HomeMy WebLinkAbout073126 email - KPTZ Listener Questions for Monday August 3_ 2026 BOCC UpdateALERT: BE CAUTIOUS This email originated outside the organization. Do not open attachments or click on links if you are not expecting them.
County Commissioners, Dr Allison Berry, and Willie Bence,
Please see the KPTZ listener questions listed below for the Monday, August 3, 2026 BOCC Health Update.
Thank you,
Lynn Sorensen
KPTZ Virus Watch Team
Questions for Dr Allison Berry:
1. A food safety professor in Canada is recommending that Canadians visiting the U.S. avoid the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables due to a cyclospora outbreak. Cyclospora has
been detected in several states, but only in states where the state health department is actually looking for it competently - and states whose public health systems aren't crumbling
because the couriers don't get paid.
Is cyclospora being monitored competently in Washington? Can we tell our Canadian visitors that there is no risk of cyclospora in restaurants in Port Angeles? Or should they bring their
own safer food from Canada when taking the ferry over?
Given all the cutbacks at the FDA and the State, does our food still meet safety standards comparable to those in Canada? Or is our food safety system becoming more comparable to that
of developing countries?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/parasite-united-states-canada-illness-9.7263481
2.I'm concerned about reports of the health-related mistreatment of the detained asylum seekers in the Tacoma GEO group facility. Human Rights Watch has conducted interviews with individuals
who have survived detention in a Texas ICE detention camp, and some of the interviewees report medical neglect - being denied prescriptions or being ignored after sustaining injuries
or experiencing major health crises while confined.
1) If this is happening or has started happening at facilities in the State of Washington, would the State know about it? Can the State monitor the health- and medical-related treatment
of detained asylum seekers in our state?
2) Should we believe the reports published by outlets like The New Yorker and Human Rights Watch? Or would a critical thinker consider their journalism unreliable and alarmist at this
point in time?
I bring this up because after World War II, standards of human rights have been established with the intention of preventing the horrors inflicted on civilian populations from happening
again. These human rights standards might be breaking down in this country. Americans learned about the horrors of WW II Europe as schoolchildren so we would recognize and expose such
horrors if they begin to happen here.
Human Rights Watch is trying to trigger an emotional reaction in us to push back against mistreatment of detained asylum seekers.
Do Washington's public health workers see these alarmist reports as based on science? Or hearsay?