MY TURN: Health care under attack

I am old enough to have been born at a time before vaccines were available publicly. At the age of 2 years old I got whooping cough and was hospitalized for several months because I needed to be on oxygen to breathe. From that time on, I suffered with recurring coughing spells and when I started school, I was often asked to leave the schoolroom due to the disturbance it caused.

Eventually, vaccines became available and were required to be able to attend school. My mother was adamant that I get any vaccines that were made available. She had lived through a period when vaccines did not exist. Later on, a polio vaccine became available followed by one for smallpox, which led to the effective elimination of their threat to public health.

Later on, other illnesses were getting vaccines, with schools requiring children to have these vaccines to avoid breakouts of illness. It has served us well in the long run to maintain good public health, especially people like me who are more susceptible to various illnesses.

Unfortunately, starting around 2019 and the COVID-19 outbreak, there began a notion that vaccination was somehow a matter of choice and then certain disinformation from people like Robert Kennedy Jr. started generating a false notion that vaccines caused deformities such as Autism. Adding to all this, the issue of fluoride in drinking water, which has spared a multitude of people from getting dental cavities, I'm drawn to the conclusion that we are at a critical point in the area of public health concern.

With the nomination of Robert Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services, we are facing a vast nightmare scenario, involving not only vaccines and fluoride, but health care in general, including the affordability and funding for health care, micromanagement of women's birth control, undermining of the ability of health care providers to deliver the proper care for good public health outcomes without fear of possible prosecution due to misguided legislative acts to satisfy a particular political agenda of those who may not have the best interests of the public in mind.

As a retired registered nurse, I am well aware of what bad health care looks like and I would not wish it for anyone. Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare have made life livable for many who otherwise might not survive or at least have a decent quality of life. It is for these reasons, and many more, that I strongly urge that our members of Congress reject this nomination out of hand as a first step in bringing back God-given common sense to the political and social life in this nation before it is too late to do so.

I also urge others to contact their legislators at both state and national levels and write letters to the editor stating their feelings on these issues. Public health is not something to be trifled with.

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Patsey Parsons is a Spirit Lake resident.