Shasta County’s government has run amok. It’s time for the state to step in | Opinion
After firing their last county health officer over a year ago and offering the job to multiple people, Shasta County has finally placed someone in the position: a local family doctor who has little experience in public health and who helped spread disinformation about the coronavirus and COVID vaccines.
The Shasta County Board of Supervisors voted last Tuesday, 3-2, to hire Dr. James Mu at an annual salary of more than $222,000. The position has been vacant since the supervisors voted to terminate their previous health officer, Karen Ramstrom, who was fired without cause more than a year ago.
“I don’t want to leave my job and I don’t want to be muzzled,” Ramstrom wrote in an op-ed just days before her firing. “I object to being terminated.”
Since then, they have offered the job to four different people — they have even had to lower the job qualifications in June to any medical school graduate eligible for a medical license.
Irresponsible government
Mu, a family physician based in Redding, is best known in the area as one of 12 doctors who signed a 10-point open letter last year that was heavy on alt-right COVID talking points and short on well, you know, actual science.
That letter declared that a “one-size-fits-all approach” is not effective in preventing the spread of COVID, that vaccines should not be mandated and that COVID “vaccines should be encouraged for those who are at higher risk who do not have naturally acquired immunity.”
“When they say ‘anti-vax,’ I don’t know, what does that mean? Do you know what that means?” Mu told the Record Searchlight last week. “I just don’t like people putting labels on other people. I support vaccinations, but I don’t support a vaccine that’s not effective or causes potential harm to someone, especially when (mandated.) Would you like me to prescribe something to you that doesn’t work for you? What kind of doctor would I be?”
Shasta healthcare specialists from leading hospitals and clinics in the region have taken issue with Mu’s medical opinions. In an open letter of their own, officials at Dignity Health/Mercy Medical Center, Shasta Regional Medical Center, Shasta Community Health Center and Hill Country Health and Wellness Center, among others, urged the public to take caution when lending credence to the 12 doctors’ anti-vaccine viewpoints.
“Though respected, (these 12 doctors) do not represent the vast majority of over 400 physicians practicing in Shasta County,” the letter said. “They do not represent medical or health care organizations, clinics or hospitals.”
The warnings of medical professionals were ignored, and now one of those dozen signatories is the highest public health officer in the county.
Mu will be responsible for such tasks as monitoring and addressing factors affecting public health and preventing the spread of contagious diseases, according to the Record Searchlight. He also has the power to issue quarantine orders to ensure the enforcement of public health orders and regulations.
The people of Shasta County, more than 180,000 Californians, deserve adequate public health services and a reliable, responsible government. If the Shasta County Board of Supervisors can’t provide that — and it’s become increasingly clear they can’t — then it’s time for someone with a bigger bat to step up.
Conspiracy theorists in Shasta
All this is happening just three weeks after Shasta County Supervisors voted to appoint Jon Knight to the Shasta Mosquito and Vector Control District board. Knight is a right-wing conspiracy theorist who was reportedly at the Jan 6. attack onthe U.S. Capitol buildings, and believes “weaponized bugs” are being used to mass-vaccinate the public.
“I know a lot about this stuff. I know a lot about some of these Bill Gates programs. This is not a conspiracy, this is a fact. There’s Japanese scientists who have created flying syringes that will mass-vaccinate populations,” Knight told the Shasta supervisors in his remarks to the board at his confirmation vote. “We live in an interesting sci-fi time. With my understanding of what’s going on with mosquitoes and my knowledge of pesticides, I think I could do a pretty darn good job.”
It’s also becoming clear that Shasta County’s extremists have a problem with women who dissent: Ramstrom, the county’s prior health officer, was subjected to a slew of verbal and physical threats to her safety during the pandemic. Shasta County Registrar of Voters/County Clerk Cathy Darling Allen and Supervisor Mary Rickert have experienced similar threats.
Doni Chamberlain, a former reporter with the Redding Record Searchlight newspaper who now runs her own news site, A News Cafe, has been harassed and run out of public meetings.
All this is happening just 162 miles from Sacramento, in the state of California. It’s time that officials do something.
Rogue electeds
There is precedent for a statewide response to rogue elected officials. In January of this year, Shasta Supervisors voted 3-2 to cancel a contract with Dominion Voting Systems Inc., but Assembly Bill 969 was passed with immediate effect by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature on Oct. 4, banning hand-counting for municipalities with more than 1,000 registered voters. Shasta County Board of Supervisors Chair Patrick Jones has said he plans to sue the state over the legislation.
Sacramento legislators can — and should — step in again. Giving the job to anyone eligible for a medical license is a ridiculously low bar for a county’s public health officer, and if they can’t attract a viable candidate to the area because of threats, then that’s something local government needs to address and cease, not encourage. Secretary of State Shirley Weber and California Attorney General Rob Bonta must do everything in their considerable powers to ensure fair elections in Shasta County next year. Lives are dependent on it.
This story was originally published October 24, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
