LTE – Janet Scepurek – 8-25-2021
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To The Editor:
I write in regard to the letter from Joann Utphall in the August 11th edition. The quote she provided from Michael Yeadon that “children are 50 times more likely to be killed by the covid vaccine than they are to be killed by the virus itself” just stunned me. I did a double take and triple take. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. It was completely 180 from everything we have been hearing constantly for the past year and a half.
Immediately sprang to my mind was an interview I saw on KARE 11 a few weeks ago. They interviewed a doctor from the Mayo Clinic Rochester, which is well known worldwide as the best of the best. He used his hands far apart to show the risks of covid, and his thumb and index finger were about 1/4 inch apart to show the risks of the vaccine.
This did not compute with Joann’s letter, so I researched Michael Yeadon. I suggest readers do their own research on Michael Yeadon, before believing one word of Joann’s letter!
Following the quote from Yeadon, Joann discusses the Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System. The statistics she quotes should be taken with a grain of salt, because anyone can put anything on there, and it doesn’t have to be true, and it doesn’t have to be related to the covid vaccine.
At this point, based on what I found in the above sources, I didn’t feel that JoAnn’s letter contained any credibility, so I therefore disregarded the rest of it.
Yeadon was no doubt referring to the original covid virus, as the Reuters articles were from 3-18-21 and 5-20-21. While I was reading Joann’s letter on August 11, Dr. Fauci was on the PBS Newshour saying, “we are dealing with a different virus now… more children are getting infected now… the disease may be more serious in kids…the virus is changing and we have to deal with that.”
Carlton, I was very disappointed to open my Tribune Press Reporter and see this kind of misinformation appear. Although it may be legally permissible to print erroneous information in a letter to the editor, I believe that you as Editor have a moral and ethical responsibility to provide the readers with context regarding the veracity of what they are about to read. I request that in the future you carefully fact check Joann’s letters to you, and that a disclaimer should be added to the “Letter to the Editor” (either in the header or similar to the Editor’s Note you added at the end of Cindy Krafve’s letter about the superintendent salary), especially if you personally do not fact-check information that is provided in letters to the editor. In this case, I would hate to see anyone neglect to get their child vaccinated by being duped by false information, if they assume it’s been fact-checked since it appears in their local newspaper. This is very important for the safety of children that the public not be misinformed. Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
Sincerely,
Janet Scepurek