Misinformation

by Wayne Adair, Hamilton

For more than 20 years I have enjoyed and appreciated the local news provided by the Bitterroot Star and its staff of news professionals. Probably my favorite component of the newspaper is the Opinion section that keeps me in touch with the thoughts and opinions of my fellow Bitterrooters. 

The extremely conservative nature of many of these letters often makes me roll my eyes to the point of ocular exhaustion, but their opinions are part of life in this beautiful valley.

Opinions are one thing; misinformation, especially pernicious misinformation intended to mislead me and my neighbors, is something else entirely. I refer specifically to the letter written by Doug Bohn published in the Oct. 27 edition.

He writes, “According to the government’s own official VARES (Vaccine Adverse Reaction Reporting System) (sic) who’s (sic) own records state that the statistics shown represent as little as 10% of the actual cases, reports as of a few days ago the “vaccine” has caused 1,624,532, including 16,766 DEATHS. “

This is not true, provably, reliably untrue. Five minutes of research online on my part found the following:

The federal Health and Human Services website includes this disclaimer:

“VAERS accepts reports of adverse events and reactions that occur following vaccination. Healthcare providers, vaccine manufacturers, and the public can submit reports to the system. While very important in monitoring vaccine safety, VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness. The reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable. In large part, reports to VAERS are voluntary, which means they are subject to biases. This creates specific limitations on how the data can be used scientifically. Data from VAERS reports should always be interpreted with these limitations in mind.”

Even a cursory reading of this disclaimer makes it clear there is no cause-and-effect relationship between vaccinations and subsequent deaths, as the letter’s author claims.

I will give Mr. Bohn the benefit of the doubt and assume it was an honest mistake. Having said that, when someone presents information that could influence people to make bad healthcare decisions based on false data, they have the responsibility to know what they are talking about.