Question Follow-up: SD23 February 23 Board of Education Public Meeting
Updated: Nov 14, 2022
Sent: March 3, 2022 10:06 AM To: Shane Styles <shane@shanestyles.com>; kevin.kaardal@sd23.bc.ca; norah.bowman@sd23.bc.ca; Wayne.Broughton@sd23.bc.ca; Lee-Ann.Tiede@sd23.bc.ca; amy.geistlinger@sd23.bc.ca; moyra.baxter@sd23.bc.ca; julia.fraser@sd23.bc.ca; chantelle.desrosiers@sd23.bc.ca Cc: Chris Oakes <Chris.Oakes@sd23.bc.ca>; Marie-Josee Bedard <marie-josee.bedard@sd23.bc.ca>; Rick Taylor <rick.taylor@sd23.bc.ca>; mona.essler@sd23.bc.ca; rgibson@castanet.net; news@castanet.net Subject: Question Follow-up: SD23 February 23 Board of Education Public Meeting
Good morning,
I am a fellow Kelowna parent who was kindly looped into this conversation by Shane as I, too, am affected by your response to his questions. My daughter is in grade 7 and we are in SD23’s catchment area; however, last year when she was ostracized by her peers for not being vaccinated against COVID-19 we elected to pull her from the system and homeschool. We hope one day, when this virus is no longer politicized and used to divide and alienate, that she will be able to return to in-person learning.
I have added Castanet onto the email distribution list, as I note that yesterday it reported that SD23 will, once again, be handing out rapid tests to school-aged children, with “elementary and middle schools . . . distributing the rapid tests directly to parents and secondary schools . . . resuming the distribution of the tests with students”. Castanet also reports that, due to toxicity issues, “the tests should be ‘kept out of reach of children’”. Can we take a step back and analyze this decision? Am I the only one who finds this situation absurd?
Even Dr. Henry, Canada’s penultimate COVID-19 lockdown bungler (second only to Dr. Tam in erroneous doomsday predictions), recently stated that British Columbia will “soon” cease reporting COVID-19 “cases”, as Canada finally acknowledges that a pandemic in its third year of circulation is, by definition, endemic. What, exactly, is the purpose of testing a child for this disease? Sick children should be kept home regardless of their diagnosis, and healthy, asymptomatic children should not be tested – especially not five times, every 28 days.
Pursuant to the Public Health Agency of Canada’s own data, the infection and case fatality rates of COVID-19 are lower than influenza for people under 60 years of age.
No previously healthy child in Canada has died of COVID-19, notwithstanding Dr. Hinshaw’s attempt in Alberta to blame COVID-19 for the tragic death of a 14 year-old with stage 4 brain cancer, and Dr. Henry’s similar attempt to attribute COVID-19 to the death of a two year-old who was already receiving “specialized care at BC Children’s Hospital”.
SD23 already forces all school children to wear masks while inside school buildings, notwithstanding that the majority of scientists, even those associated with the WHO, CDC and Johns Hopkins, now agree that masking healthy people has no significant impact on viral transmission, but has terrible long-term effects on the cognitive and linguistic development of children, as well as being detrimental to their mental health.
Most children over 5 years of age within SD23’s catchment area have received at least two COVID-19 “vaccines”, with the over-12’s also eligible for a third “booster”.
As you know, last week school children in SD23 were given these rapid tests directly, even though the manufacturer explicitly directs that they be “kept out of reach of children”. It is clear that school administrators and teachers should not be tasked with distributing toxic medical tests to schoolchildren; the irony being that most schools won’t even provide a child with a Tylenol for a headache due to the legal implications of such action.
Last year, I brought it to my daughter’s school’s attention that the hand sanitizer it had mandated that all children use multiple times per day was carcinogenic. A week later, the school changed its brand. This week, I would like to bring it to your attention that the toxicity of hand sanitizer is nowhere near as lethal as that of the COVID-19 rapid tests. Here is the Safety Data Sheet for one of the common COVID-19 rapid test devices: https://hulptroepen.nu/app/uploads/2021/02/Safety-Data-Sheet-Panbio-COVID-19-Ag_v4.pdf. The sheet notes that the test contains sodium azide, classified as a “dangerous component”. Per the CDC, inhalation or ingestion of sodium azide is toxic to one’s body, as it prevents one’s cells from using oxygen – is it safe to assume that sticking it up one’s nose is classified as either inhalation or ingestion? The organs most at risk from exposure to this poison are the heart and brain: https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/sodiumazide/basics/facts.asp. Of course, sodium azide is especially dangerous because it is odorless as a solid, and may not even be noticeable as a gas such that a person would recognize and remove herself from danger. Sodium azide is also toxic to pets and aquatic life, and can poison one’s water source when disposed of incorrectly. The internet advises that the impact of hundreds of thousands of these tests (classified as “medical waste”) being disposed of improperly in landfills is “something to question”: https://www.thecompliancecenter.com/ca/disposing-of-covid-19-rapid-antigen-tests/.
Forgive me for my directness, but it appears that SD23 has completely lost the plot. The district is trading a known, quantifiable and negligible risk to children (contracting COVID-19, notwithstanding that most children have been vaccinated and/or previously exposed to this virus), for a health risk that is potentially lethal, as well as being an environmental nightmare between the single-use plastics these tests contain, as well as the possibility of landfill and water system poisoning. I would request that you re-perform a risk/benefit analysis on the decision to provide children with rapid test kits. If you plan to continue with distribution, I’d also recommend that you discuss your position with counsel. As a US-trained lawyer, I am obviously not familiar with the nuances of Canadian law and cannot provide you with legal advice. However, I assume that when an administrator in Canada is aware that his or her actions will result in a potential death, proceeding with this course of conduct constitutes gross negligence/willful misconduct which exposes one personally to a civil claim, and to a judgment of punitive damages.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.