On Dr. Rais Vohra and public health: Letters to the editor of The Fresno Bee, Oct. 24, 2021

Vohra is right on climate change

Interim Health Officer Dr. Rais Vohra deserves kudos for having the courage and concern for his community to speak out about climate change. This is a dire situation that scientists have conclusively established is attributable to human activity.

That climate change has become a partisan issue not only makes action difficult, but undermines the work already done by so many climate activists. President Biden’s inclusion of climate action in the reconciliation package should be passed by all our members of Congress.

Our Board of Supervisors should be applauding Dr Vohra’s actions, not condemning them; they should be supporting him and others speaking out about climate change and exhorting us to take action.

Our health comes first with Vohra

Just who does this Dr. Rais Vohra, Fresno County’s interim health officer, think he is? He has something against our smoky air? He discriminates against lung cancer? He “has issues” with cardiac patients’ diminished longevity owing to their inhaling soot and “particulate matter” with every breath?

County supervisors who employ this doctor — on our behalf — settled long ago on our cure: stay indoors!

This medical doctor has clearly turned uppity, reaching above his rank to annoy the Fresno County Board of Supervisors and the supervisors’ hired hand administrative officer. How uppity is this doctor? Sufficiently haughty to place the lives and health of 999,101 people, children, infants, women, men who live and inhale every day in Fresno County above the interests of county supervisors and the powerful people who call those supervisors’ tune.

This renegade medical doctor obviously doesn’t know his place. He’s acting like, like, like ... our health officer! I predict that his job tenure is short. I predict that the bosses — county supervisors who falsely assume that they and not the people they are sworn to represent — will soon cut this renegade loose.

The rest of us can breathe not at all easily.

Who is willing to give up ICU space?

I have heard many times in the media about vaccinated people hesitant to get a “booster” shot because “the rest of the world has not had a first shot.”

I have yet to hear about an unvaccinated ICU patient with COVID offering to vacate their bed for a vaccinated person with a cardiac or other medical emergency.

Hooray for preschool

The playing field is finally going to be leveled. California is going to have free universal preschool for its 4-year-olds under the plan that Gov. Newsom signed in Fresno. Starting in 2004, the League of Women Voters of Fresno, the Fresno County Office of Education and First Five of Fresno County partnered to create greater access to high quality preschool in our county. But we were still far from being able to fund free preschool for all.

The governor’s universal preschool plan will bring many benefits to Fresno and elsewhere. Fewer students will drop out of high school; more will graduate; fewer will have unwanted pregnancies while in school; fewer will commit criminal acts and end up in prison. Many will gain employment in self-sustainable jobs that will keep them off of expensive social services.

Think of preschool as the front end and prison as the back end. Incarceration costs about $81,000 per inmate annually, while the average private preschool in California costs about $11,000. It makes sense to choose the front end. Seventeen years is a long time to wait, but universal preschool was worth waiting for.

Idea is to defund wasteful spending

I applaud the red state Republicans for wanting to defund the USA. Our political system is dysfunctional. Our elected officials spend and spend with no accountability. They borrow money from China to fund a 20-war that accomplished nothing but debt and suffering.

We Californians are educated and liberal. Our economy is booming because we work hard and we are smart. Why do we want to continue our association with the ignorant in the red states who cannot discern when they are being duped by a NYC con man? Let’s ask our congressional delegates to join with the red state Republicans to permanently defund the USA.

Red Estes and gender equity

A most interesting article by Bryant-Jon Anteola on the passing of Red Estes. I was a senior at Fresno State when Red joined us to become my coach, my mentor, my officiating partner and my friend. A friendship of 57 years. His accomplishments are well documented, but it was his remarkable personality, open, humorous, clever and inventive that kept us moving, making really difficult workouts seem easier than they were.

The only fault was the article gave the impression Red was anti Title IX. That was not the case. He was often frustrated with the curious, quixotic, often confusing fashion in which Title IX was implemented. Proof of the pudding was how the track team was structured. Men and women with the same facility, training together, winning together, rarely losing together, taking victory laps together. Last I heard there were some 34 marriages of Bulldog T&F athletes.

It’s common knowledge the Fresno State men’s and women’s track and field team was likely the most gender equitable athletic program in the NCAA, something the university managed to overlook during its trying times with gender equity. Red brought everyone together in the best fashion and deserves to be recognized for his work. I just wanted to set the record straight.

Better regulate almond dust

The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District board should apologize to the residents of the Valley for narrow messaging.

That board is made up largely of members of various county boards of supervisors and mayors of various cities. The air board produces TV announcements that do not fully address our needs for clean air. The TV spots emphasize fireplace burning, automobile idling, raking instead of using a leaf blower (dust), and diesel truck emissions. In the TV spots they even ask us to check on air quality before going outside.

But they do not mention the dirt flying into our air from machine harvest of almonds every year. The almond industry needs to dry their crop. But the current method makes a mess of our air for several months each year.

The air district board must work with the industry to find another way to dry the almonds “off the ground.” It must be developed. As it is, the dust amounts to an annual attack on our health and on the cleanliness of our local environment. The dust is readily visible in the air and in our homes, and on our cars and in our gardens.

Stretch of Barstow badly needs repair

I drive often on Barstow from Fresno Street to Palm Street for my errands, and Barstow is getting chopped up and needs repair.

Maybe you could inform Fresno City Council if they are the ones who make the decisions to fix our streets.

This story was originally published October 24, 2021 at 6:00 AM with the headline "On Dr. Rais Vohra and public health: Letters to the editor of The Fresno Bee, Oct. 24, 2021."