Teaching moment springs from school's shared sadness

Half the kids in her second grade had been out that winter.

But no one imagined Marija Alumbaugh would never come back to Laurelhurst Elementary over something as simple as the flu.

It happened, though. The influenza led to heart inflammation called myocarditis, and in a matter of days in February 2007, the 8-year-old girl was gone.

Nearly two years later, Marija's death remains, understandably, a tender topic.

But the lesson that came from it? That, the folks at Laurelhurst feel better about.

Parents have started a series of after-school clinics to ensure that the Laurelhurst Elementary community is immunized. Students. Teachers. Parents.

Everyone.

At the first two clinics earlier this month, 340 parents and children showed up for shots that many had never bothered with before.

"Many of them were doing nothing," said Eliot Brenowitz, a UW professor of neurobiology and the father of two Laurelhurst Elementary students — one of them a classmate of Marija's.

But these are educated people, I said to Brenowitz. Why not get vaccinated?

Brenowitz blamed the "backlash" against vaccinations; the belief that they can lead to autism and other problems, even though, he said, studies have proved otherwise.

And it was not until this year, he said, that the Centers for Disease Control expanded its recommended vaccinations to include school-age children up to the age of 18.

Previously, the CDC recommended vaccination for children 6 months to 5 years and for children with chronic illnesses.

Then Marija passed away — the same month 7-year-old Sarah Horner of Kent, died, too, of flu-related myocarditis.

Brenowitz had to do something.

"We had half of our second grade out sick," he said. "Nobody gains from having 10 percent of the whole school out for a whole week.

"This is preventable, right?"

So last year, Brenowitz and then-PTA President Gaylene Pattinson recruited parents to form a PTA Health Advisory Committee at Laurelhurst.

They got Katterman's Pharmacy in Laurelhurst to reduce their vaccine prices for the school.

"They hand us the vaccine and we do the paperwork," Brenowitz said, adding that they also got some vaccines from Seattle Children's hospital.

The school got a core group of volunteer nurses (led by a parent) from Group Health Cooperative to administer the shots, along with donated nurses from Seattle Children's hospital and Virginia Mason Medical Center.

"It's really something," Brenowitz said of the clinics. "The parents feel like they are doing something constructive, and the kids understand that they are doing something good."

The first two clinics, Nov. 5 and 7, were for everyone at Laurelhurst.

The one to be held Dec. 11 from 3:20 to 6 p.m. is a booster clinic for children 9 and under.

The clinic is open only to the Laurelhurst Elementary families. But Brenowitz is happy to help other schools set up clinics of their own.

"We are a model for what other schools can put together," he said.

In the wake of one school's sadness, he added, "there is a lot of goodwill."

(The Immunization Action Coalition of Washington's Within Reach program offers Washington residents vaccination information and locations. Call The Family Health Hotline, 800-322-2588).

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Tuesday and Friday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

If only they didn't use needles ...