LETTERS: Mother Teresa, Obama and BP, and more

Landmark lights up for the wrong causes

The writer of a recent letter unfortunately sees nothing wrong when Empire State Building owner Anthony Malkin declines to light the building in honor of the 100th birthday of Mother Teresa.

Let's remember that Mother Teresa was voted most admired woman in our nation. She also received the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. By contrast, Malkin agreed to light up the Empire State Building only last year to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the communists coming to power in China. Need one say any more?

Thomas E. Dennelly

Sayville

Give Obama a break on BP

President Barack Obama is in a very difficult place - BP and the other oil giants lied to the government for decades about their ability to drill safely, even on land or in shallow water, and lied about their ability to clean up should an accident occur . Do some Americans really expect the president to swim down a mile deep in the Gulf and plug BP's oil gusher?

Many critics seem to have an agenda that has little to do with the president's policies or ability, an agenda that is not in the interest of most Americans. We need to understand that with all the competing interests in the Gulf, along with the decades of oil-money corruption and misrepresentation, there are few easy answers there.

Robert W. Mays

Freeport

MMR vaccine not connected to autism

A recent report contained misleading information. It is true that the documentary in which Jenny McCarthy appeared was about the "controversy over a claimed but highly disputed connection between the measles/mumps/rubella vaccine and autism," and that her autistic son Evan was diagnosed with the disease after receiving the vaccine. However, the article allows readers to conclude that there might be a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism. Numerous epidemiological studies following a discredited report, since retracted, did not find any evidence to support such a causal relationship.

Failure to vaccinate young children puts them at unnecessary risk of death or seriously disabling disease from infectious agents.

Janet Hearing

Stony Brook

Editor's note: The writer is an associate professor in the department of molecular genetics and microbiology at Stony Brook University School of Medicine.