Sadly, that results in 1.5 million children still dying each year of vaccine-preventable diseases.

I remind Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla not to forget about children around the world who don’t experience care we have in the United States. I urge them to fully fund global childhood immunization programs in our federal budget. Expanding vaccine access is not only beneficial to country economies, national security, and global stability — it’s also the right thing to do.

— Cynthia Changyit Levin, St. Louis, Mo.

WHY THEM?

Our current president is calling upon the Russians and OPEC to pump more crude oil for us to purchase to use here in our country. But he is stifling oil production here in our country to combat anticipated environmental conditions that supposedly may occur because of our oil industry.

But one thing escapes me. Russia and the OPEC nations are part of the same planet that we are. And I guess that our current president does not have a problem with those countries “ramping up” oil production to provide us with crude oil no matter what environmental damage their oil industries are creating.

With that in mind, how come there is no problem using foreign oil but all kinds of issues with us re-creating the robust oil industry we had in the previous four years under former President Donald Trump ?

We all know why.

— Jerry Poncetta, Bakersfield