Admire me for being healthy

To the editor:

(re: “Dismissing fantasyland nonsense,” Sept. 23)

While I admire people who have the courage to express strong conviction, the pedantic approach used by Richard Warren in his recent letter to the editor does not leave room for much discussion, and leads me to feel he is a follower of conventional wisdom.

I will address one subject in which he used his pedantic and iconoclastic approach: his comments on vaccinations.

To be a little more objective and less emotional about the subject, I will first address the regular flu vaccinations that have been around for many years. One day a woman chastised me for not taking flu shots, and thus endangering others. As I looked at her overweight and probably under-nourished body, I said to myself, “Why should I be chastised for having a healthy body by someone who does not?”

In discussing healthy bodies with the doctor’s assistants at some drug stores, they told me that people come in that have high blood pressure, and when the assistant tries to discuss diet and exercise, the patient says, “Just give me a pill.” They, like the woman who chastised me, are not interested in maintaining personal health, and want a medical “fix” to be well.

Now we come to Mr. Warren’s fixation with the COVID-19 shots. The practice of vaccinations began with Louis Pasteur’s theories of germs and viruses. But there was another famous scientist at the time who opposed Pasteur by the name of Antoine Béchamp who felt that the body was equipped to deal with the invasion of viruses.

I won’t go into the details here, but there are many in the medical profession who do not adhere to Pasteur’s theories.

Getting down to the present view on vaccinations, the United States has the highest COVID-19 infection rate in the world. India has one-quarter of our infection rate. We have the highest hospitalization rate when compared to European nations. Perhaps the pizza and Coke diet of our overweight and undernourished nation isn’t working well, and people need vaccinations because they have weak immune systems.

As I write this letter, I am a few months away from my 92nd birthday. I have never had a flu shot, or the flu. Or a COVID-19 vaccination. It is sad that I live in a society in which I am looked down upon instead of admired for being healthy. A society in which I am asked to be apologetic for not taking medication. A society in which I am locked out of restaurants and movie theaters.

We are gradually becoming a nation of jackasses on the treadmill of production while the government makes decisions affecting our health and well-being.

Think about that, Mr. Warren.

George Silos

EDITOR’S NOTE: According to Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, the highest coronavirus infection rates in the world is actually in Seychelles, where 21,799 cases have been reported per 100,000 people, as of Sept. 25. The United States is ranked 17th with a little more than 13,000 cases per 100,000 people. India actually has a fifth of the American infection rate.

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