I would like to reply to the letter of Jan. 29 from Jade Cady of Mossyrock.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said vaccines don’t work. He also says they should be tested and the results made available. His recommendation is that the Salk polio vaccine that has saved countless lives and disabilities since it was introduced in 1955 after testing should be studied for twenty years and then we can decide if it should be used.
If enough members of the community have been vaccinated, herd immunity will be achieved. So, yes, herd immunity can be created by vaccines.
Herd immunity can also be achieved if enough members of the community have been exposed to the disease by people who have it. The historical difference is that with vaccines you avoid the piles of dead bodies communities in pre-vaccine times had to dispose of before they achieved herd immunity.
Cady speaks of “measles parties” to expose and likely infect some children with the disease. Of course the children who did get measles could either die or have severe long-term health issues from the infection including massive damage to the immune system. Is Cady suggesting that bygone eras would have been well served by having “smallpox parties?” Or maybe the 1918 influenza epidemic could have been stemmed by a “Spanish flu party?”
Unfortunately, the people of American Samoa listened to Kennedy’s anti-vax nonsense and paid a heavy price for it in 2019 when a measles outbreak killed 83 people there, mostly children. His cousin, President Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline, is right about RFK, Jr. He is someone who seeks attention and power. As she also said, RFK, Jr.’s children are all vaccinated.
In the early, critical days of COVID-19, Trump did say it was a very minor thing. Long after people were dying by the thousands, Trump continued to downplay the severity of the problem because he thought it made him look bad.
He even suggested that the government should slow testing for COVID. On June 20, 2020, in Oklahoma he said, “When you’re testing to that extent you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases. So I said to my people,’ slow the testing down please.’”
He repeated that on other occasions.
It is Trump and his cult followers who seem to insist that America is a “hellscape” of wokeness and DEI “carnage” and that only Dear Leader Donald can fix it.
I also believe Trump serves the wealthy elite in America, not the kind of people who live in Lewis County. He is a clownishly insincere “Christian.” Does anyone think the Christmas tree industry will survive at its present scale in Lewis County without the labor of “illegal” immigrants? How about the roofing contractors?
I believe America is a beautiful country with predominantly good people but it is not the wartless, mythical country of early Hollywood movies or dime novels.
I believe we are blessed to have been born in a country that has been made truly great by more often than not following the facts, scientific and otherwise and intellectual inquiry in general.
It is not me who threatens that greatness.
Marty Ansley
Cinebar
