Letters to the Editor Policy

Who Can Help Me?

I would like to know how you would feel if I came to your home and exploded dynamite within 500 feet of it? Is that considered terrorism? That is what happened to my home.

I did not sign a gas lease.

Since April of this year, I have been harassed by phone, trespassed on, and starting in June my home has been assaulted by air and exploded on the ground. Five times at least, Cabot’s crew exploded dynamite in the woods directly behind my home, and three of the five times my house shook. The last of the three was less than 500 feet away. I heard a tree fall, and now we have holes back there for hunters to trip in and wildlife to break legs in, as well as a new crack in my basement floor.

As I was starting to compose this letter, there was a helicopter making trips back and forth over my pastures trying to scare my horses again. After about 45 minutes I put my horses in the barn and the helicopter stopped flying over my land.

Is this Susquehanna County or Afghanistan? My neighbor said he thought he was back in Vietnam.

Talk to the local or state police and they can’t do anything. They didn’t even want to take my complaint.

I would like to know who gave these people the permission to run roughshod over our community. I have since found out DEP gave them the permits to do the explosions.

All Harrisburg does is drag it’s feet while the gas companies run amuck over the Commonwealth. We need a moratorium on drilling until Harrisburg can come up with laws to protect the people of this state.

What ever happened to Clean and Green? This sure isn’t it.

I know I would not vote for Tom Corbett again. It is clear we need a big change.

Sincerely,
Nancy Kelly
South Gibson, PA

Write What You Know

Over the years, I have categorically disregarded Bob Scroggins’ ponderous letters to the editor, thinking that he must spend a long time in the bathroom contemplating them. Occasionally, I wonder how many thousands of trees had to be felled to make the paper on which to print his verbose and sleep-inducing musings. However, on June 29 he crossed the line. Now he is giving medical advice. Please, “Doctor” Scroggins, cough up the credentials that permit you to pontificate ex cathedra on the topic of metabolic syndrome? You toss out a number of statistics. You say “the package insert for an average drug lists 70 side effects.” Kindly reference that factoid. You continue on to say that only 5% of side effects are reported. You do cite “The Journal of the American Medicine Association” (I assume you meant the otherwise well-known “Journal of the American Medical Association”) but I cannot seem to verify that number. As for “the 160,000 people who die from prescription drugs each year,” that figure was from a relatively ancient non-cited and anonymous 1998 report.

Stop cherry picking online data to fit your agenda. Research has moved forward, my friend. Drugs do work. A 2010 study published by Yeh and colleagues in the “New England Journal of Medicine,” involving over 46,000 cardiac patients, revealed that there has been a 24% decline in the incidence of myocardial infarction (heart attack) since 2000. The investigators state that significant improvements in the use of cardiovascular medications including statins for cholesterol and beta blockers for blood pressure have occurred since 2000, which may explain the drop in heart attack incidence.

A good editorial is one that relates one’s own personal experiences. For example, I have hypertension; therefore, I am qualified to tell others about my frustrations in controlling my high blood pressure. A good editorial is also one whereby the writer has some training in the field of which he is counseling. For example, as a doctor of pharmacy, a registered pharmacist and a published medical writer, I can grab my pen and relate to others my knowledge, experience, training, and, yes, opinions about medicine and pharmaceuticals. For you to do so, without quotes from health care professionals or references from the primary medical literature, is not only irresponsible, it is not your place.

If you started the piece with something like “I went to the doctor and he said I have high cholesterol. So I did some reading and this is what I learned,” and ended it with “Gee whiz, it inspired me to throw down that donut and hop on the treadmill,” I would have commended you. Instead you dabble in scare tactics. Are you hinting that people with high cholesterol, diabetes, and heart disease trash their medications because of some remote possibility they may experience a highly improbable side effect? There are people out there who listen to you.

I am not a rabid fan of the pharmaceutical industry even though it is my bread and butter. In truth, I routinely urge my patients to be their own health advocates and to not be shy about questioning a doctor regarding the medications that are prescribed for them and why that doctor feels he or she needs a particular drug. I am on six cardiovascular medications right now which is a PIA. But I certainly am not going to flush them down the toilet and eat a raw carrot instead. Yes, the US population certainly takes a lot of pills and a percentage of them are not necessary. Nevertheless, the vast majority of people have had their lives extended by these medications. They have been able to live to see their children and grandchildren grow up. And their own quality of life - getting dressed, feeding themselves, staying independent - is improved as they age.

Do you want to write a cogent letter to the editor? Then save a tree and stick to an opinion piece about your view on politics or religion or tiddlywinks. If you personally figured out a way to lose 20 pounds in a month, by all means share it as an inspiration to your readers. Refrain from circulating gratuitous medical advice, however well-intentioned, that only serves to give people another excuse to complain about drug costs and not take the medications that are likely keeping them alive.

Sincerely,
Ron Gasbarro
New Milford, PA

Getting Out Of Dodge

Ten years ago 19 terrorists piloting two planes destroyed the Twin Towers and two other buildings in the World Trade Center. Like a herd of cattle spooked by lightning, President Bush and Congress stampeded the nation into Iraq and Afghanistan starting two of the most ill-conceived wars in American history.

Now we ask the question: Who won, the U.S. or the terrorists? Let's look at the numbers.

The entire WTC complex of seven buildings in today's dollars cost $4 billion. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost $1.3 trillion. That's equal to 325 times the cost of the WTC. If the benefits and lifelong care of wounded vets are included - about $3 trillion - that number jumps to 1,100 times the cost of the entire WTC complex.

What about the cost in lives? The number killed when the Towers collapsed is 2,976. The number of U.S. lives lost in the two wars is 6,100. That's a ratio of 1:2. If coalition fatalities are included (1,233), the ratio arcs up to 2:5. The figures are tragically lopsided.

Now let's examine the gains we have made after a decade of fighting in Afghanistan.

The withdrawal from Afghanistan has started; 10,000 U.S. troops this year and 23,000 more by next year. But there are concerns that the draw-downs will jeopardize the hard-won gains the U.S. has made in that nation. History gives some perspective on what those “gains” are and what will happen when the troops are brought home.

The French Indochina war began in 1946. It was a conventional army of occupiers against a guerrilla force in Vietnam. It ended in 1954 with a French defeat.

The Americans took up the gauntlet in the early '60s. Once again it was a conventional army pitted against determined Vietnam guerrillas. It was the French defeat redux. The U.S. lost.

But how could peasants subsisting on fish heads and rice, using bicycles for transportation, and AK 47 rifles, bring France and the U.S. to the mat?

We lost because whenever the situation became too hot for the VC they melted into the countryside or crossed the border into Laos or Cambodia. They refused to fight a conventional army in a conventional way. In a larger sense, we were defeated because the VC just refused to lose; not after fighting the French for nine years, not after fighting the Americans for ten more years.

The parallel between the French and American experiences in Vietnam and the Americans in Afghanistan is striking.

Again, it is a conventional army of occupiers fighting a band of guerrillas, the Taliban with regional objectives and al Qaeda with international terrorist goals.

Previously, the irregulars had fought the Soviet army for ten years. The struggle ended in 1989 with a victory for the guerrillas and the withdrawal of Soviet forces. Next it was the U.S. turn.

For ten years more the Taliban and al Qaeda battled U.S. and NATO forces to what Gen. Stanley McChrystal called “a draw.” But the fight's not over yet. Where bullets have failed talks might succeed.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered to have a tete-a-tete and tea with the Taliban and negotiate - on her terms. The Taliban is to break ties with al Qaeda, give up their arms, abide by the Afghan constitution, and ensure equal rights for women - then we will “negotiate.”

One wonders if another causality of the war is the American sense of reality.

We are dealing with men who willingly strap on suicide vests and turn themselves into a thick, red paste. Men who have been fighting foreigners for 20 years and are ready to fight another ten. Men who fought the U.S. and NATO to a standoff. Men who could beat the Afghan Army to a frazzle after ten years of U.S. supervised training, billions of dollars, and every technical assistance imaginable.

No, Mrs. Clinton. They will not “negotiate.” Then what will happen?

The Taliban knows that if the U.S. could not achieve victory with 100,000 troops, they are less likely to achieve it with 70,000. And if the Afghan government - after Somalia the second most corrupt regime on Earth with the U.S. other albatross, Iraq, being the third - could barely survive with the backing of the U.S. and NATO forces, it will probably fall without their support.

The long and short of it is this: After the pullout the Taliban will rebound like a bungee cord and pick up where they left off ten years ago to pursue their own destiny.

Sincerely,
Bob Scroggins
New Milford, PA

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR POLICY
Letters To The Editor MUST BE SIGNED. They MUST INCLUDE a phone number for "daytime" contact. Letters MUST BE CONFIRMED VERBALLY with the author, before printing. Letters should be as concise as possible, to keep both Readers' and Editors' interest alike. Your opinions are important to us, but you must follow these guidelines to help assure their publishing.

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