Commentary: Eggleston is entitled to his opinions, but not his own facts

We are compelled to respond to Richard Eggleston’s latest commentary published on Sunday.

His voice and opinion carry a disproportionate weight because of his education and professional title of medical doctor. We wish to respond as fellow MDs who strongly disagree with his statements about the treatment and vaccination for COVID-19.

We and thousands of other providers across our nation have been treating COVID-19 patients since early 2020.

One of our daughters directs the hospitalist program at Sacred Heart/Providence in Spokane and works with the most ill of COVID-19 patients. To suggest that medical professionals have misinformed and not provided appropriate treatment for patients because we do not use hydroxychloroquine (a drug used for malaria or lupus) or invermectin (a drug used for parasitic infection) is insulting and misleading. We have all hoped that there would be some surprises in the studies done, but they have failed time and time again.

We refer your readers to the most recent study of March 4 published in the peer-reviewed internationally respected Journal of the American Medical Association where “The findings do not support the use of invermectin for treatment of COVID 19.”

Eggleston, as a retired ophthalmologist, has likely never treated a COVID-19 patient and never had to sit at the bedside holding a cellphone to that patient’s ear so he can hear the last words of loved ones as he dies alone. Hydroxychloroquine and invermectin have been carefully studied in multiple double-blind, controlled worldwide studies by reputable researchers and clinicians, and have been proven to be ineffective and/or pose grave risks with possible lethal side effects.

Eggleston continues to quote studies that have no peer review and would not bear the standard of scientific evidence. In these days of self-publication, we can all find examples of anecdotal stories of improvement. That does not pass the test of evidence. Snake oil salesmen have counted on such things for hundreds of years.

Worse yet, his demonstrable lies about the vaccine development and administration are undermining public confidence in what could well be life-saving opportunities to end this pandemic and resume all the beloved activities he blames the lockdown for ending.

His adding to vaccine hesitancy is costing people their well-being and possibly even their lives. It is also contributing to the virus’ continued opportunity to replicate in human hosts and potentially mutate into more virulent strains, which we are already seeing in America and around the world.

There are side effects from the vaccine: sore arm, headache, fever, chills and body aches that can last for one to two days. There are also very rare occasions of anaphylactic reactions that require intervention such as epinephrine or steroids.

There have been no deaths attributed to the COVID-19 vaccinations. Readers may want to check for themselves at www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html or the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VARES).

In fact, studies from Israel (the nation with the most successful and aggressive vaccination program to date) have shown that not one person who has been vaccinated has died with COVID-19, even among those infected with the newer, more virulent strains. This is a highly effective, safe vaccine that may not prevent getting a mild flu-like illness but saves lives and hospital days.

It is very reassuring to scientists and doctors when patients develop reactionary side effects because that indicates the immune systems are responding in a robust, appropriate way.

Further, no embryonic or fetal cell lines have been used in developing these mRNA vaccines and that has been corroborated by the Roman Catholic Church and the pope himself. Perpetuating that myth only further discredits the argument Eggleston is presenting.

Messenger RNA (mRNA) is a tiny cluster of amino acids that any organism uses to perform a single task. Brilliant scientists have learned how to gene sequence viral RNA and can use that information to know which sequence is needed to build the mRNA. This mRNA vaccine is made in a test tube, not a fetal cell line.

It is embodied in a nanoparticle of fat so that it can enter muscle cells that are used to make the spike protein, the unique protein on the surface of the coronavirus. This gives the immune system opportunity to build antibodies to the spike protein without ever seeing the entire virus.

Messenger RNA does not interact or interfere with human DNA. It does not impede anything within human cells. It does not need fetal or embryonic tissue. Furthermore, to be dismissive of the direction of Pope Francis as “just another opinion” would be akin to heresy if Eggleston were living in different times.

To quote financier Bernard Baruch from 1946 and Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan from 1983: “Everyone has a right to an opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts. Nor, above all, to persist in errors to be facts.”

Being a “free thinker” takes more than “grit.” It takes integrity, wisdom and understanding of the many layers of complexity to be able to develop an informed opinion.

Eggleston’s commentary is dismissive and derogatory to those working, living and dying with COVID-19 patients. His callous disregard for science, research and evidence-based medicine and his thinly veiled disdain for those treating patients using conventional scientific processes to provide the best treatment for patients, is insulting and infuriating.

If we are to reclaim our lives and the prosperity that has been challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic, we need credible interpreters of the rapidly changing body of knowledge directing care that brings time-tested wisdom to ensure safety for all people.

We do not need irrational, radical fear mongering, propagated by the thinnest representation of “facts” by men and women of science who should know better.

Greggain, M.D., practices family medicine at St. Joseph Regional Medical Center in Lewiston. Rusche, M.D., is a retired pediatrician and former state legislator.