MISINFORMATION: It can be lethal

Dear CdA Press readers,

It’s hard to imagine more dangerous misinformation than Steven Abbott’s letter to the editor (April 15).

There are so many false assumptions and wrong conclusions they can’t be fully addressed in one letter to the editor. But I’ll try.

Although it is true that the Chicago Health Department started testing antibodies to the coronavirus last week, they warned: “testing is in its infancy and she cautioned the city is using it in conjunction with the nasal tests to get a feel for the serology test’s accuracy... [and] the antibody tests currently have a higher rate of false negative and false positive results.”

Also, the testing reported in the “Breitbart” article Mr. Abbott referenced was NOT done on a random sample of the population but on people coming to the hospital for testing, ie sick patients.

It is WRONG and dangerous for Mr. Abbott to jump to the wild conclusion that “there is at minimum more than 100 million Americans that have already been infected and have built immunity to the virus.”

If they BELIEVE him and think they will be protected by “herd immunity,” they have been deceived.

If your readers are relying on Mr. Abbott and/or Breitbart News for their medical advice, they are putting their families at risk.

JUSTIN STORMOGIPSON, MD

Coeur d’Alene