From the Publisher’s Desk: Why we value our readers

Dear readers:

I have had long conversations today with several people regarding the letter to the editor posted from Val Stewart regarding vaccine safety. I have spoken with readers of the site, those who write for me and independent third parties. I have also talked with the letter writer herself.

Based on those conversations, I am removing the letter, and I want to explain why.

First, let me reiterate why I do this work. I have always been committed to reflecting the opinions of all in our community. Which is why I allow a range of comments and letters and opinion pieces.

Second, I want to share that one of my writers, whom I have much respect for, pointed out that the letter in question was written in a way that did not come across as an opinion but as misinformation. The writer also noted that there is a heightened sensitivity in our nation right now to value factual information, even if expressed in an opinion format.

That writer is correct. And that is why I’m removing the letter.

I have also apologized to Ms. Stewart for not giving her better guidance on the importance of expressing her opinions in a well-researched and factual way. I will be creating some guidelines in a new letter to the editor policy coming soon.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a topic that is personal and raw for many. We have been telling stories for the past year about how much our residents have sacrificed, who have lost loved ones, those who are working very hard to keep their families, friends and co-workers safe.

Finally, in my TEDX talk last year, I spoke to why I value our readers and how they have our collective back as a news organization – which includes telling us when we’ve succeeded and when we’ve failed.

As always, I thank my readers for their honesty as they help us navigate how to cover our community.

Sincerely,
Teresa

  1. Thank you Teresa. Very well handled, beginning to end. Just what we’ve come to expect from you and MEN. Now I hope those few commenters who cancelled their “subscription” will quickly return.

  2. It may not make sense to everyone but you showed great wisdom in printing the letter and in taking it down. There were some valid arguments in both directions. People attacking you on this should be ashamed of themselves, in my opinion.

  3. Excellent choice to remove that letter. In a time when we must build vaccine confidence, the non-factual, non-scientific view isn’t needed. What is needed is a unified front to save individuals and get our community back to a sense of normal.

    1. Why must we “build vaccine confidence” in order to have a unified front?

      When a basic analysis (link below), without adjusting for age or other risk factors, reveals an average probability of death due to wild exposure of 0.012%, while chance of death induced by the shots is about 0.033%, we should be united in demanding greater vaccine safety or open scientific debate.

      What if we were united around promoting total health rather than focusing on “stopping the spread”?

      Link to statistics applied in analysis:
      https://myedmondsnews.com/2021/05/inslee-announces-two-week-pause-on-phases/#comment-309521

        1. It depends on which way you slice the data; readers should decide for themselves.

          That number offered by the CDC is reportedly calculated as though the number of deaths reported to VAERS represents 100% of the deaths attributed to the shots, then compared to the number of individuals who have received one or more shots.

          The number I calculated was based on an analysis by Global Research that the VAERS data likely represents only 10% of deaths from the shots (for perspective, with some childhood vaccines VAERS data is thought to only capture 1% of adverse events), and then comparing it to the number of people said to be fully-vaccinated.

        2. Stephanie, thank you. The CV-19 mortality rate (from the disease) is only 0.0017736…… exactly the same as the vaccine mortality rate? So the mortality rate would double exactly if we all got the vaccine?
          US mortality per 100,000 is 117.4:
          https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

        3. Brian, please provide your source for the claim that only 10% of the deaths attributed to the vaccine are captured.
          Matt, you’re off by a couple decimals. Percentages and raw numbers are not one in the same.

        4. Stephanie right on. The the vaccine is one-hundredth as deadly as the disease. Lol. This is terrifying. Why would anybody take it?

        5. I need to make an important correction to my statement- the rate of reported deaths of those vaccinated is 0.0017%. That is not the same the risk of dying from the vaccine. So, Brian to your point, your risk number is likely an inflated version of an already inflated number as a correlation between the vaccine and the deaths has not been found. I’m not going to go into a long drawn out argument about this. The vaccine is safe and has proven to be so. Those of you who choose not to take it, please be sure to thank those of us that have. We’re the reason we’ll be able to get back to normal. Matt, go ahead and move the goal posts again to win the argument. Seems to be your MO.

        6. Stephanie, is the math right or wrong? The vaccine is nearly exactly 1/100th as deadly as COVID 19? This assumes everyone can be be exposed to the disease, and assumes everyone will get vaccinated. I don’t want to move goal posts.

  4. Letters to Editor get burnt like books. Some of the information in her letter was wrong, some wasn’t. Chile is now experiencing a surge in people presenting to the hospital, even those who have been vaccinated. I dare say that the media has killed millions of people by collaborating with special interests, spreading misinformation about proven therapudics and prophylactics which were needed early on.

  5. Very well put Teresa. This is a great example of how we all learn more when we’re listening and open to constructive thoughts rather than simply criticizing & canceling. I remain an ardent supporter and subscriber for the in measurable value you bring to our community.

  6. Brian, Here’s Senator Rand Paul questioning Dr. Fauci on his direct involvement with the possible origins of the CV-19 virus. I too am tired of presenting a “united front”, using patently false methods based on pseudoscience, all while not actually holding those accountable who caused all this. I’m just short of advocating a reckoning.

    Gain of Function Research:
    https://youtu.be/j7aALxH3MFk

  7. Pseudo eye doctor Rand Paul isn’t even certified by his profession’s leading group. He isn’t remotely qualified to question the country’s leading expert in virology. Any person involved in advocating false conspiracy theories is only prolonging the impact of this deadly pandemic.

    1. I disagree that the individual asking the questions must have certain credentials.

      Consider the interview of Dr. Fauci conducted by actor, comedian, filmmaker Eugenio Derbez.

      Derbez is not a immunologist, but yet was quite capable of asking questions regarding the new warp-speed injections that many of us as members of the general public have. His introduction begins in Spanish with English subtitles; his conversation with Dr. Fauci occurs in English. Here’s a link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiB3eK3btOE

    2. Rand Paul is a doctor and a Senator. I was his delegate for WA State. You’re arguing from authority. If that is your means for argument’s sake, then here’s 1993 Nobel Laureate, Kary Mullis, the inventor of the PCR test on Dr. Fauci:
      https://www.facebook.com/unextincti0n/videos/705576683349580/
      ^ If you’ve never seen this video before, it is because it is scrubbed from the internet systematically just like these letters to the editor are.

      It’s a fact, as proven by Dr. Rand Paul through this testimony, that Dr. Fauci, through the NIH funded research which was shared with China. The reasonable suspicion is that this is the origin of the virus. Government is absolutely full of examples we all can agree on, where people who caused a problem are lauded for fixing it, whether it’s wars in the Middle East or Wall Street corruption. This Gain of Function Research is a small community, and Dr. Fauci has been at the top steering that community.

  8. Teresa,

    Thank you for the opportunity to learn. Misinformation and disinformation are dangerous universal tactics destructively applied even in child abuse, gaslighting, political slandering, creating mob mentalities to insight we vs him or her or them, to promote riots, battles, and wars. The easily implemented psychological spreading of misinformation and disinformation destroys careers, influences mental breakdowns and suicides. Until a terrible outcome, most do not know they have been manipulated.

    For those who want to learn about this subject, there are many trainings, especially online to identify truth from fiction. An example is shown and the audience, reviews what is out of place, kind of like a conservative Twilight Zone feature. For example, if they are advertising current day Edmonds, WA, yet specific stores or celebrity residents or lakes don’t currently exist… Ted Talks and other training sessions aid audiences to be more discerning, rather than just accept what is read, seen, heard, etc. There are multiple goals including to think for oneself, to not jump on the gossip line, to give the benefit of doubt… this has been occurring throughout time and places. Individuals’ true character shows each day with each learning opportunity. Thank you for reminding us.

  9. As a longtime community member and government volunteer I have only words of praise for the fair and balanced reporting of My Edmonds News. The recent article written my me about protecting children from harm in reference to COVID-19 upset a lot of folks and I deeply apologize. People who know me well in Edmonds understand how committed I am to researching topics that I put out there. Over the past year and more I have been immersed in reading scientific journals, peer reviewed studies, and policy recommendations relating to the course of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. Like all of you, I have paid attention to mainstream media as well. What I came up with was a series of questions that I have been pondering and I wanted to put them out there for consideration. I was hoping for the opportunity to provide research on anything a reader questioned but I didn’t get that chance. At this point what I will do is urge you to take a look at both the Moderna and Pfizer COVID 19 Risk Statements which provides short term efficacy and data. Please read them carefully and decide what’s best for your children. It’s helpful to know that Phase III Human trials are underway and concluding in 2023. Readers may also be aware that the definitions of “vaccine” and “herd immunity” have changed over the course of the year. There’s so much change and newness going on that requires our full attention. It’s not easy and it is emotional for us all. I will leave you with one statistic: according to the CDC, the survival rate for Covid for anyone under 20 years of age is 99.997%. In my opinion the youngest generation deserves full professional scrutiny of carefully collected data to ensure a safe and healthy future

    1. Val, you are absolutely right. “Herd Immunity” existed before there were vaccines for viruses. They’ve changed the definition to just mean immunity through vaccines. We’re warned about mutant strands. and not given any warranty on the idea that a vaccine is going to work on a variant, say CV-21. Why does a 10yo kid need a vaccine for a disease that doesn’t affect him today, when they’ll require them to take a different one next year? Can’t we wait and see? How many kids were in these expedited vaccine trials? None? Oh….

  10. Wouldn’t it be great if we were all exactly the same? Literally hell on earth. Go ahead and try to misinform me, I’m developing antibodies.

    1. This has the potential for a great dialogue, don’t be too quick to jump to conclusions. I referenced a particular article. Your response was to slander the entire organization without addressing the content presented.

      Think, what website would be willing to post that!? Would a mainstream news outlet air it!? No way! It’s necessary to do a little critical thinking and be discerning.

      First, can we agree that VAERS data is not 100% accurate? I would hope so; it’s a voluntary system that accepts reports as-provided.

      If you think people are over-reporting deaths, then the actual number would be lower than in the data set. If you think VAERS misses some, then you would say the number of occurrences is actually larger.

      Numerous reports conclude the latter is true. So, how far off is the data? The analysis I referenced compared VAERS data to EU stats, and arrived at the 10% number. For some conditions, VAERS is thought to only capture 1% (ref. link below), which means the data should be multiplied by 100! Multiplying by 10 seemed conservative and less tin-hatty.

      For it to be a tie, meaning for risk of death from the shot to be equal to the average rate of death from natural exposure, then VAERS must be thought to capture at last 25% of the stats, such that the data set is only multiplied by 4.

      But for this close of a shave, there should be distinctions by age, since that is a well-accepted delineator of risk. Since we don’t have good aggregate numbers, the uncertainty would be even greater in smaller data sets.

      Bottomline, to say the vaccine is harmless is a lie. And to force or coerce someone into accepting such a shot is wrong.

      http://elreporterosf.com/at-least-271-deaths-9845-adverse-events-after-covid-vaccination-so-far-cdc-data/

  11. Interesting discussion. Thanks all for weighing in. Infection fatality ratio for 0-19 years is .00003 per CDC data March/2021 which translates to 99.997% survival rate. Convert decimal to percent and subtract from 100% and that’s what you get. The data can be convoluted and hard to dissect. It doesn’t help that the CDC keeps changing how they present the data.

  12. We are the silliest looking bunch of fools who have ever walked the earth. That used to just be my opinion.

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