Thursday’s Letters to the Editor

Fentanyl’s toll

EDITOR: Staff Writer Nashelly Chavez’s June 6 article about the fentanyl crises was so beautifully written and touching (“Fentanyl grips the county”). It brought home the damage to people and their loved ones with this drug and disease. Stories like the Fouche family provide an honest and heartbreaking look at what is lost. Thank you and the writer for publishing and bringing this story to the front page and our awareness.

SYDNEY MOY

Petaluma

Sanctions needed

EDITOR: Regarding the outrageous behavior exhibited by coaches, players and parents from Maria Carrillo High School during their baseball with Petaluma High, there needs to be specific and concrete actions for the participants’ unacceptable behavior (“Parents, fans at baseball fracas poor role models,” June 5).

I believe the coaches need to be fired, the players suspended and the parent’s names and pictures published.

Just as the Trump lunatics who stormed the Capitol must pay the price for their illegal activities, unless those involved in this dangerous and embarrassing incident at a high school baseball game learn that their actions come with consequences others will not be deterred from repeating what rational people know to be wrong and unacceptable.

Please report on the specific actions both schools have taken to ensure that this will never occur again.

BRUCE ROBB

Sebastopol

Shaky logic

EDITOR: Well, according to Jordan Newkirk’s logic — COVID-19 policies failed, just look at all the deaths — we should eliminate all traffic regulations (“Failed policies,” Letters, June 5). After all, we have over 35,000 fatalities annually, so the rules obviously don’t work. I guess we should eliminate schools too, because they’re obviously failing in their job of teaching people how to think.

ROBERT HAUSEN

Freestone

A privacy violation

EDITOR: By now a lot of us have heard about Gavin Newsom’s latest taxpayer-funded program, “Vax for the win.” Anyone who’s vaccinated against COVID-19 is eligible to be put into a hat for cash prizes, payments anywhere from $50,000 to $1 million in cold, hard cash. You don’t even need to sign up; you’re already registered as soon as you get your vaccine.

Wait just a darn minute.

There is no sign-up process and no proof of vaccine to present. This means that the California government has a list of every single person who has taken even one dose, along with the phone numbers and email addresses they were pressured to provide. Now, I won’t argue about the legitimacy of the vaccine in this letter, I’ll leave that for you to decide, but is this not a blatant violation of patient privacy and the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act?

Hipaajournal.com says it’s a HIPAA violation for health care providers to disclose information to other entities “unless the individual had provided authorization to do so.”

Your privacy isn’t for sale. Yet Newsom and his cronies wish to bribe the public with their own money to give up their rights as patients. Recognize this and act.

WEST BELOW

Santa Rosa

The vaccine the 1950s

EDITOR: I was seven years old. My father was a doctor. One day in 1954 he came home and gave me a “shot” — the polio vaccine. He had finagled one of the earliest vials of the vaccine developed in 1953 and there was not one second of hesitation about giving the vaccine.

I understand that it is popular to judge all past events through todays opinion and mores, but you are off base if you think the '50s were like today (anti-vaccine). Americans embraced science and medical cures — they were terrified by polio - and they did not hesitate to take the polio vaccine.

Your article ("Doctor, now 93, helped lead polio vaccine drive", June 6) is the proof. By your figures, Sonoma County had 51,000 vaccinated in 1957. That was already over 70% (herd immunity) and more than the 27,000 who lived in Santa Rosa. In 1957-1958 almost 90% of Sonoma County was vaccinated.

No, it was not, like today, difficult to get people vaccinated in the 50s. People were tripping over each other to get their kids vaccinated.

ROGER DELGADO

Sebastopol

Racial history matters

Editor: I would like to thank the members of Santa Rosa Republican Women Federated, particularly Sandy Metzger, for their example of why it is vital to teach critical race theory. (“Sociological claptrap”, June 8)

It seems these women believe racism is somehow buried in the past, a relic of bygone times. Accordingly, I’ll stick to recent history.

Less than eighty years ago, Executive Order 9066 mandated the internment of American citizens of Japanese descent. The Supreme Court upheld this.

“Letter from a Birmingham Jail” was written not sixty years ago by Dr. King. He didn’t advocate for “color-blindness”, but instead asked for white people to devote themselves to justice rather than order.

Twenty years ago this September, America was attacked. That week, terrible violence was inflicted on American Muslims and Sikhs, a direct result of racist stereotyping and fearmongering.

Finally, Asian Americans have suffered a rise in hate crimes perpetrated against them during the pandemic. From Atlanta to San Francisco, Americans have been bullied, harassed, and killed simply for their heritage.

I am glad they raise the issue of critical race theory being taught, because it is clear they could stand to learn.

PATRICK COLFORD

Rohnert Park

You can send letters to the editor at letters@pressdemocrat.com.