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Story only tells half
of professor’s story
The story on the firing of a UC Irvine employee who refused to follow policy and lost a legal case to oppose that policy (“UC system fires physician who challenged COVID-19 vaccine mandate in lawsuit,” Dec. 31) is shockingly bad. It relies entirely on the statements of the employee who makes easily refuted false claims about COVID-19, vaccines and vaccine mandates. There is literally no fact-checking, so your report has the effect of spreading the lie that so-called “natural immunity” stops reinfection (it doesn’t) and that vaccinated people shed more virus than unvaccinated when infected (they don’t).
Vaccine mandates provide a way to break the chain of transmission of the virus. That would help prevent the emergence of new variants which has kept us limited for going on two years.
The lack of comment from actual experts advances damage to public health which requires social responsibility. The media need to be the first to show that.
Rosemary Joyce
Berkeley
On Jan. 6, a chance
to stand for democracy
This Thursday, led by nonprofit Public Citizen, over 250 nonpartisan Voting Rights Vigils will be held throughout the country.
Hundreds of political scientists are sounding an alarm that without the passage of voting rights legislation, democracy as we know it in the United States, will end. Please don’t wait till it’s too late.
Join millions of others to let our legislators know that in the United States, voters, not politicians, decide the outcome of elections. Without the passage of voting rights legislation, that will no longer be true.
Laurie Grossman
Oakland
‘Feel-good’ story reminds
of rodeo’s brutality
Re. “Seeking opportunities, a cowgirl takes to the road,” Page A2, Dec. 29:
How ironic (and sad) that a loving mother of three young children would choose to spend her time abusing terrified baby calves at the rodeo.
Every animal welfare organization condemns rodeo for its inherent cruelty. For the majority of the animals, the rodeo arena is merely a detour en route to the slaughterhouse. Most of the rodeo is bogus from the get-go. Real working ranch hands never routinely rode bulls, or wrestled steers, or rode bareback, or barrel raced, or practiced calf roping as a timed event. Nor did they put flank straps on the animals, or work them over in the holding chutes with “hotshots,” kicks and slaps. Rodeo is not a “sport” — it’s a macho exercise in domination.
The United Kingdom and the Netherlands have outlawed rodeos. Can the United States be far behind? Rodeo has had its brutal day, and now — like those Confederate statues — belongs in the dustbin of history.
Eric Mills
Oakland
U.S. must take lead
on Afghanistan aid
Kudos for publishing Sean Callahan’s appeal to address the catastrophic food shortages now threatening the majority of Afghanistan’s people (“The future of Afghanistan lies in our hands,” Page A13, Jan. 2).
After two years of extreme drought causing widespread crop failures, 23 million Afghanis face hunger and outright starvation. Despite dire warnings from the UN and the World Food Program, our mainstream media have ignored this looming disaster, preferring to focus exclusively on reports of human rights violations by the Taliban. Meanwhile, our government has refused to permit the release of $9.5 billion in Afghanistan’s reserves desperately needed to pay the salaries of public sector workers. This, in conjunction with a boycott of most humanitarian aid, has hamstrung Afghan efforts to prevent mass starvation.
It is unconscionable to use the suffering of millions of helpless people to gain leverage on the Taliban. We must immediately release Afghanistan’s reserves to its government and take the lead in restoring humanitarian aid to its people.
Michael Dunlap
Oakland
Further protection
for state’s patients
I read with interest the article on Dec. 31 explaining that a federal ban on surprise medical bills goes into effect in 2022 (“Federal law on surprise medical bills takes effect Jan. 1,” Pag A2). These bills affect patients who seek care at an in-network facility but find that some services at the facility, such as lab work or anesthesia, are provided not by employees, but by contractors, who then bill the patient at out-of-network rates.
The new law correctly recognizes these as billing disputes between the service provider and the insurance company, requires that they resolve the dispute through negotiation or arbitration, and bans billing the patient. This is indeed good news, but the article could have gone further, explaining that this practice has been banned in California since 2017, by the law AB 72. Notwithstanding AB 72, some providers continue to send surprise bills to Californians, banking that many of us may not be aware of our legal rights.
John Dowding
Hollister
Source: www.mercurynews.com