Citizens bring concerns to health board

The Perry County Board of Public Health held its monthly meeting Tuesday, Aug. 17, at the Catalyst Center for Business. Not counting the five board members and health department director, a total of 11 individuals were present.
Members were briefed on the latest COVID-19 information by director Liz House and asked several questions about the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.
House also spoke about a vaccine incentive floated by the state of Missouri. No action on this item was taken, though those speaking publicly were opposed to it.
The meeting began with board president Denise Morrison reading the mission statement, then citizens wishing to address the board were given the opportunity.
“It’s something we would like to know about and maybe each one of the board members could research that personally to try to see,” said Glendon Sattler. “There’s a risk with everything we do. There is a risk with driving. There’s also a risk with taking a vaccine. There’s also a risk with not taking a vaccine.”
Sattler expressed disappointment that the health board chose to table the topic of providing an incentive for the vaccine.
Brenda Hopfer was next to address the board.
“According to your mission statement, it says, educating people about health issues and prevention and control of diseases,” Hopfer said. “My question is why are you not promoting the protocols to prevent Covid.
A few of the suggestions for treatment offered by Hopfer were high dose vitamin C, zinc and vitamin D.
Resident Candace Emde sought an answer to the number of individuals who had contracted COVID-19 and were vaccinated.
“I would like to know in the last month or so, how many Covid cases are vaccinated, that came down with Covid? How many people are out there that have been vaccinated and have Covid.”
Emde was asked if she meant breakthrough infections or cases by health department director Liz House. She responded “yes.” House then gave her an answer.
“With the COVID vaccines, there has been a lot bigger push for the public to know what VAERS is,” House said. “We typically have handouts for someone to take with them after they receive the vaccine. They can either sign up or basically (go with) an automated texting system to help detect the smallest thing that may be happening from a vaccine or they can report to VAERS themselves. There is a heightened awareness of VAERS now, which may or may not lead to an increase in reports.”
Gwen Schweiss told the board more individuals have died from the Covid vaccination than any other vaccine administered in the past two decades in the United States.
“In six months, more people have died from this vaccine than in 20 years of every single (other) vaccine given in America,” Schweiss said. “That statement is a true statement and also Harvard in 2016 put out a study that the (Vaccine Adverse Event) reporting system only truly gets about 10 percent…of the actual adverse events and deaths from vaccine in general. The last we seen was 12,000 deaths from this vaccine...”
Rachel Deckerd spoke next and began with opposition to a vaccine incentive.
“As a citizen, I am just expressing concern over accepting any kind of lottery incentive situation,” she said. “I know that she said that has been common. But in my opinion, that is…I don’t see how that’s not coercion, to give anyone something in order to accept a medical treatment, that’s seems very underhanded to me, and very much coercion to me.
Deckerd strongly opposed a vaccine incentive and encouraged the board to use an open mind.

“It’s no secret that most of us here probably think the same in this audience. I find the general negativity among health boards as far as when people question vaccines and so forth, it’s a block of... ‘We love vaccines, they’re the best.’ I just ask that you have an open mind…it’s just overall, there’s kind (a sense of) people don’t want to accept because we’ve always been taught vaccines are safe and effective, safe and effective, well, you can have an opinion, whatever. We’re at a time where we just, everyone here just wants to have freedom, that’s all we want.
Renata Rickels encouraged the board to evaluate all of its options and “take an open mind and keep our children in mind, first and foremost.”
“You’re going to see some roaring coming up, everybody is going to protect their young,” she said. “We appreciate what you’re doing and just keep on.
Robin Seah opposed any action toward implementing a vaccine incentive.
“Offering an incentive for something like a vaccine is, quite frankly, insulting,” she said. “It’s insulting to my intelligence…I have the information in front of me and can make an educated decision.”
House said her assumption was that the funding was through the Centers for Disease Control. With the state of Missouri money it’s a “grant thing,” according to House.
Rickels said if that moves forward, the vote of confidence on the (health) board in the county and in the government in general for the public is going to get worse than what it is.
Board member Keith Carroll said when first elected he attempted to hand out business cards so other board members could know who was and how to contact him. “That is strictly prohibited,” he said. “You cannot peddle influence. We don’t do that here ourselves so we wouldn’t recommend that for anyone else. You don’t bring somebody in by influencing them with money so I can’t even hand out business cards for informational purposes only so I think we’ve already set that precedent here as a board and a department.”
Carroll was the only health board member to speak about the VAERS data.
“Year over year vaccine adverse deaths is 75 to 100 on average, (for) 2021 we’re north of 5,000. I think your number is probably total number for 2020 and 2021. If Ford puts out a truck with faulty brakes and 100 people die, they’ll pull that off the market immediately and they’ll get sued for leaving that truck on the market when they know they have something faulty. We’re all getting way above 100 people so that’s some thoughts to add to the conservation.”
A search of the VAERS data Monday showed 127,014 events nationwide from the COVID-19 vaccine as life threatening, permanent disability, hospitalized, emergency room office visit or emergency room. The total number of deaths attributed to the vaccine in the United States was 13,771 while the total for the state of Missouri was 121.
VACCINE UPDATE
Total Covid-19 vaccinations administered by the Perry County Health Department were 7,679, according to House. More than 1,500 were given each month from January through April, but the amount dropped to below 500 for the past three months in which data was available, including 495 in May, 195 in June and 209 in July. No figures were available for August as the month is not completed yet.
The next Board of Public Health meeting will take place Tuesday, Sept. 21, at 9 a.m.
at the Catalyst Center.

Editor’s note: Since this meeting was held, the federal Food and Drug Administration gave final approval for the Pzifer vaccine Aug. 23. The following is a statement from the FDA. “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine has been known as the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, and will now be marketed as Comirnaty for the prevention of COVID-19 disease in individuals 16 years of age and older.” It is still classified as emergency use for those ages 12 to 15. The Moderna COVID-19 and Janssen COVID-19 vaccines are still in the emergency use authorization status.