Unfortunately, this pandemic has exposed the worst in our citizens and residents. It has politicized what in the past would be considered common sense and empathy. It is difficult for me to comprehend how individuals who are working, or preparing to work, in a health care setting are willing to resign from their jobs or studies to avoid being vaccinated.
I am a retired physician and professor at a teaching medical center. Students are encouraged to be skeptical and show intellectual curiosity when presented with newly published studies and new technologies. Students and practitioners need to be critical thinkers; they need to understand the scientific method; assess, or get help assessing, the data that is being presented; realize that science is constantly changing as a result of new information and discoveries. We need to recognize our biases, and be intellectually honest when our preconceived beliefs are not shown to be valid. We certainly need to be able to assess the harms and benefits of the choices we need to make.
Students and practitioners need to do the hard work that is required of finding credible sources upon which to base our decisions. Students are constantly being tested about their medical knowledge while in school. When they have graduated and are confronted with various diseases, life becomes an “open book” test. Unfortunately, those who have chosen to resign or discontinue their studies because they refuse to be vaccinated have failed their most basic coursework: the study of public health. It is better for all of us, including their patients, that they move on to seek another profession.
PAUL MANGANIELLO
Norwich
The writer is an emeritus professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth.
Forum contributor Corlan Johnson asked if we need nurses who don’t believe science and don’t care enough to get vaccinated. (“Do we really need nurses who discount science?” Sept. 30). Maybe they know more than we do about the science of the vaccine, and the lasting effects. We get information about the vaccine from Big Pharma and the government.
In the same issue, Forum contributor David Goldberg wrote: “Because of climate change, our planet is burning up” (“Ignoring climate change fire”). Maybe it is a natural result of our disobedience to and rejection of a righteous God, as 2 Peter 3:10 says: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.”
JEAN LIEPOLD
Grantham
Where are the arrests for the people who forced New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu to cancel the recent Executive Council meeting (“Vaccine protest disrupts meeting,” Sept. 30)? They made violent threats; they went beyond free speech at an official public meeting. Their names and photographs are in the newspapers.
Will the makeup meeting have police protection?
DON BUCK
Orford
Many say the Jan. 6 insurrection was nowhere near as bad as Sept. 11, 2001. Really? Sept. 11 was perpetrated by fanatical terrorists from outside of our country and brought all Americans together. The insurrection was a group of fanatical terrorists from within our country, and it has hardly brought us together. It has divided us even more. Together we stand. Divided we fall.
JIM DAIGLE
Plainfield
I wrote to all my representatives, telling them that they should remove their blinders and listen to us, the people.
Forget the parliamentarians, special interests and especially the traitorous proposal of removing some of the Build Back Better Act’s most popular provisions. Poll the constituents and represent them. And when it comes time to vote, promote that unmodified will of the people. Meanwhile, they should convince their peers to do likewise. We have spoken.
KEVIN McEVOY LEVERET
White River Junction
That President Joe Biden wants gun control should come as no surprise to anyone, most especially any student of world history, as gun control has been a common desire among tyrants for hundreds of years now.
JIM NEWCOMB
North Haverhill
It was disheartening to see that 23 species have been declared extinct by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Sept. 30). But couldn’t you have found room to list them all, even if the original Associated Press article didn’t?
NANCY BIRKREM
Canaan