Not sure if I should be gratified, surprised or disappointed, but it is interesting to see how my one letter to the editor of The Valley Voice back in February seems to STILL have legs and how yet one more response STILL misses the point.
My original letter appeared in The Valley Voice on February 23. I wrote two posts about it, here, and here, the latter after being attacked by Mr Joyce. In the intervening time, there have been one or two letters nearly every two weeks about this whole kerfuffle, on both sides of the aisle.
Once again, in the April 20th edition of The Valley Voice, yet another missive, this one from a Kris Wheeler (read it on page 5).
First, he claims that Mr Joyce's original article was merely a call for more study and better information about the adverse effects of vaccines on some people. Mr Joyce's article did nothing of the kind. It attempted to push, once again, illegitimate claims of serious harm caused by vaccines. What Mr Wheeler seems not to know is that ANY adverse reactions to vaccines ARE recorded and examined, carefully, to determine if there is anything that might raise alarms. Mr Wheeler uses wiggly words in phrases like "...the possibly vastly under-reported cases of negative vaccine reactions." and "If what Mr Joyce says is true...". Exactly. If anything that Mr Joyce said were true, then possibly there would be cause for alarm. Unfortunately for Mr Joyce and Mr Wheeler, neither of their contentions are true and the facts prove it.
Then, Mr Wheeler goes on to claim that the unvaxxed are NOT anti-vaccine. Huh. Prove it. And, just for the record, the COVID vaccines were NOT mandatory. It is true that some people needed to be vaccinated to occupy certain jobs, but many jobs have requirements and if one chooses not to meet those requirements, then it's pretty clear that one needs to look for a different job. I'm particularly thinking of healthcare workers here, people who work closely with medically compromised patients. Yes, they should be vaccinated and they should have a certain level of training. Why should they not? And if Mr Wheeler is possibly thinking of truckers who weren't allowed into Canada if they were unvaccinated, he should know that the US (and most other countries) had similar requirements. Perhaps he should take his complaint to the United Nations.
Finally, Mr Wheeler moves on to what he sees as my outrage and my insistence that in order for him to know "the truth" he must consult a website (ie: my blog). I'm not certain where he got the impression that I was outraged, but the antics of the anti-vaxx cult are certainly puzzling, disappointing and frustrating. And if Mr Wheeler feels demeaned by an invitation to read further (ie: my blog or a whole host of reputable sites), then it might explain why he knows so little about vaccines, the virus and public health. Perhaps if he read "websites" a bit more, especially ones that present accurate information, he might learn something.
My point was that The Valley Voice has, over the past 3 years, given a disproportionate amount of space to articles with an anti-vaccine leaning. In fact, I'm not aware of a single article in all that time that laid out the benefits of getting vaccinated. Perhaps there was a small one that I missed? As well, in the Voices from the Valley section, where contributors are cautioned to keep their articles short, I've noticed that some of the most long-winded and inaccurate that get space every edition are all against vaccines, public health directives and masks and go to great lengths to try and claim that the pandemic was a hoax and that all those people didn't actually die from the virus. If my article had attempted to include a decent amount of information in rebuttal to Mr Joyce's article, it would have been refused because of length. THAT's what I was referring to when I claimed that vaccines and their supporters can't get a "decent hearing" in The Valley Voice. I stick to that claim. Prove me wrong.
