Readers write (April 25): Protecting children, medical devices, voter identification, dangerous driving

In early February, the Minnesota Senate agreed to cuts in child protection. In Minnesota, 4,742 children were abused and neglected in 2009, according to the state Department of Human Services. The child protection system is ultimately responsible for attending to these children and their families, and it's already stretched too thin.

The number of families needing child protection services far exceeds the number of workers available to effectively serve them. By approving these cuts, the Legislature would further stretch those resources.

I have worked with children who have lived in abusive environments. By cutting funds to child protection, the state would be sending a message to maltreated children that their realities aren't worth fully funding.

JESSICA CONVY, BLOOMINGTON

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I was glad to be quoted in your excellent article about the U.S. Senate hearing on medical devices, but a crucial statistic was misunderstood ("Med-tech's dilemma: Safety vs. innovation," April 17).

While experts all agree that the rate of high-risk recalls of medical devices is around 1 percent, that is not the rate of total recalls. Most recalls, including the recall of artificial hips that required painful surgery and rehab for the patient featured in your article, are designated by FDA as moderate-risk.

If you divide 3,360 by the 20,000 devices submitted for clearance or approval to the Food and Drug Administration during those same five years, according to the University of Minnesota's Ralph Hall, 17 percent of medical devices are recalled because of substantial risks, including risks that require surgical removal or that could be deadly.

The 17 percent rate is an underestimate, since Hall's 20,000 includes devices that were never approved for sale or sold in the United States.

It would make more sense to divide the number of recalls by the number of new devices approved for sale and on the U.S. market during those years, which is definitely lower than 20,000.

But even if we use Hall's denominator, a 17 percent recall sounds rather unacceptable, doesn't it? Who would choose a device with that recall rate if there were safer alternatives?

DIANA ZUCKERMAN, WASHINGTON, D.C.

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Letters to the editor provide a useful avenue for folks in our community to have their views and insights shared with a broader audience. Unfortunately, when those letters contain factual errors, it is a disservice to everyone.

This was the case with an April 18 letter titled, "Needs here at home, but money goes abroad." Despite what the author wrote, the city of Minneapolis has not sent funding to Somalia. Rather, a nonprofit has launched a campaign in partnership with the local Somali community to raise money to assist residents in Somalia.

STEVEN BOSACKER, MINNEAPOLIS CITY COORDINATOR

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I have served as an election judge in Maple Grove for going on 20 years, and I take it as a personal affront to all election judges, particularly in Maple Grove, that Zellers and Limmer feel there is any impropriety or dishonesty in the process involved in this "right" as a citizen.

This legislation will take away that right from many of our elderly. There are enough real problems that already exist.

Why is it necessary to create a problem that isn't there and slap election judges in the face?

JOHN WOLLUM, MAPLE GROVE

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Though he said he had misspoken on the radio because of the late hour, those are the moments when we reveal what we really believe to be true.

For this to come out of the mouth of the House speaker reveals the true goal of the majority in the Legislature to take away even more of the rights of minorities in the state.

BRIAN HILL, ST. PAUL

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As family lore would have it, my 89-year-old father, a child of the Depression and World War II veteran, began voting Republican only after President Truman planned to call up discharged soldiers and send them to fight the undeclared war in Korea.

He's never forgotten Truman's threat and has voted in the R column ever since. Today he is nearly immobile due to Parkinson's, and his driver's license lapsed years ago.

Now I'm worried that his beloved party is threatening to shut him out of what he considers a sacred obligation -- voting.

So I gathered him up in his wheelchair and trundled him over to the license bureau to resurrect his picture ID. I wonder how he'll feel about this new threat come next election.

GENE JANICKE, FOREST LAKE

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FLORIAN LAUER, ST. PAUL

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