Horse ivermectin paste is for sale at Kenai Feed and Supply on Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2021. (Camille Botello/Peninsula Clarion)

Horse ivermectin paste is for sale at Kenai Feed and Supply on Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2021. (Camille Botello/Peninsula Clarion)

Alaska Voices: Misinformation is dangerous!

Mr. Pierce owes our hospital staff and our communities an apology for his blatant disregard of the current circumstances.

All across Alaska, hospital executives and doctors are addressing city and borough assemblies to explain the dire circumstances of our current health care system during this latest surge of COVID. Our hospitals are full and the staff is exhausted. There are not enough critical care staff and beds to meet the needs of Alaskans. Our system has been described as on the verge of imminent collapse.

Last week, Central Peninsula Hospital Chief Operating Officer Shaun Keef came before the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly to give a report on the current status of and share concerns about the uptick of patients coming to the hospital with COVID. The response from Borough Mayor Charlie Pierce was a rambling, incoherent, unscientific-based take on how he thinks our hospital should treat COVID patients.

Mr. Pierce wants our doctors to treat COVID patients with unproven, dangerous methods currently being touted by the far-right America’s Frontline Doctors. This group is pushing ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as perfectly safe treatments/cures for COVID. To my knowledge, not a single FDA, CDC or WHO official, scientist or doctor supports using these items as a treatment for COVID.

Pierce expressed no concern for the exhausted doctors and nurses, who are our friends, neighbors and families. These medical professionals stand, unfailingly, on the front lines doing all they can to save the lives of their patients while the borough mayor appears to make light of the suffering by recommending unproven, dangerous treatments.

Mr. Pierce expressed no compassion regarding the level of COVID infections in our community or state. He offered only mindless (and misleading) babble about unproven drugs used by America’s Frontline doctors. He callously challenged our physician’s treatment of COVID patients.

Mr. Pierce owes our hospital staff and our communities an apology for his blatant disregard of the current circumstances. Additionally, other elected officials on the Kenai Peninsula have continued to ignore the data and allow politics to drive their decisions regarding the mitigation of COVID. They are not conducting themselves as leaders when they ignore the best information provided by the CDC, our local hospital and doctors and public health officials.

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the doctors and nurses who continue to put their lives on the line every single day for each and everyone of us. Thank you to their families, who have also endured long absences of their loved ones while they work every day during a deadly pandemic.

As Alaskans, we want truth and accountability. We want decisions based on science-driven data, not personal opinion. We want safe and healthy communities. We would appreciate it if our elected officials would work toward that common goal.

— Fay Herold, chair Gulf Coast Democrats House Districts 29-32

More in Opinion

The Alaska Capitol on Monday, Jan. 16, 2023, in Juneau, Alaska. (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer)
Alaska Voices: Legislature deserves credit

A special session shouldn’t have been necessary, but at least it was only one day instead of 30 days.

Alaska State Troopers logo.
Alaska Voices: Please be safe, courteous, and legal as you fish in Alaska this summer

As you head out to hit the water this year, here are a few tips to help you have a safe and citation free season

An observer makes an entry in the Fish Map App on Prince of Wales Island. (Photo by Lee House/courtesy Salmon State)
Alaska Voices: Document Alaska rivers with new fish map app

The app provides a way for everyday Alaskans to document rivers home to wild salmon, whitefish, eulachon and other ocean-going fish — and earn money doing it

(Peter Segall / Juneau Empire File)
Opinion: Sustainability report is a greenwashing effort

Report leaves out “the not-so-pretty.”

Pictured is an adult Chinook salmon swimming in Ship Creek, Anchorage. (Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
Voices of the Peninsula: Proactive measures key to king salmon recovery

I have been sport fishing king salmon along the eastern shores of Cook Inlet and in the Kenai River since 1977

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
Honoring the fallen on Memorial Day

As we honor the men and women who fell in service to our nation, we must keep their memories alive through their stories

Shana Loshbaugh (Courtesy photo)
History conference seeking input from peninsula people

The Alaska Historical Society will hold its annual conference on the central peninsula this fall

Coach Dan Gensel (left) prepares to get his ear pierced to celebrate Soldotna High School’s first team-sport state championship on Friday, Febr. 12, 1993 in Soldotna, Alaska. Gensel, who led the Soldotna High School girls basketball team to victory, had promised his team earlier in the season that he would get his ear pierced if they won the state title. (Rusty Swan/Peninsula Clarion)
Remembering my friend, Dan Gensel

It’s a friendship that’s both fixed in time and eternal

(Clarise Larson / Juneau Empire File)
Opinion: The false gods in America’s gun culture

HB 61 is a solution in search of a problem.

Most Read