LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Biotech plants strictly regulated

Les AuCoin's Dec. 26 column, "We ought to ban the splicing of drugs into food," may have left readers with the false impression that they are at risk for finding drugs in their food. Biopharmaceutical crops - or protein-producing plants - are biotech plants that are able to produce therapeutic proteins that can be used to combat life-threatening illnesses. AuCoin's column failed to discuss the strong federal regulations in place to protect consumers from these plants, which are not intended for food use.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, with strong support from industry, strictly regulates the growth, harvesting and transport of biotech plants. Plants producing pharmaceutical proteins are grown in field trials under strict science-based conditions set forth by federal and state governments. Since these protein-producing plants never cross paths with crops used for food and feed production, there is no chance that drugs will appear in our corn flakes.

While great strides have been made through biotechnology in the search for treatments and cures to the most formidable diseases, research and development of biotech drugs may be cut short due to capacity and cost issues. For the millions of patients who suffer from cystic fibrosis, cancer, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, arthritis and heart disease, plants that produce therapeutic proteins may be our only chance to obtain the treatments we need.

With strict industry and federal oversight of protein-producing plants, there should be no reason why patients should be denied new cures.

DAN ERAMIAN, Vice President

of Communications

Biotechnology

Industry Organization

Washington, D.C.

A chance to show U.S. cares

America's actions over the last three years have convinced much of the Muslim world that America hates Islam. They will be watching our response to the tsunami disaster for confirmation of that. There are more Muslims in Indonesia than in any other country on Earth.

Let the quality and speed of our aid to them at this time of tragedy show how America's true values align with theirs: mercy toward those in need.

JOHN SCOTT

Monroe

Public should control schooling

It is time to fix something, but not the "inequity in Eugene schools" (Commentary, Dec. 26). We once stood for the freedom and liberty that holds citizens, not the government, responsible for their own fate.

We have enabled individuals, teachers and parents to manifest alternative education free from the stranglehold of control practiced by mainstream public education, and they have succeeded in giving children a good education. Not only is it bad for education to take this freedom and liberty away from these people, it is this mentality of government control that is crippling our nation.

In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville published "Democracy in America." He praised the energy of free and liberated citizens to manifest a self-governing system more capable of meeting social needs than any of the European kingdoms. In the modern era, we get books like Mario Pei's "The America We Lost," Bertrand Russell's "Authority and the Individual" and Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock." Our technologically smart society has reversed our relationship with authority, just as de Tocqueville predicted in 1835.

We have so many education issues, we need a public discussion of public education. A discussion that is enabled by those who control government resources but is not so tightly controlled by government that citizen participation becomes a sick joke compared with the meaning of freedom of speech and self-government.

My granddaughter was failing math in Eugene. She is getting B's in Springfield and feels much better about herself. Are you ready to talk?

CAROL SEATON

Eugene

Don't alter alternative schools

The neighborhood school did not meet my daughter's needs. A bright child was expected to tread water until the class got to something new. It reminded me much of my own high school experience.

In 10th grade, we had an honors program. In 11th grade, they mainstreamed honors to bring up the college prep classes. It was a dismal failure. In 10th grade, we wrote college-level papers. In 11th, worksheets earned stickers, even if my answer was, "This movie sucked."

Family School was able to preserve my daughter's love of learning and meet her needs as a bright student, and also those of kids who were struggling to learn.

If a school has classes with fewer than 24 students, the state will not fully fund the school in the following year, so caps at 20 kids are improbable.

Neighborhood schools would do better imitating programs like Family School. Maybe then, parents wouldn't feel that their children's needs would not be met in a neighborhood school environment. Programs like Family School keep money in the school system. The alternative was not neighborhood school, but private or home school.

The most important thing? My daughter still loves school, in sixth grade.

We should not be thinking about dismantling the most effective educational programs. It will not bring up the level of the neighborhood schools, but it will remove many children from the public schools and cast others adrift.

Don't break the most functional programs to save those that were broken before alternative schools existed.

JENNIFER ROSENBERG

Eugene

Animals need trained caregivers

The article in the Dec. 26 Register-Guard from The Baker City Herald has circulated for several days on the Internet among aghast wildlife rehabilitators.

I have been a state and federally permitted rehabilitator since 1985. I do not want readers of The Register-Guard to think that the woman profiled represents the typical rehabilitator. She works hard, has a big heart and is a great champion for wildlife in an area that seriously lacks wildlife care. But she is not a federally licensed rehabilitator, nor does she have the required federal approvals for her nonreleasable education birds.

My main concerns, though, are about knowledge and skills. Her diets need serious improvement, a 20 percent release rate is unusually low, raccoons should not be running around with her dog and eating out of sugar bowls - under state regulations and common sense - and raptors with broken wings can often be fixed with the appropriate veterinary intervention.

Despite her claim that Fozzy "can do things most owls can't," all great horned owls bark (an alarm call), whinny (a distress call) and bathe (without thinking they're ducks!). She clearly hasn't worked with many owls.

There are books and national training that teach nutrition, care and housing, and I strongly support her getting the right permits, networking with other rehabilitators (such as the excellent facility in Pendleton) and continuing to do what she does. She is needed but could do a lot more good if she learns to care correctly for the animals she loves.

LOUISE SHIMMEL

Executive Director

Cascades Raptor Center

Eugene

Bush tries to make a difference

Would any of you simply walk by a starving child or pass by a disabled person on the street who was unable to move without being stepped on? Would you wash your dishes, children and clothes in creeks polluted with waste and raw sewage or scrape maggots from your food and then eat it?

To the privileged teenagers of the world, I'd like to send a bucket of sand that has been trampled under the bare feet of Third World children who are bloated with starvation, infested with lice, starved for attention and neglected out of necessity. They can scatter it on the carpet in their private bedrooms, or use it for kitty litter or put their marijuana cigarettes out in it or throw it in the faces of the adults who they feel refuse to listen to them or try to understand their problems.

To those of you who read about all the horror of the world for entertainment's sake and then simply shake your heads and pretend it isn't true, I send my sympathy for your inability to read between the lines that describe the reality of a world which is beyond your understanding.

I'm sending a thank-you to President Bush and our troops for trying to make a difference.

PATRICK ROELLE SR.

Winchester Bay

Bush needs to do more reading

Does anyone else wonder what President George Bush is talking about when he states that democratic countries don't go to war with one another? That they are peace-loving countries?

As I recall, we are a semi-democracy, and we have invaded at least five countries and warred with them in the past 25 years. That is more than all the other major powers combined.

Which democracy was he alluding to? I guess this is just another example of what happens when one doesn't read. Bush needs to get "Hooked on Phonics" ASAP.

LESLIE MARTI

Eugene