It would have been unthinkable in 1957, when I started teaching in Hermiston, for any person involved with school children to refuse showing they were free of tuberculosis. The certification necessary could be achieved through a Tuberculin Skin Test or a chest X-ray.

I first encountered this regulation in December 1954 when I accepted a job driving a school bus. While in college, before I could drive, I had to have a chauffeur’s license and a current certificate showing the date of my last chest X-ray. They would not let me do a TST because I had close contact with a person who was infectious with TB when I was 15.

Later, the care was necessary when our class went to observe teachers in the classroom and when I did my student teaching. While teaching, I had to renew my certification every three or four years. These mandates were accepted without question because we knew it involved the health of our children.

The Supreme Court in 1905 ruled that in matters of health the state has the authority to make laws to protect its citizens. This has been affirmed several times since. Smallpox vaccination was the original case, but I think we may have overdone it when we were still giving the vaccination until the 1970s. The last death in the US from smallpox was in 1949.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the death rate for tuberculosis in 1958 was 36.7 per 100,000. By the time I retired in 1990, the rate was below 6 per 100,000. “Statista” listed the death rate in Oregon for COVID-19 Oct. 14, 2021, are to be 97 per 100,000 with Oregon ranking No. 46. Mississippi was No. 1 on the same date and had a death rate of 333 per 100,000. The extent of that state’s management of the disease is the governor suggesting people get vaccinated. I guess their tolerance for death is a lot higher than Oregon’s.

For those who are so uncaring about the health of their students that they would quit teaching because they refused to get vaccinated, I have little sympathy. When I was teaching, the health and well-being of every child was my number one priority.

Now that I am older, I am also concerned that a child might bring the virus home and their grandparents might be one of the 97.

Carlisle Harrison

Hermiston