Letters: Go after the physician, not the vaccine

This letter is in response to your “Teesto family says death of loved one linked to vaccine” (Dec. 9, 2021).

Reading the story struck a familiar chord with my own loved one. You see, when my late sister was 12, she was constantly suffering from dizziness, nausea and intermittent vision loss for months.

By the time her pediatrician realized it was a brain tumor, the damage was irreversible, and she lost her sight permanently and only lived another 10 years.

After being referred to neurologists, they would often ask my mother why it took so long to diagnose my sister. She didn’t have an answer then, but I have one now – systemic racism.

The concept of systemic racism in health care is basically when a physician doesn’t listen to a patient’s complaints and concerns in a very patronizing way, as if you were a child or a simpleton.

You could be in agony, and they nod then tell you to go home and take aspirin or antacids. The statistics on systemic racism mortality in health care are staggering. We are human beings, not some subspecies. We don’t have higher pain tolerances or some other nonsense. We deserve quality care.

If I could, I would tell the Dickson family it would be so easy to place blame for his death on the COVID vaccine, but it sounds like Randolph Dickson’s health-care provider is to blame.

Reading through the article, it appears that Randolph Dickson’s doctors are negligent and failed to address his symptoms. There are doctors out there who care about their patients, but there are also doctors who don’t listen to patients’ complaints and concerns because you are a minority.

So please listen when I tell you to go after the physician, not the vaccine.

Germaine Martinez
Standing Rock, N.M.

One percent class doesn’t know how to act

It is clear that members of the 1% class do not know how to act responsibly with their tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in yearly disposable income. They invest in large corporations rather than small businesses.

They invest in American companies who have moved their operations to China. They impose usurious interest rates on the working poor.

They invest in news media conglomerates that distort reality, and food conglomerates that sell harmful products and services. They invest in energy companies that do little during the climate crisis.

The luxury class invests in industries that are popular with Americans, but destructive to democratic character, like professional sports, superficial entertainment, gambling, vaping, social media and video gaming.

They fail to invest in public education, having no need for it. Instead, they use private schools and later pay bribes to get their children into private universities.

They resist investing in public health care, welfare, and criminal justice programs, because they have their own exclusive world of services to care for them apart from the rest of society.

Kimball Shinkoskey
Woods Cross, Utah

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