On the Aug. 20 ABC evening news with Charles Gibson, the vaccine drug Gardasil was the subject of an editorial from the American Medical Association.
As you may recall, the manufacturer put out a very expensive and convincing scare tactic campaign that actually convinced at least one state to make the vaccination a requirement before a girl can enter secondary school.
The editorial, according to what I remember from the newscast, said this vaccine was for only one form of cervical cancer, and there is more that one form. If I remember correctly, there have been 8 million young girls vaccinated, resulting in eight deaths, 16 cases of paralysis and 7,800 cases of serious side effects. All for the protection against a disease that takes decades to develop and it will be decades before we even know if the vaccine worked.
By that time, the drug manufacturer will have made billions of dollars, thousands of your daughters will have suffered serious side effects, hundreds will have been paralyzed and hundreds more will have died, all for a drug company's profits.
I think the drug manufacturers are trying to brainwash the public. They want to instill in each of us, the fear of dying from some horrible disease that only their drug can protect us from. Have you noticed all the TV ads, trying to convince us we may have a serious health problem and we need to ask our doctor if we need their drug? When they give us the symptoms, they know most of us have some of those symptoms.
If we took all the protective drugs they are pushing, we would all be taking 20 or 30 drugs each day. Not for medical problems we have, but for the problems they tell us we "MAY" have if we fail to follow their advice.
God help us when our lawmakers take the advice of greedy drug manufacturers.
Donald E. Hill
Clarkesville
Executed killers surely will never kill again
After several recent letters concerning the recent column published on the death penalty, I am compelled to ask you to publish one more.
There always has been, and likely always will be, strong debate on the issue of the death penalty. In each society, the pendulum has swung to each side of the issue. In recent times, some societies have made the decision to completely eliminate the death penalty. America has not so chosen.
What is conclusive and stands alone and unquestioned is that the death penalty forever deters each killer who is executed from killing again. Society is indeed a little bit safer after each execution as one more killer is removed from our midst.
No society has found a way to stop its people from killing each other. Nor has America. All rational people agree that the death penalty itself is not humane, no matter the means used for execution. It is, however, society's only sure answer to the inhumanity which lives among us and it is the only path ever found to certainly and surely deter the murderer from further crime.
Michael Hawkins
Murrayville
Only businesses using illegal labor will suffer
I hope the readers realize that Jerry Gonzalez's lobbies to "Latino elected officials" to support the employers of illegal aliens. I also hope that the readers realize that the only businesses which will be hurt by ICE raids are those that have profited from using cheap, illegal labor.
Because their profits are rarely passed along to consumers, the only "bruising" and "devastation" will be to the greedy employers and their pocketbooks.
Jean Bennett
Gainesville
Media unfairly twisted truth of McCain houses
The media reports that John McCain doesn't know how many houses he owns. Did they report he has a condo that he put an elder relative in to care for her? No! Did they report that Barack Obama has siblings in Africa living on $1 a month and in huts without even an outhouse? Has Obama aided them in any way?
We need a media that will report the truth and not make it look good for the Democratic Party.
Dorothy Turner
Dahlonega