Letter to the editor: Good decisions are based on facts that can be traced back to origin

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I would like to respond to Carley Meuchel’s letter to the editor in the Feb. 22 edition of The Reflector.

In that letter, Meuchel stated the COVID pandemic was all about control and taking freedoms away from the citizens. She stated that according to Dr. Naomi Wolf, a young woman’s reproductive system is changed forever with a multitude of seen and unforeseen issues after receiving the vaccine. I am a retired registered nurse and found this statement to be interesting so I researched Wolf.

The information I found about Wolf is that she is a doctor of philosophy from Oxford and she is not a medical doctor. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has published a paper, titled “News and Views: Reproductive Health and COVID-19 Vaccines” dated May 25, 2021, which states, “The bottom line is that no data indicate that male or female fertility is affected by COVID-19 disease or vaccination.” I prefer to live my life by the science and data collected in a scientific way. Where does Wolf obtain her data?

As for “our freedoms being taken away,” isn’t freedom also a responsibility? The vaccine is no guarantee that a person will not contract COVID, however, it is extremely likely one will have a milder case of COVID than if they had not been vaccinated. Does everyone who is not vaccinated get severe symptoms? No they do not, however, there is enough scientific data that indicates vaccination prevents a more severe case of COVID and “long haulers” after effects.

I have often heard someone say, “I am not getting the vaccine because my uncle got it and died from a heart attack the next week.” So does that mean I am not going to go for a run because my friend had a heart attack after he ran? My question is what were the variables involved with these situations? Were these people going to have a heart attack anyway? What were their medical conditions, what were the variables involved?



A totally healthy person is not going to have a heart attack, etc., after a vaccine and is not going to die after a jog. A huge reason for having the mass of humanity to be vaccinated is for herd immunity. Herd immunity is when a high proportion of the population is immunized consequently protecting those in the population who are medically fragile and cannot receive a vaccine for a medical reason.

What is freedom? Does it mean we can do what we want, when we want, with no regard to consequences? I would call that type of freedom irresponsible. Patrick Henry said, “United we stand, divided we fall. Let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs.”

Good decisions are based on facts that can be traced back to their origin. We all need to make sure our decisions are based on the truth, not the false narrative that seems to have grabbed so many people’s attention these days.

Jan Paullin,

Brush Prairie