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As a board, the Sanders County Board of Health (BOH), would like to respond to questions recently presented to the Sanders County Commissioners (SCC) with respect to COVID-19 and positions adopted by the BOH.

Montana law charges a BOH among other duties with “protecting the public from the introduction and spread of a communicable disease or other conditions of public health importance.” We take that responsibility seriously, and strive to keep up on the research concerning COVID and how it can affect Sanders County. We feel most Sanders County residents are engaged in the same search for truth. Unfortunately, we feel, those efforts don’t always arrive at the same conclusions.

October 13, Ken Mattheisen of Plains requested the SCC post any official mandates that citizens of Sanders County must adhere to and any official guidelines for the BOH regarding COVID -19.

There are no Sanders County mandates in place, either for vaccines or mask wearing. The BOH and SCC respect an individual’s right to make decisions about vaccinations. That being said, we strongly encourage COVID-19 vaccinations for those who are eligible. A preponderance of proven credible evidence has shown that vaccines are safe and effective. Our guideline for citizens is to additionally protect themselves and reduce COVID infections by following CDC guidelines to get vaccinated, wear masks in public spaces when there are high numbers of COVID cases (as currently are in Sanders County), wash your hands frequently and practice social distancing when appropriate. We feel these guidelines not only help protect residents from infection by COVID-19 but also serve to protect others.

October 26, Kate Hardman sent a letter to the SCC following the October 13 BOH meeting at which she and several others had presented information on vaccine safety and other COVID issues. She requested they provide the citizens of Sanders County updated information about the risks involved with vaccines and alternative therapeutics and asked the BOH to view a presentation by Dr. Peter McCollough.

BOH members read through that information and viewed the video. Members followed that with research regarding Dr. McCollough’s presentation and other information provided. We found information that conflicted with the material presented in the meeting, handout and the video presentation.

Dr. McCollough is largely discredited by the scientific community for his assertions that the vaccines are unsafe. McCollough’s claims as to the number of deaths are out of context when taken from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which collects reports of adverse events that occur after vaccination. This system allows authorities to detect potential safety problems. Submitting the VAERS form is not extremely complicated as was suggested in your presentation. Anyone can download a pdf form to see what questions are asked. Healthcare providers are required by law to fill out the form after certain serious events like death meaning nearly all serious events get reported. We believe there is no vast underreporting as was claimed in your presentation. VAERS clearly states that reports cannot be used to determine if the vaccine was the cause of an adverse event.

To date over 190 million people have been vaccinated in the U.S. With a large number like that it is important to remember that incidental deaths and illnesses can take place. Robert M. Wachter, MD, Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at the UCSF explains this best: “We’re talking about treating very, very large populations, which means that you’re going to see the usual run of mortality and morbidity that you see across large samples. Specifically, if you take 10 million people and just wave your hand back and forth over their upper arms, in the next two months you would expect to see about 4,000 heart attacks. About 4,000 strokes. Over 9,000 new diagnoses of cancer. And about 14,000 of that ten million will die, out of usual all-causes mortality. No one would notice. That’s how many people die and get sick anyway.

“But if you took those ten million people and gave them a new vaccine instead, there’s a real danger that those heart attacks, cancer diagnoses, and deaths will be attributed to the vaccine. I mean, if you reach a large enough population, you are literally going to have cases where someone gets the vaccine and drops dead the next day (just as they would have if they *didn’t* get the vaccine). It could prove difficult to convince that person’s friends and relatives of that lack of connection, though.”

Ironically Dr. Wachter made those remarks prior to the rollout of the vaccine, portending that some would use the VAERS data in inappropriate ways to challenge vaccines.

Dr. Jessica Valentine from Clark Fork Valley Hospital points out that like all vaccines there is a risk of side effects from the COVID vaccines. She emphasized that people are more at risk from problems if they contract the virus than they are from taking the vaccine. Dr. Valentine stated, “The vaccine serves as a valuable public health measure to decrease the burden on COVID-19 in our community.”

Dr. Valentine developed the attached graphic that looks at hospitalized COVID patient data at CFVH during August and September showing not only hospitalizations but treatment and outcomes and demonstrates quite effectively that vaccines do work. It can be clearly seen that while none of the vaccinated COVID patients experienced severe medical consequences, five deaths occurred among those patients who chose not to receive a COVID vaccination. The data should be looked at carefully, it speaks for itself.

It should be reiterated that neither the BOH or SCC have any authority over how Clark Fork Valley Hospital treats patients or reports data.

There was a continued assertion during the presentation that vaccines are gene therapy. Vaccines that use mRNA technology are not gene therapy because they do not alter your genes. Gene therapy, in the classical sense, involves making deliberate changes to a patient’s DNA in order to treat or cure them. mRNA vaccines will not enter a cell’s nucleus that houses your DNA genome. There is zero risk of these vaccines integrating into our own genome or altering our genetic makeup.

We have heard many heartfelt stories about the vaccine and therapeutics. While these are helpful in conveying a person’s experience with the virus, they are not the same as scientific studies that use double blind methods so it is important not to be swayed by stories when evaluating safety and efficacy. The plural of anecdote is not data.

As to the request about alternative therapeutics; we encourage patients who have contracted the virus to talk to their health care provider and do diligent research. There is no role for the BOH in providing medical advice.

Individuals who seek vaccination are typically provided information regarding the vaccine and have the opportunity to ask questions or seek input from a healthcare provider that they trust. We do not feel a need to supplement that information as you requested.

There have been 45 million cases of COVID in the US and 742,000 confirmed deaths. Here in Sanders County we have had 1373 cases and 25 deaths. All of the large studies point in the same direction - that vaccines work, are safe and help prevent severe infection and death.

We will continue to follow the guidelines set out by the CDC and welcome public comment during our regularly scheduled meetings.

We are grateful to the many health workers in Sanders County who have worked tirelessly to keep us all safe.