Dear Editor:
Last week I ended my letter questioning what we would do if in a year from now we find out that vaccine boosting is harmful to the human body. Well, we don’t have to wait a year. The New York Times recently reported that medical experts had advised caution before Israel approved a fourth COVID-19 vaccine injection, warning that too many shots might actually harm the body’s ability to fight the virus by causing “immune system fatigue.”
Putting the issue of boosting aside for a moment, our vaunted infectious disease experts have almost unanimously recommended that we now vaccinate all children ages five and up. My question to them is simple: Where is your data to support this universal recommendation?
Per the CDC, as of 12/15/2021 there have been 655 “COVID” deaths of people between the ages of 0 and 17. In July 2021, Dr. Marty Makary, the widely respected surgeon and professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, pointed out in a Wall Street Journal article that the CDC, which has 21,000 employees, had not researched each death to find out whether the deaths were COVID-related or whether the virus exacerbated a child’s pre-existing medical condition.
Public access to CDC data via FOIA requests has been fruitless, raising the question of whether the data supporting the conclusion to vaccinate all healthy children is incomplete or perhaps non-existent altogether. Additionally, what data supports that a child’s immune system is ill prepared and at risk for infection absent a COVID vaccine?
Interestingly, the CDC’s reliance upon studies from abroad for the development of domestic public health policy seems to run contrary the CDC’s “Pledge to the American People,” specifically, to “Base all public health decisions on the highest quality scientific data that is derived openly and objectively…”
In contrast to the CDC, Dr. Makary’s research team at Johns Hopkins conducted a thorough study between April and August 2020 of 48,000 COVID patients under age 18 and found a mortality rate of zero in children without a pre-existing medical condition.
Just this past week, nearly two years into the COVID pandemic, the CDC remarkably released a study of 915 cases of COVID-19 in adolescents, ages 12-17, that required hospitalization. Two-thirds had at least one underlying health condition and more than 60% were severely obese.
The findings of Dr. Makary’s and the CDC’s studies are hardly compelling evidence to justify universal vaccination of all children. The studies suggest a more measured, narrowly tailored, common sense approach, such as providing vaccinations to children with underlying conditions.
It may be fairly concluded that the CDC never lets data get in the way of their universal vaccination agenda or private market accommodations. In fact, they are not above gimmicking the numbers to further public fear and consumption of the vaccine. In an interview last week, Dr. Fauci essentially confirmed the CDC’s inflation of COVID numbers. Dr. Fauci stated that “If a child goes into the hospital, he or she automatically gets tested for COVID, and get counted as a COVID-hospitalized individual. When in fact he or she may go in for a broken leg or appendicitis or something like that. So, it’s overcounting the number of children who are “hospitalized” with COVID as opposed to because of COVID.”
If the first casualty in all of the CDC’s myriad of public policy positions is the truth, should we be bound by their recommendations? The bigger issue, though, is should we be trusting doctors who say they are “following CDC guidelines?” Is it because their medical license would be placed at risk if they stated otherwise?
Jason Stark
Dear Editor:
The following people who were instrumental in founding our KGH Mikveh were inadvertently omitted from last week’s article: Rabbi Fabian Schonfeld zt”l, Mr. Leon Blatt a”h, who held the first meeting at his home, and Arthur (Archie) Reich and ybl”ch Nat Geller, who gave of their legal services to the mikveh. Thank you, Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld, for pointing out these omissions.
S. Garber
Keep Those Letters Coming!
Dear Editor:
Congratulations to my fellow 2021 Letter to the Editor writers. Surveys reveal that “Letters to the Editor” is one of the most widely read and popular sections of any newspaper.
Most newspapers will print letters submitted by any writer, regardless of where they live, so long as the topic is relevant to readers.
It helps to have a snappy introduction, good hook, be timely, precise, have an interesting or different viewpoint to increase your odds of being published. Many papers welcome letters commenting on their own editorials, articles, or previously published letters to the editor.
I continue to be grateful that you afford both me and my fellow letter-writers the opportunity to express our views, as well as differing opinions on issues of the day.
Please join me along with your neighbors in continuing to read the Queens Jewish Link. Patronize their advertisers; they provide the revenues necessary to keep them in business. This helps pay to provide space for your favorite or not-so-favorite letter writers.
Sincerely,
Larry Penner
Long-Time Reader and Frequent Letter-Writer
Dear Editor:
As a regular QJL reader, I have become accustomed to Warren Hecht’s take on political matters, including his virulent anti-Trump opinions and defense for all things Democrat.
While reading Mr. Hecht’s opening few sentences of his “Lost Opportunity” column last week, where he states, “There is plenty of blame to go around. There have been many blown chances to change the dynamic,” I naively expected a reflection on the disastrous past year we have endured under the Biden administration, specifically with respect to his failure to unite the country. Instead, I read about Donald Trump, January 6, Republicans, COVID-19, the media, and “Let’s Go Brandon.” Perhaps after addressing all of these red herrings, Mr. Hecht simply ran out of steam or used up the space quota for his column, but conspicuously absent was any blame for perhaps the most divisive President in American history: Joe Biden.
Biden ran for President on a moderate platform, and in his inauguration speech he promised, “I will be a president for all Americans. And I promise you, I will fight as hard for those who did not support me as for those who did.” Yet on Day One, Biden quickly pivoted hard left, essentially adapting socialist Bernie Sanders’ playbook for many policy prescriptions. Instead of uniting the country, he alienated almost half the country from the get-go.
The list of things Biden has done to divide the country has to start with his divisive rhetoric on race. Biden has a decades-long history of making overtly racist remarks. In a lame attempt at pandering to minorities, perhaps to make up for his many prior misdeeds, Biden labeled white supremacists as “the most lethal terror threat in the homeland.” With radical Islamic terror alive and well, enemy countries such as China and Russia always lurking, and fresh off the heels of BLM burning down huge swaths of the country, this claim is preposterous on its face. Even worse is his administration’s attempt at uprooting so called “systemic racism,” which seeks to divide us as oppressors and victims, based solely on skin color.
Biden’s initial take on the Kyle Rittenhouse killings, using a political ad to insinuate that the white-on-white incident was due to “white supremacy,” was completely baseless but in line with the President’s propensity for divisiveness.
Biden’s pressuring Major League Baseball to move its All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver over a voting integrity law that he absurdly termed a “21st century Jim Crow assault” on voting rights was as obtuse as it was divisive, as the hundreds of millions of dollars in All-Star Game revenue was redirected from a city with a 50% African American population to a city with a 10% African American population.
The President’s actions and rhetoric on the pandemic has been no less divisive. His constitutionally dubious vaccine mandate pitted the vaccinated against the unvaccinated while crushing many already struggling small businesses. His labeling of the unvaccinated as public health dangers has sown division even amongst family members.
Mr. Hecht’s glaring omission notwithstanding, it is the current President who is most culpable for the current toxic political climate we live in.
Shlomo Dovid Benhaim
Dear Editor:
In Moshe Hill’s piece (“Can New York Be Considered a Police State?”), he casually makes a comment about “how little the vaccines do.” I believe he meant that COVID vaccines don’t protect people from getting the Omicron variant. While that’s true, he failed to qualify that statement by expressing how vital these vaccines have been in saving thousands from hospitalization and death. When vaccinated people get Omicron, in the vast majority of cases, they experience nothing more than the symptoms of a mild cold.
While as a conservative I often agree with Hill, he frequently cites problems with vaccine mandates (by individual employers). As a true Trumpist, he views the urgency of employees getting vaccinated as an assault on freedom. However, since COVID is so contagious, when someone refuses to get vaccinated, he not only places himself in danger, but he is also jeopardizing those around him. That being considered one’s “freedom” is quite worthy of criticism.
Anti-vaxxers are keeping COVID around far longer than need be.
Arlene Ross
Forest Hills, New York
Dear Editor:
I would like to respond to Eli Azulai’s letter in last week’s paper. Mr. Azulai relates the history of infectious diseases and immunity provided by getting sick, and believes that having prior infection to COVID-19 makes one immune to subsequent infections. Perhaps Mr. Azulai is unaware that a rapidly mutating virus such as influenza or SARSCOV2 has an easier time evading prior immune memory – antibodies generated by a previous infection – and that the Omicron strain of SARSCOV2 has a number of mutations that make it easier to evade antibodies. A vaccine is in a nutshell a faux infection; you are exposing your body’s immune system to a pathogen without the risk of illness accompanied by an actual infection to a live virus. Vaccines are also designed to stimulate stronger antibody production, and stronger B and T cells than would be accompanied by a real illness.
Certainly, prior exposure and recovery from COVID-19 offers a better immune response against another infection than zero prior exposure; but your assertion that it provides better protection than vaccines is quite unfounded.
Yehuda H.
Dear Editor:
Kol HaKavod to the Queens Jewish Link for publishing Goldy Krantz’s column and her advice to Briendy, who suspects her friend of being emotionally abused by her chasan. Goldy admitted not to being an expert and pointing Briendy to those who can help her figure out what’s happening with her friend, professionals. It takes a lot for someone to admit when they aren’t the expert of a topic, they think it makes them look stupid. Making up an answer looks stupid. Goldy did the right thing, researched some signs if a relationship is emotionally abusive to one of the people in the relationship, and pointed Briendy in the direction of calling Shalom Task Force.
Goldy does not shy away from topics that we in the frum community may whisper about. I love reading Goldy’s column for its humor. I like how Goldy writes, almost as if she is speaking directly to the reader. And I love that she takes on the topics that must be spoken about with our children. If we don’t talk to them, who will? What will they find out? My husband and I had this discussion and others with our children before they began dating. It is vital!
Rochel Eisen
Dear Editor:
Thank you Goldy for publishing the article about abuse. As you said, dating has a serious side that people have to be aware of and abuse is the ugly side. The fact that you use your platform to inform and educate and not just try to be funny is important. I hope every man and woman reads it. Abuse can happen in many ways. It’s good to know where to find help.
Also, I thought it was very smart to place the ad for Shalom Task Force underneath Goldy’s column this past week.
Bracha Goldman
Dear Editor:
What is it with Mr. Hecht’s and the Democrats’ faux outrage over January 6? Two weeks in row he focused his column on that. First, it wasn’t an “insurrection.” Only one person was killed, and it was at the hands of a police officer. The circumstances surrounding that shooting have never been investigated. Nobody was armed: no bombs, no guns found on any person arrested, and they were charged with criminal trespass. Some 2,400 American soldiers died on Omaha Beach. 2,403 soldiers died at Pearl Harbor. Almost 3,000 people were killed on 9/11. And there were roughly 620,000 casualties during the Civil War. Let those numbers sink in a little bit before we start marking January 6 as anything more than it was. A bad stain in American history but we’ve had a lot worse. And everyone on the right condemned what occurred. So, get over it.
As for the committee “investigating” what occurred, you currently have two lawsuits filed, one by Steve Bannon and the other by Mark Meadows, saying that releasing documents will breach Constitutionally protected Executive privilege. Another lawsuit filed by former Trump attorney and Constitutional scholar John Eastman says the entire committee is a fraud, because it’s not following its own rules by not having any Republican-appointed members, as well as violating several amendments. You also have an ideological, partisan Attorney General and DOJ who have brought charges against those three individuals after Congress voted to find them in contempt, despite the ongoing litigation. Eric Holder and Lois Lerner were both found in contempt of Congress, yet they never faced any federal criminal charges.
See, Mr. Hecht, this whole thing is a charade to take everyone’s attention off what is really going on. Living today is much more difficult than it was two-to-three years ago and that’s just a fact. The foreign policy of this President is a disaster. Russia, China, and Iran are all on the move. Domestically, the Biden administration has completely upended any economic growth potential. Inflation, regulations, and supply-chain issues are killing both businesses and the common man. Look how much more it costs to fill your car with gas or heat your home. Grocery shelves are bare! The varieties and abundance are gone. Citizens are treated as domestic terrorists, and criminals are let out due to no cash bail laws. Murder and other violent crimes are through the roof in Democrat-run cities and states. That is why the Democrats, the mainstream media, and Mr. Hecht are still focused on January 6. It’s because a look at what’s really going on will end up in a monster red wave in November.
Shalom Markowitz
