Hold those who misinform Americans about COVID accountable

As a public servant for 60 years, I have always championed freedom of speech, but when our lives are at stake, scientifically accurate information is vitally important. It should be a criminal offense to deliberately lie and mislead people about proven methods of protection against a pandemic like COVID-19 and its variants.

A recent report found that 99.2 percent of recent COVID-19 deaths were among the unvaccinated. If that isn’t concrete proof of the importance of vaccinations, I don’t know what is.

Fox News, Facebook and scores of other outlets, in addition to politicians echoing the former president, have encouraged or caused an untold number of unnecessary deaths.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson, with almost 3 million daily followers, recently called President Biden’s pandemic inoculation efforts, “The greatest scandal in my lifetime, by far.” Facebook should be held accountable for permitting a multitude of false and irresponsible COVID propaganda to appear on its platform.

The worldwide death toll from COVID-19 and its variants is well over 4 million and rising. We have vaccines that have been scientifically proven to protect people from contracting this terrible killer or, at a minimum, reducing its life-threatening effects.

Thousands of Americans who have lost a loving provider to COVID-19 were influenced by Fox News and other propagandists into believing that vaccinations weren’t necessary.

Lawsuits for emotional and financial damages are fully justified against these irresponsible liars and political propagandists in order to bring some truth and accountability to a horrendous national situation.

– Merrett R. Stierheim,

Miami