Does agency need private charity?

Regarding the Monday article, "County hopes to slow disease": The fact the Snohomish Health District had to go to a private charitable foundation to ask for money for whooping cough vaccine causes me concern. It's fortunate we have such a resource in our community, but the mandate of the health district is to provide for basic disease prevention as a benefit for the entire community, and costs should be anticipated and paid for by our public funding.

If the answer is budget cuts, then I must ask if this a failure of the County Council and Health Officer Dr. Gary Goldbaum, or a wake-up call that we are not funding a basic need (vaccination to reduce or eliminate spread of an identified infectious disease) in our community.

My hope is articles like Monday's will encourage us to talk with our leaders and that part of the conversation will be about spending our tax dollars to adequately support our essential public health needs.

Carl Nelson
Lake Stevens